Business writing
MARKETING LEADERS AND SOCIAL MEDIA: BLENDING PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES
Debika Sihi and Kara Lawson
Social media is increasingly used as a branding and engagement tool by individuals and organiza- tions. With blurring boundaries between personal and professional social media use, the objective of this research is to examine marketing leaders’ use of social media accounts which connect their personal and professional identities. Using feedback from Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and secondary social media data, the authors investigate the motivation, benefits, and challenges in maintaining an account which is both personal and professional in nature. In addition, content published through these accounts is analyzed to better understand the nature of the information disseminated through these channels.
In recent years, social media has grown in scope and in use. Social media is “a group of Internet-based applica- tions that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and allow the creation and exchange of user generated content” (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). It includes platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and is utilized by both indivi- duals and organizations. Social media use by American adults has increased from 7 percent in 2005 to 65 per- cent in 2015 (Perrin 2015). Organizations are also using social media as a platform for marketing and connecting with consumers. In a 2015 survey of 3,700 marketers, 66 percent of the respondents planned on increasing their use of social networks including Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, and 92 percent said social media was impor- tant to their business (Stelzner 2015). The growth of social media for personal and business use suggests an overlap of the two domains is plausible. For example, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of an organization may set up a Twitter account to provide her insights on organizational and industry topics as well as personal interests. If the account lists her role as CMO, then this channel provides a forum which blends her personal and professional perspectives.
Tuten and Solomon (2015) categorize social media into four zones: social community, social commerce,
social entertainment, and social publishing. Social community platforms focus on acquiring and main- taining relationships. One of the most widely used social community platforms is Facebook. Social enter- tainment includes social games which may be video games, reality games, or even entertainment networks. Farmville is an example of a popular social game con- necting many different users. Social commerce utilizes social media to enhance online shopping for consu- mers. Examples include interactive online help features and user reviews. Finally, social publishing allows both individuals and organizations to post and share con- tent. Twitter is a microblog (a blog which limits the length of the publishable content) that fits in the social publishing domain. This project adds to the current research on social publishing.
Prior work has examined the motives and drivers of individuals’ (e.g., Karahanna, Xu, and Zhang 2015) and organizations’ (e.g., Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins, and Wiertz 2013) participation in social channels. This research connects personal and organizational use of social media by examining when marketing leaders pub- lish content through individual social media accounts as representatives of their organizations (e.g., Jon Iwata is the current Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM and maintains a Twitter account which includes this position in the account pro- file). An employee has the unique role of being an exten- sion of the organizational brand while concurrently maintaining his or her personal identity. Insights are gained from twelve marketing leaders (executive level positions such as CMO or Marketing Director) to under- stand the motivations, benefits, and challenges in using a
Debika Sihi, (Ph.D., The University of Texas, Austin), Assistant Professor of Business, Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX, sihid@southwestern.edu.
Kara Lawson, (B.A., Southwestern University), Researcher, Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX, lawsonk@alumni. southwestern.edu.
Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, vol. 26, nos. 1–2 (Winter–Spring 2018), pp. 38–54. Copyright � Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1069–6679 (print) / ISSN 1944–7175 (online) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10696679.2017.1389240
social media account linking personal and professional identities. These social media accounts are described in this work as a “blended” accounts since they encompass both identities.
In addition to analyzing motivations for social media use, researchers have examined the content disseminated by individuals (e.g., Wang, Burke, and Kraut 2013) and organizations (e.g., Ashley and Tuten 2015) through social media. The second objective of this research is to analyze the content published by marketing leaders who maintain a blended personal and professional social media account. The Twitter posts for the fifty most influ- ential CMOs by Social Influence for 2014 were down- loaded for a four month period. These Tweets were analyzed by two independent raters to better understand the nature and purpose of the content published by brand leaders who leverage social media in a way that highlights them as individuals and as extensions of their organizational brands. The Tweets were also examined to determine the nature of the content which generated the most follower engagement.
By systematically examining the content shared and providing insights on the benefits and challenges of maintaining a blended social media account, this pro- ject offers useful information for marketing leaders. Specific guidance is offered about the type of content most commonly shared by marketing leaders in a given industry and by an organization’s ownership structure (public versus privately owned). Insights related to fol- lower engagement also provide direction on the type of content most likely to be re-shared.
The following sections provide an overview of research related to individual and organizational use of social media and identify the scope of this project within that work. Specific research questions are posed, and a detailed dis- cussion of the methods, data sample, and analysis used to answer the research questions are provided. Next, the theoretical and managerial implications of the project are described. The article concludes with a discussion of the limitations of this work and areas for future research.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Motivation for Use of Social Media
The prevalence of social media use by both individuals and organizations has created opportunities to blend boundaries between the two spaces, where individuals
can act as online brand representatives of organiza- tions. Public press articles urging employees to be responsible custodians of corporate reputation and brand identity abound (e.g., Hawley 2014). Dutta (2010) specifically addresses the ability for organiza- tional leaders to use social media as a tool to garner consumer support and interest about their organiza- tions. He cites Tom Dickinson, founder and CEO of Blendtec, as a seminal example of a company leader who leveraged social media, specifically his YouTube videos titled Will It Blend, to generate enthusiasm about his brand.
A quick search on Twitter reveals that many market- ing leaders, specifically CMOs and SVPs (senior vice presidents) of marketing have social media profiles which reflect their organization affiliations. For exam- ple, as referenced earlier, Jon Iwata is currently Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM and has a professional Twitter account linked to this position. This is a separate account from the IBM Twitter account which is positioned from an organiza- tional perspective rather than an individual perspec- tive. Thus, while the IBM account may address more general company news, Twitter followers are likely to expect more tailored content in Iwata’s posts. This may include more marketing-specific content related to IBM. However, Iwata may also choose to share personal achievements and recognitions since the account is his rather than IBM’s alone. In fact, the published content may not always be company (IBM) related. Given his role as a marketing leader for an organization, Iwata’s Twitter account can be used to share information about industry innovations or best practices. He may even share personal content and interests.
Individuals are motivated to publish content on social media due to both intrinsic and image-related utility (Toubia and Stephen 2013). Intrinsic utility is satisfaction derived simply by publishing the content, while image-related utility is related to positive percep- tions of others who view the content. These utilities are not mutually exclusive, and researchers find that image-related utility becomes a stronger motivation when an individual has gained more social media fol- lowers. Intrinsic utility from publishing content may be derived from psychological ownership of a social media account.
Psychological ownership is the sense of possession that an individual feels toward either a tangible or intangible object because the object has a close
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connection to the individual’s sense of self (Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks 2001). There are four underlying motivational forces which drive an individual’s psycho- logical ownership: (1) effectance, (2) self-identity, (3) place, and (4) stimulation (Jussila, Tarkiainen, Sarstedt, and Hair 2015). First, effectance is the desire for con- trol, and ownership of an object can enhance feelings of control (Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks 2003). Social media accounts provide a forum in which a user has control within the virtual domain, and he or she may experience a sense of ownership in this manner (e.g., Hulland, Thompson, and Smith 2015; Lee and Chen 2011). An individual social media account, compared to an organizational or brand account, is likely to enhance this sense of control because the individual likely has full discretion over the content published through the account.
Psychological ownership is also driven by self-iden- tity or an individual’s perception of an object as part of the extended self in which his or her characteristics are reflected (Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks 2003). The need for self-identity can be broken down further into the need to know the self, the need for expressing self- identity, and the need for maintaining the continuity of self-identity. Through a survey of over 200 respon- dents, Karahanna, Xu, and Zhang (2015) demonstrate that these three components comprise the need for self-identity, and that the need for self-identity is one of the drivers of psychological ownership motivation. Further, they find that social media provides an avenue to fulfill this motivation.
The third aspect of psychological ownership, place, refers to the need to have a personal space or territory and is characterized as a basic human need (e.g., Weil 1952). While social media is not a physical space, it does give users a place they can personalize with their own thoughts, ideas, and experiences.
Finally, social media offers an outlet for stimulation as it provides a target or outlet for what Pierce and Jussila (2011) describe as arousal requirements. It allows a user to engage and be stimulated through interactions and activities on a social media platform. In sum, these factors suggest psychological ownership as a strong driver of individual social media usage. However, a social media profile which reflects a marketing leader's organization is both personal and professional in nat- ure, suggesting that psychological ownership may be one but not the only driver for using such an account. Given the professional aspect of such accounts, the
literature on social media use for organizational brand building offers additional motivations for utilizing social media.
Since the mid-2000s, organization and brand use of social media has continued to grow. Twitter launched in 2006, and in 2007, Facebook started allowing business pages on their platform proliferating the use of social media for marketing. Brands utilized blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts to disseminate information and connect with consumers. Mangold and Faulds (2009) describe the shift from a context in which orga- nizations simply pushed out marketing content to an environment of dynamic exchange not only between organizations and consumers, but also between different consumers creating networks of consumers and brands (Gensler et al. 2013). Further, Spiller, Tuten, and Carpenter (2011) highlight the important role of social media in direct integrated marketing communications (IMC) since it can be leveraged for effective customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives. If market- ing leaders perceive themselves as extensions of their brand or organization, motivations such as brand build- ing and CRM are likely to be drivers of social media use. To gain a deeper understanding of these motivations, we pose two exploratory research questions:
R1: What are motivations for marketing leaders to utilize a social media account which is both personal and professional in nature?
R2: What are benefits and challenges for market- ing leaders to utilize a social media account which is both personal and professional in nature?
Content Disseminated through Social Media
The second objective of this research is to examine the content published by marketing leaders on social media. The research to date has largely dichotomized the content posted by individuals and organizations. Individuals typically use personal social media accounts to share content about families, friends, and commentary related to sports and news (Wang, Burke, and Kraut 2013). Commonly shared posts include pic- tures, opinions, status updates, links to articles, and recommendations for restaurants, movies, and books (Go-Gulf 2014). Social media accounts of organizations tend to be managed more strategically.
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Cho and Huh’s (2010) analysis of corporate blogs of Fortune 500 companies and Interbrand’s Top 100 brands reveal that the content on organizational blogs emphasize the company, its related industries, and its products and brands. Ashley and Tuten (2015) find that while brands primarily utilize functional message appeals in their published posts, a portfolio of different appeals is still present in the content. The researchers contend that it is unclear whether such a diversified messaging approach is effective. Social media also offers opportunities to post unique content such as advergames. These online games feature entertainment content while simultaneously serving as an advertise- ment (Cauberghe and DePelsmacker 2010). Advergames are an effective means to enhance brand attitude and brand advocacy for the brand sponsoring the game (Tuten and Ashley 2013).
We posit that a marketing leader using a blended social media account is likely to share both personal and organizational related content since it connects the leader’s personal and professional life. We expect a mix of posts about the marketer’s personal interests as well as organization and industry-related content. To further explore the nature of this content, we pose the following research questions.
R3: To what extent do marketing leaders share professional information versus purely perso- nal information on social media accounts which are both personal and professional in nature?
R4: To what extent do marketing leaders share information about organization achieve- ments (organization promotions) compared to personal professional achievements (self- promotions) on social media accounts which are both personal and professional in nature?
R5: To what extent do marketing leaders share information about innovations compared to professional guidance on social media accounts which are both personal and profes- sional in nature?
Finally, prior work (e.g., Erickson 2010; Parsons 2013) indicates that both individuals and organizations utilize social media as a medium for interactive exchange. Individuals interact online using individual blogs, social media accounts, and communities that
can span geographic boundaries (Efimova and De Moor 2005; Erickson 2010). Corporate blogs are used as strategic communications tools which include inter- active elements such as comments features (Cho and Huh 2010). However, often organizational policies and platform features hinder two-way communication between the organization and users, suggesting oppor- tunities for greater engagement still exist. The real-time nature of social media offers organizations more poten- tial for interaction. An examination of the Facebook pages of seventy top global brands indicated that the main objective of using the pages was primarily build- ing and maintaining relationships rather than simply providing information (Parsons 2013).
It is plausible that for both individual and organiza- tion social media accounts, the nature of the content published impacts users’ engagement with that content (e.g., comments, shares). Therefore, to better under- stand the types of content that generate engagement for a blended social media account, the following research question is posed.
R6: What is the most re-shared content posted by marketing leaders on social media accounts which are both personal and professional in nature?
The next section describes the methods and data samples used to answer the research questions.
METHOD
Analytical Methods
First, insights were gained from twelve marketing leaders to understand the motivations for using social media accounts which are both personal and professional in nature (R1) and to learn the benefits and challenges asso- ciated with managing the accounts (R2). Then Twitter posts (Tweets) for the fifty most influential CMOs by Social Influence for 2014 were downloaded for a four month period and analyzed to determine the nature of the content (R3–R5) published through these accounts and the engagement related to that content (R6).
Insights from Marketing Leaders
Eleven CMOs and one President (largely involved in the organization’s marketing strategy and practices)
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provided insights on the motivation for using social media accounts which were both personal and profes- sional in nature. They also offered feedback on the benefits and challenges of maintaining this type of account. These CMOs were selected from three sources: Social Media Marketing Magazine’s “Top CMOs on Twitter” list from 2014 and 2017 and PeerIndex’s (a social media analytics firm) “Most Influential CMOs on Twitter” released in 2014. The marketing leaders included in these lists represent a variety of industries including: technology, manufacturing, retail, higher education, business services (e.g., law, financial ser- vices, advertising and media consulting), restaurant and food services, sports, and specialized fields like architecture. The twelve marketing leaders in the data sample cover a large cross-section of these industries. In addition, they actively use and maintain a social media account linking their personal and professional lives. Their Twitter accounts list their personal interests as well as their position and organization of employment.
The sample of participants includes: (1) the CMO of an alternative energy company, (2) the CMO of national restaurant chain, (3) the CMO of a financial services company, (4) the CMO of a multinational conglomerate providing building equipment, (5) the CMO of a com- pany assisting senior living residences, (6) the CMO of a law firm, (7) the President (heavily involved in market- ing and this individual’s title had just been revised from CMO to reflect other duties) of a start-up technology firm, (8) the CMO of an organization providing archi- tecture and civil engineering services, (9) the CMO of a higher education institution, (10) the CMO of a national sports league, (11) the CMO of a manufacturing firm, and (12) the CMO of a consumer goods retailer. The average number of years in the CMO position was 3.51 years, and each participant had been in their role for a minimum of one year. One of the CMOs had recently changed positions but stated that he responded to the questions related to the position he had just occupied.
The marketing leaders were contacted via email by one of the authors explaining the objective of this pro- ject. They were assured of confidentiality of their responses. In addition, to motivate participation, a small amount was donated to a charity supported by the leader if he/she participated. All of the leaders opted to provide feedback by email (1) so they could provide more detailed responses and (2) so they answer the research questions posed by the authors when they had adequate time available, given their busy schedules.
Each participant was asked about his/her motivation for utilizing a social media account which connected his/her personal and professional lives. Then they were asked to describe the benefits and challenges in the maintenance and use of this account. The questions were open-ended so the participants could provide as much detail as possible.
Motivations for Use and Benefits
Several themes emerged related to the motivations for using a social media account which blended per- sonal and professional identities. The leaders believed this allowed them to provide an authentic voice to followers and a way to connect with their customers, future customers, partners, and other industry leaders in a deeper way. A number of the leaders commented that their personal and professional identities were often connected so it just made sense to include elements of both their personal and professional lives on their social media accounts. They also viewed social media as an effective outlet through which to share a little bit more about their own lives and their personalities.
A key benefit in using this type of account is the opportunity to build professional networks and gain brand recognition. Often other industry leaders followed the accounts and would share the posts that they deemed to be valuable industry guidance. Several of the leaders commented that having their professional affiliation attached to the account enhanced the credibility of their posts and the information that they shared. They viewed the accounts as an effective channel through which they could share expertise and knowledge and engage in thought leadership. In addition, the account allowed the marketing leaders to develop a forum through which market insights could be gained.
Challenges
Despite the benefits, managing blended social media accounts also presents challenges. First, all the market- ing leaders maintained that they had to be cautious not to post things that may be at odds with the position of the organization with which they are affiliated. Many commented they avoided topics which may be particu- larly polarizing such as politics or religion. In addition, it is difficult to strike the correct balance between
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posting personal and professional content. Posting too many posts about vacations, families, sports, or other personal matters may bore the followers who are inter- ested in learning more industry or company-specific news. However, inundating followers with company and industry information alone may cause the account to lose its personal and authentic feel.
The leaders also addressed the time it took to keep the account relevant by posting new content and leveraging new tools available on the social media platform. They argued if you were going to maintain such an account, you had to put in the time to make sure that you were actively posting fresh content. Some even consulted the assistance of social media consultants to enhance their efforts. These accounts also created an open forum where disgruntled customers may choose to publicly air grie- vances. Finally, a few of the leaders commented that they had to be mindful of not revealing too much infor- mation, especially related to their organization, because often competitors also followed their accounts to gather competitive intelligence. However, all the CMOs agreed that the benefits largely outweighed the challenges to maintaining the social media accounts. Key quotes from each of the participants are included in Table 1.
Overall, it is apparent that marketing leaders find social media accounts connecting their personal and pro- fessional identities to be a useful way to connect with their customers and industry peers. It offers them a place to extend their personal self-identity into their profes- sional lives, consistent with the literature on psychologi- cal ownership motivation (Karahanna, Xu, and Zhang 2015). In addition, it is useful as a brand building tool for both the CMO and his/her affiliated organization, aligning with the literatures on image-related utility of social media use (Toubia and Stephen 2013) and organi- zational use of social media (e.g., Spiller, Tuten, and Carpenter 2011). Effectively leveraging these accounts requires being thoughtful about the content posted so that it is authentic while not offensive. The next part of this project is aimed at uncovering the nature of the content posted by marketing leaders. For this portion of the project, Twitter data (Tweets) were collected for a sample of CMOs and analyzed.
Twitter Data Sample
The analysis of content required a sample of marketers who maintain a social media account connecting their personal and professional identities and actively
publish content. Therefore, the Tweets for Forbes list of the fifty most influential CMOs by Social Influence for 2014 were downloaded for a four month period from October 1, 2015–January 31, 2016. This time per- iod was selected to cover times right before, during, and after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays when users (both publishers and followers) may have more time to engage on social media (Twitter 2016). Five of the accounts were no longer active at the time of this project, one of the accounts was not in English, and one of the accounts provided no affiliation to the indi- vidual’s organization of employment. Thus, forty-three of the accounts were used for the analysis. The compo- sition of individuals in the sample includes: 49 percent employed in the technology sector, 28 percent employed with marketing or advertising firms, 9 per- cent in financial services, and 14 percent in other sec- tors including retail, consumer packaged goods (CPG), and food and beverage.
Development of Coding Dictionary
A coding dictionary was developed in line with the exploratory nature of this work to better understand the nature of the content disseminated by marketing leaders through social media. The authors examined the Tweets of fifteen other marketing leaders, not included in the data sample, to identify categories for the content shared. This data is described as pre-sample data. Insights from the interviews with marketing lea- ders, from the first phase of this project, were also utilized when generating the categories. Since social media is considered to be an effective tool for personal branding, the first classification was whether a Tweet was personal or professional in nature. Any content which was not at all connected to the individual’s profession, organization, industry, or overall business environment was considered personal.
Then the professional Tweets were further classified into different categories. Examination of the Tweets of the pre-sample of marketing leaders indicated that most of professional posts are promotional or informa- tional in nature. Promotional posts include content which highlights achievements of the leader’s organi- zation or accolades specifically related to the marketing leader’s own achievements. Prior work (Smith, Fischer, and Yongjian 2012) has established that in user gener- ated brand related content, brand centrality is highest on Twitter compared to other social media. The authors
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Table 1 Key insights from Marketing Leaders
Marketing Leaders Insights
CMO of an alternative energy company “I Tweet a lot about things I love/care about (soccer and sports) that have nothing to do with my career. The upshot of the “whole person” is that people see your passion and authenticity across a variety of issues. I think it’s difficult to split any persona in two and have a “work person” and a “non-work person.” In addition to just being authentic about being a whole person, I think it would be practically challenging to maintain two different accounts/
personas.” CMO of national restaurant chain “I believe that my affiliation - especially as CMO - with the brand is a part of who I am. There is a
much better story than a sales push towards getting people into my restaurant.” “I have to be careful not to share too much—have found that competitor brands joined looking
for competitive insights. . .” CMO of a financial services company “I am not my company and my company is not me— but when linked together I bring the
power of amazing talent to others! I am not a financial expert but I work with them and
share their talents.” CMO of a multinational conglomerate
providing building equipment
“Part of my responsibility as CMO is to represent the company as a thought leader and active participant in topics that are relevant to us. Things like innovation, sustainability,
urbanization, energy, customer focus, and functional excellence in strategy, sales and
marketing . . . As demographics change, it is increasingly important to use digital channels
like Twitter and others to connect with people.” CMO of a company assisting senior living
residences
“I use it to build my personal brand.”
CMO of a law firm “I came to realize that much of what I believe about my professional life intersects . . . indeed, cannot be separated from values and ideas that drive me at a personal level.”
“The content I share on social media must be filtered through a professional lens. In practical terms, this means that I must consider the impact of anything I distribute on the brand I
represent.” President of a start-up technology firm “I view it as a way of connecting with our customers and the media/analysts and influencers
who cover our industry.” “I think of myself as a composite of roles: executive, mentor, activist for women in tech,
mother, spouse, involved citizen, pop culture junkie, etc. And using social media taps into
each of those areas of interest.” CMO of an architecture and civil engineering
services firm
“As the CMO, my Twitter account communicates my role as a leader within the company, and enables me to help extend the reach of our brand. It benefits and builds both the company
brand and my personal brand.” CMO of an architecture and civil engineering
services firm
“A challenge is the fluid nature of social requires continually monitoring and responsiveness.”
CMO of a higher education institution “I feel like, if done well, I can utilize my social media accounts—primarily Twitter—to demonstrate thought leadership and help build and promote the brand of my employer.”
“Because I happen to believe marketing in higher education is in its infancy and because I see myself as someone who has been a leader in the field, I hope to help raise the profile of
higher education marketers and help us “get a seat at the [virtual] table.” CMO of a national sports league “My use of Twitter helps me get the work out about the league, our clubs, players, key
developments, and storylines. In my own small way, I want to contribute to and shape the
narrative around our league and this sport.” “The drawbacks or challenges include the echo-chamber effect. There’s a risk of talking to
ourselves and or over-reacting when the conversation circle is small.” CMO of a manufacturing firm “The primary reason I use social media is to ensure I stay connected and up-to-date on the way
consumers are communicating and getting information. The reason I indicate my connection
to the company is to both allow me to share information about our company and brand with
a broader audience than it might otherwise reach, and to provide a more personal face for
the company to our consumers.” “Sometimes individuals with an axe to grind about the company or how they perceive we
operate have a very easy way to connect with me and air their grievances publicly. This risk
though, in my opinion, is vastly outweighed by the benefits.” CMO of a consumer goods retailer “When I use Twitter and LinkedIn to share content about what my brand is doing, it inspires
those connected to me through those channels— and that inspiration hopefully transcends “brand boundaries” —in other words that strategic approach to leveraging these networks is “transferrable” to any business I might be a part of. Story-telling at its core can be fantastic if you do it right and target the right audience.”
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hypothesize this is due to the 140 character limit at the time of the analysis which requires the publisher to focus on the main aspects of the post. The pre-sample Tweets reflected this type of brand centrality, making it relatively simply to code whether a post is a promotion about the organization or related to the individual’s accomplishments. Thus, the second classification was the categorization of promotional posts as organization focused or self-promotion.
Feedback from the marketing leaders indicated that they also utilized their social media accounts to share information, since their followers included other mem- bers of their industry sector. The analysis of the pre- sample Tweets was consistent with this feedback. The informative tweets consisted of guidance or new inno- vations. Information about best practices or strategic efforts of companies such as “Good read on how @Converse lets #GenZ co-create their brand” are exam- ples of guidance. Content which addresses new or revo- lutionary aspects of the industry are innovations. An example of this is “New Milestones in Artificial
Intelligence #Research.” Therefore, the third classifica- tion was the categorization of informative posts as gui- dance or innovations.
All of the Tweets of the fifteen marketers in the pre- sample fit well into these categories. Two raters used the categories to code the Tweets in the pre-sample. There were 6,468 Tweets in total, and the raters achieved 88 percent inter-rater reliability. Coding dis- crepancies were discussed and resolved by the authors, and the coding classification was finalized. The classifi- cations were then used in the analysis of the Tweets of the forty-three CMOs from the period between October 1, 2015–January 31, 2016. The categories and the cod- ing decision rules are included in Table 2.
Analysis of Tweets and Results
The Tweets were analyzed by two separate raters. The raters made sure they understood the coding dictionary and went through several examples of the specified categories together. Inter-rater reliability for the raters
Table 2 Coding Schema
Category Coding Decision Rules
Purely Personal Content Any content that has nothing to do with the individual’s: -profession
-organization
-industry
-business environment
Example:
Hospital storyline is least interesting storyline and worst use of Maggie Smith
#DowntonAbbey #DowntonPBS
Professional Content- Promotional in nature; Either self-
promotion or organization promotion
Any content that highlights an achievement, event, or some sort of announcement
about the individual (self-promotion or the organization (organization promotion)
Example self-promotion:
For #FollowFriday 2016 Top 100 Most-Followed #CMO s on Twitter
Example of organization promotion:
Great to see our pre-@IBM Insight podcast in the top 5 #analytics highlights,
@AyleeNielsen!
Professional Content- Informative in Nature; Either
guidance or innovations
Any content which provides some sort of information about the industry in which the
individual operates, other industries, or the overall business climate.
If the content is general information, best practices, or recommendations related to
business strategy it was coded as guidance. Any information about new or novel
developments in the industry were coded as innovations.
Example of guidance:
Good read on how @Converse lets #GenZ co-create their brand
Example of innovations:
New Milestones in Artificial Intelligence #Research
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was 92 percent. This fits within the prescribed stan- dards for inter-rater reliability which should be above 0.8 (Gwet 2014). Coding discrepancies were resolved by one of the authors.
A total of 22,433 Tweets were analyzed across the four month period. The average number of Tweets per CMO, in this time period, was 522 Tweets. The lowest number of Tweets was 10 and the highest was 3,209. In response to R3, the overall analysis indicated that 29.60 percent of the Tweets were purely personal in nature, and 70.40 percent were professional in context. Further distilling the professional Tweets down into categories (R4 and R5) uncovered that 16.05 percent of all the Tweets were self-promotions, 19.54 percent were pro- motion of the CMO’s organization, 27.17 percent were guidance, and 7.64 percent were related to innovations.
The Tweets were also examined after removing any posts that were retweets. A retweet is a post that is reposted or re-shared by an individual rather than his/ her originally generated content. Precisely 14.89 per- cent (3,340) of the total Tweets were retweets. The patterns found in the total Tweets without retweets, henceforth called “original Tweets,” remained consis- tent with the patterns found in the total Tweets. 30.23 percent of the original Tweets were purely personal in
nature, and 69.77 percent were professional in context. Exactly 16.06 percent of the original Tweets were self- promotions, 17.19 percent were promotions of the CMO’s organization, 28.95 percent were guidance, and 7.57 percent were related to innovations. The breakout of total Tweets and original Tweets by cate- gory is shown in Figure 1
Analysis by Industry Sector
Analyzing the Tweets by the industry sector in which the CMO was employed uncovered some clear differ- ences across sectors. In the marketing and advertising sector, Tweets containing guidance (33.20 percent), purely personal content (28.26 percent), and self-pro- motions (22.97 percent) were disseminated in fairly proportionate amounts. Content related to organiza- tion promotions (8.05 percent) and innovations (7.52 percent) comprised much less of the total posts in this sector. The advertising and marketing domain is one characterized by relationship building (e.g., Morgan and Hunt 1999) and market orientation (e.g., Jaworski and Kohli 1993). Thus, it is plausible that CMOs in the marketing and advertising space particularly use their accounts to build stronger and more authentic
Figure 1 Categorized—Total Tweets and Original Tweets
Original Tweets
Personal: 30.23% Self-Promotion: 16.06% Organization Promotion: 17.19% Guidance: 28.95% Innovations: 7.57%
Total Tweets
Personal: 29.60% Self-Promotion: 16.05% Organization Promotion: 19.54% Guidance: 27.17% Innovations: 7.64%
46 Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
relationships with customers and clients by sharing best practices and information about themselves. These patterns remained consistent when examining only the original Tweets of CMOs in the marketing and advertising sector: 33.76 percent of the posts con- tained guidance, 27.42 percent were purely personal content, 23.29 percent were self-promotions, 7.97 per- cent were organization promotions, and 7.56 percent were related to innovations.
In the technology sector, the highest proportion of Tweets were organization promotions (31.73 percent), followed by guidance (22.46 percent), and purely per- sonal content (22.31 percent). Self-promotions (13.48 percent) and innovations (10.02 percent), combined, made up just a little over 23 percent of the Tweets. However, the technology sector had the highest per- centage of Tweets about innovations across the differ- ent sectors. This is likely due to the dynamism and fast- paced technological changes in this particular industry. The CMOs are able to use their account as a platform to share their knowledge and expertise related to chan- ging and novel industry developments. The same pat- terns were found when examining only the original Tweets of CMOs in the technology sector: 27.55 per- cent of the posts were organization promotions, 25.26 percent contained guidance, 25.22 percent were purely personal content, 11.19 percent were self-promotions, and 10.78 percent were related to innovations.
In the financial services sector, over half (53.04 per- cent) of the Tweets were purely personal in content. This was followed by organization promotions (31.97 percent), while guidance (8.17 percent), self-promo- tions (3.79 percent), and innovations (3.03 percent), cumulatively, comprised of only 14.99 percent of the total Tweets in the sector. Following the corporate scandals in the early 2000s (e.g., Enron and Arthur Andersen), which resulted in the passage of sweeping reforms in the financial services industry, and the financial crisis of 2008, the financial services sector has come under a great deal of public scrutiny (Mintz 2016). It is possible that CMOs in these firms utilize their social media accounts to humanize the industry through sharing personal stories. It offers them an opportunity to generate affinity for an industry which has been strongly maligned and which has lost public trust in recent decades. These patterns remained con- sistent when examining only the original tweets of CMOs in the financial services sector: 56.38 percent of the posts were purely personal content, 30.82
percent were organizational promotions, 6.85 percent was guidance, 3.51 percent were self-promotions, and 2.44 percent were related to innovations.
Due to the small number of industry representatives in our sample, Tweets from CMOs in the retail, CPG, and food and beverage sector were examined together. 44.63 percent of the Tweets in this sector were related to gui- dance, followed by organization promotions (22.37 per- cent), and purely personal content (20.02 percent). Content related to innovations (8.10 percent) and self- promotions (4.88 percent) made up less than 13 percent of all the Tweets in this sector. Retail, CPG, and food and beverage companies are in sectors where consumer tastes change frequently and require new product and service offerings (Maxwell and Sviokla 2016). Thus, CMOs appear to be using their platforms as a way to share their knowledge about the industry and promote their organizations in a fiercely competitive market space. In addition, they had the second highest percentage of posts related to innovations across sectors, which may be a necessity in a space where consumer tastes change so frequently. These patterns remained largely consistent when examining only the original Tweets: 53.45 percent of the posts contained guidance, 19.75 percent were orga- nization promotions, 14.87 percent were purely personal content, 6.43 percent were related to innovations, and 5.50 percent were self-promotions. The patterns reveal that many of the Tweets about personal content, innova- tions, and organization promotions were retweets. The breakout of total Tweets and original Tweets by category and industry is captured in Figure 2.
Analysis by Firm Ownership
The Tweets were also separated and analyzed by whether the CMO was employed by a publicly-traded (on a national stock exchange) or a privately-owned firm. 33 percent of the sample was employed by a publicly-traded firm, and 67 percent was employed at a private organization. For CMOs from public firms, over half (51.81 percent) the posts were organization promotions followed purely personal posts (24.27 per- cent). Guidance (11.45 percent), self-promotions (6.61 percent), and content about innovations (5.86 percent) comprised the remaining 24 percent of the Tweets. For CMOs of private organizations, organization promo- tions were only 15.42 percent of their total Tweets. Instead, 30.29 percent of the Tweets were personal posts, followed by guidance (29.18 percent), self-
Winter–Spring 2018 47
promotions (17.25 percent), and innovations (7.86 per- cent). Given the impacts of media (e.g., Tetlock 2007) and social media (e.g., Bollen, Mao, and Zeng 2011; Zhang, Fuehres, and Gloor 2011) on the stock market, it is not surprising that CMOs of publicly-traded firms share a disproportionate amount of content related to organization promotions. The CMOs are able to use
their social media accounts as conduits of good news in a volatile and increasingly reactive stock market.
Even after the removal of the retweets, the content shared most often by CMOs of publicly-traded firms included organization promotions (30.65 percent of original Tweets). However, this percentage dropped more than 20 percent since the majority (63.80
Figure 2 Categorized—Industry
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percent) of public firm retweets were organization pro- motions. The remainder of the original Tweets of CMOs of publicly-traded firms included: 20.08 percent purely personal posts, 17.96 percent posts containing guidance, 25.93 percent posts containing self-promo- tions, and 5.38 percent posts about innovation, indi- cating guidance and self-promotions were the categories of most original content.
The original Tweets of the CMOs of privately traded firms closely mirrored the percentages found in the total Tweets. Organizational promotions were 14.53 percent of the original Tweets, 32.25 percent were per- sonal posts, 31.12 percent included guidance, 14.09 percent were self-promotions, and 8.01 percent were related to innovations. The breakout of total Tweets and original Tweets by category and firm ownership structure (public or private) is displayed in Figure 3.
Follower Engagement
The Twitter posts were also examined to gauge the engagement of users who followed the CMOs’ blended social media accounts. Followers can “like” a post which indicates agreement or positive acknowledgment of the content. In addition, Twitter had a “Favorites” button until November 2015. This functioned as positive endorsement, simi- lar to a like, but was replaced with only likes to simplify user experience. Followers can also retweet the post which allows it to be shared with a wider audience. Retweets are representative of stronger engagement because users are actively sharing the content with their own networks, thereby increasing its online reach. Therefore, the original Tweets of each CMO were analyzed to determine what content was being retweeted.
In response to R6, organization promotions were the most retweeted content by followers of CMOs across all sectors (35 percent of follower retweets were organization promotions). Organization promotions were also the most retweeted content in the technology sector (68.79 percent of follower retweets were organization promo- tions) and the other (retail, CPG, and food and beverage) category (36.55 percent of follower retweets were organi- zation promotions).
Retweets by followers of CMOs in the financial sec- tor were highest for content about industry innova- tions (59.11 percent of follower retweets were posts about industry innovations) and organization
promotions (35.24 percent of follower retweets were organization promotions). Further analysis indicated that one particular CMO’s posts about innovations generated a disproportionately high number of retweets. When follower retweets were analyzed with- out that CMO in the sample, 50.87 percent of the follower retweets in the financial sector were comprised of organizational promotions. In the marketing and advertising sector, industry guidance was the most highly retweeted content (34.86 percent of follower retweets were posts about industry guidance).
Organization promotions were the most retweeted contented by the followers of publicly-traded firms. Precisely 62.41 percent of follower retweets were organi- zation promotions. For private firms, industry guidance was most often retweeted by followers; 31.66 percent of follower retweets were posts about industry guidance.
Since organization promotions and industry gui- dance generated the most retweets by followers across industry and ownership categories, these posts were analyzed in more detail. The post with the highest follower retweet for each CMO was identified. From that sample of the most highly retweeted content, organization promotions were further examined, and three distinct categories of posts emerged. The organi- zation promotions with the highest retweets were CMO posts about (1) organizational events (e.g., HP Day or an awards ceremony), (2) something interesting or distinct about organizational leadership unrelated to the focal CMO (e.g., a quote from the CEO or a com- pany executive mentioned by Harvard Business School), and (3) civic engagement initiatives in which the organization was engaged (e.g., fundraising projects or company community impact days). Thus, the orga- nization promotions most re-shared by followers were not about the organization’s products or services but rather focused on its unique celebrations, its leaders, and its commitment to initiatives beyond its main business.
The most highly retweeted posts about industry guidance were also examined. Most of these included step-by-step guides for building a brand, tips for com- pany leadership, and navigating changing market (industry specific) conditions. The target audience for these posts is primarily other CMOs or C-level executives. These posts allow a marketing leader to serve as a thought leader on industry practices and offer a way to build intra- and inter-industry connections.
Winter–Spring 2018 49
Purely Personal Content
Finally, although purely personal content did not gen- erate the highest retweets, they comprise about 30 per- cent of the total Tweets analyzed. In addition, the CMO interviews indicated that inclusion of purely per- sonal content was a very effective way to connect with followers and humanize an organization or brand.
Thus, personal content posted in the CMOs’ original Tweets was examined in greater detail. The main cate- gories that emerged in the personal content included (1) posts about current events in the news, popular culture, and sports and (2) personal posts related to families and friends. CMOs openly shared affiliation and support for their collegiate alma maters in sports and other activities. They addressed topics in popular
Figure 3 Categorized—Public versus Private firms
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culture including television shows, lists of top restau- rants (especially if it included spots in their locale), and holiday themed posts (e.g., Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas).
Stories about family and friends were also posted, but this type of content was shared much less often (only about 4 percent of personal posts) compared to posts about current events. In addition, by examining total Tweets, it was evident the CMOs often retweeted (not their original content) very high profile news stor- ies about global events such as reports on the November 2015 attacks in Paris, France. In general, news stories with political party affiliation were largely avoided although some CMOs did indirectly share con- tent about political issues by posting links to clips from television programs like The Daily Show or Saturday Night Live.
Overall, the results indicate that despite industry and organizational variances, social media accounts which link a marketing leader’s personal and professional life overwhelmingly include facets of both identities. These findings provide some direction to marketing leaders about the type of content to post. This is addressed in more detail in the section that follows.
IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
Implications for Research
Prior research has focused separately on individual and organizational use of social media. This project builds on that research by examining the use of social media in a context in which there are both personal and professional motivations. We offer insights about the benefits and challenges in maintaining a blended social media account. The content posted through these accounts is also analyzed to identify patterns across industries and organization ownership structures (pub- lic versus privately-owned).
First, the feedback from the twelve marketing leaders highlighted their motivation to utilize social media accounts which link their personal and professional identities as a way to build their personal brand equity. The personal aspect of the account allowed for a more authentic dialogue between the individual and his/her followers rather than a professional account alone. Many of the marketing leaders found it difficult to separate the two identities and enjoyed using the
account as a method through which to share more about themselves. The examination of the Tweets of CMOs showed that almost 30 percent of the Tweets analyzed were personal in nature. Taken together, these results are consistent with prior literature on psy- chological ownership (Karahanna, Xu, and Zhang 2015) as a driver of social media usage. Marketing lea- ders fully control blended (personal and professional) social media accounts, and these accounts provide a place for them to express their identity and engage with other industry leaders and followers. The results also extend prior work by demonstrating that psycho- logical ownership motivation manifests itself through use of social media that is not purely personal in nature suggesting that despite context, social media offers an effective outlet for an individual’s identity expression.
Second, prior work has established that increasing engagement and dialogue with current and potential customers through social media is a primary objective of many organizations (Cho and Huh 2010). The find- ings from this project suggest marketing leaders can use blended (both personal and professional) social media accounts to act as extensions of their organizations. These accounts allow marketing leaders to simulta- neously build their own brand and that of their orga- nization. They are able to share expertise and content which humanizes the brand and offers another touch- point to engage with customers. Followers may feel more comfortable or more inclined to engage with an individual’s social media account rather than that of the organization (e.g., Jon Iwata’s account versus the IBM Twitter account). Even though the individual is a representative of the organization, the “human ele- ment” of the account may offer a more personal and informal feel.
Third, researchers have found that organizations share company-related content (Cho and Huh 2010) and functional message appeals (Ashley and Tuten 2015) through their organizational/company social media sites. This project extends that work by examin- ing the content disseminated directly by marketing leaders of an organization rather than the content posted on a company social media site. The findings indicate that the nature of the content shared varies by industry and organization ownership structure. In addi- tion, different types of content can be utilized to achieve different outcomes. Personal content allows marketing leaders to create deeper connections with followers while organization promotions and industry
Winter–Spring 2018 51
guidance are most often re-shared, allowing a market- ing leader’s online presence to expand.
Managerial Implications
The findings offer several implications for marketing leaders. Although the data sample focused on CMOs, the implications can be extended to marketing execu- tives and other senior marketers in an organization. First, there are industry trends for the type of content posted. In the marketing and advertising sector, a roughly equal distribution of personal content, self- promotions (professional), and industry guidance are shared. This shows a strong affinity to build individual brand equity which is often necessary in a marketing or advertising agency setting. In the financial services sec- tor, more than half the content shared was personal in nature. In industries of rapid change and development, such as the technology or CPG space, sharing content related to industry innovations was more prevalent. The CMOs of publicly-traded firms emphasized promo- tional content related to their organization, perhaps as proactive or reactive measures to investors and finan- cial analysts that constantly monitor news about public organizations. Marketers may want to consider such norms when planning and designing their own con- tent and posts. This may be especially relevant for marketing leaders who are just starting to utilize social media as a communications channel or CMOs who frequently move between companies and industries (Vranica 2017). The same type of content may not be effective across industries.
Second, publishing personal content allowed CMOs to connect with their followers and provided an avenue for self-expression. The feedback provided by the mar- keting leaders imply that personal posts were viewed as authentic, original, and relatable. While individuals often share content about families and friends via per- sonal social media accounts, examination of the Tweets revealed that the majority of the personal content pub- lished by CMOs focused, instead, on popular topics in the news. Posts highlighted their perspectives on tele- vision, the arts, and national and collegiate level sports, often at the marketer’s alma mater. Many of the posts also highlighted the marketing leader’s local commu- nity including posts about restaurants, events, and places to visit. These posts allow marketing leaders to connect with their followers beyond a company or
industry context. This widens the base of potential customers because followers initially sharing a love of the same television show or sports team can also be exposed to organization related posts.
Third, although personal content allows a way for marketing leaders to form deeper relationships with followers, the content most often retweeted in multiple (technology, financial services, and other [retail, CPG, food and beverage]) industry sectors and for publicly traded firms were posts promoting the leader’s organi- zation. Our examination of the Tweets showed that such posts were not focused on business operations or the organization’s products and services. Rather, they included posts about leadership, community engage- ment, and events. Marketing leaders should consider sharing these types of posts as they garner high engage- ment across industries and types of firms. Because these posts are not about the organization’s core business, it provides followers new perspectives about the organi- zation. In addition, it is possible that organization- focused posts garner greater attention coming from an individual account (rather than an organization’s social media account) because they stand out among other content which is not entirely organization-focused.
Followers of CMOs in the marketing and advertising sector and privately held organizations most often retweeted industry guidance. This content included information about best practices and guides for busi- ness challenges like raising capital or contending with industry disruptions. In both these domains, posts which were aimed at other industry professionals gar- nered the most engagement. Marketing leaders in mar- keting and advertising agencies or working in privately held firms may consider posting this type of guidance to establish themselves as thought leaders and to gen- erate greater awareness about their organization.
An important takeaway for marketing leaders is to consider the goals for publishing a post. Personal con- tent can be utilized to make deeper connections with followers while publishing posts in accordance with industry trends can help establish or maintain the cred- ibility of the account. Publishing content which gar- ners engagement allows a marketing leader to expand his/her reach on social media and build the account following. A marketing leader who spans organization classifications with different social publishing trends (e.g., a marketing leader at a privately held technology firm) should consider his/her objectives for
52 Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice
maintaining the account and for building follower growth when publishing content.
Finally, fourth, although organizational leaders may be eager to share new and exciting news about upcom- ing company ventures, they should be cautious that competitors may be following their social media accounts as well. While a teaser about new products or new initiatives may not be enough for most fol- lowers to accurately predict how or what a company is developing, it may be enough for a competitor to use the knowledge in their own marketing and strategic efforts.
Overall, marketing leaders can leverage social media as an effective communications channel through which to connect with followers and also build perso- nal and organizational brands.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
The objective of this project was to better understand marketing leaders’ motivations to utilize social media accounts which integrate their personal and profes- sional identities. The benefits and challenges related to the maintenance of these blended accounts were explored, and the nature and engagement of the con- tent disseminated was also examined. This project focused on the content producer. Future studies aimed at uncovering the motivation for users to follow the social media accounts of marketing leaders or other brand representatives merits investigation. This can offer deeper insights about how to align the published content with social media users’ needs and wants.
Over 75 percent of the individuals in the sample were employed in the technology sector or in market- ing and advertising firms. As social media use by corpo- rate leadership continues to become more prevalent, examining leaders in a greater variety of industry sec- tors would be valuable. In addition, the platform exam- ined was Twitter (based in the United States). Examining how marketing leaders utilize other plat- forms in other countries would be interesting to under- stand cross-platform and cross-cultural differences in practice.
Finally, this project focused on CMOs and marketing executives. It likely that employees in other roles are also engaged with followers and utilize social media accounts that link their personal and professional lives. Research aimed at understanding posts published by employees at all levels and in different roles (e.g.,
brand managers) warrants examination. It is possible the nature of the content and the engagement with followers varies by position. In addition, understanding the roles of all individuals who serve as brand exten- sions for an organization is worthy of more research.
In sum, this project provides insights on the motiva- tions, benefits, and challenges in using a social media account which connects a marketing leader’s personal and professional identities. The published content is also examined to better understand the nature of the posts including patterns across industries and types of organizations as well as the related follower engage- ment. Hopefully, this work will serve as an impetus for more research on social media which serves both individual and organization functions.
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