The culture of consumption of professional social media: a phenomenological study of online personal branding and womanhood in Australia

Through professional social media platforms, personal branding phenomena can be an excellent starting point from which employees can build their competitive advantage or jobseekers can obtain employment. Considering social media as an object of consumption and applying acculturation consumption theory, I performed a phenomenological study, by conducting interviews with 15 professional migrant Islamic women who live in Australia, in order to explore the social media engagement strategies they use. This study examines how online personal branding practices impact the formation of bringing in socio-cultural identity. Specifically, I explore the personal branding techniques of impression management, affirmation seeking, and building an aggregate extended-self. Further, personal branding practices of migrant professional women on LinkedIn are framed within the dual, and at times conflicting,contexts of both professional and sociocultural social media contexts. My theoretical framework outlined how the sociocultural context—stereotype threat, surveillance,and privacy—intersects with online personal branding practices to form social networks and identify the self, resulting in a uniquely, personally-branded self. Verity of cultural tensions impact on the processes of social media consumption and contribute to engagement situations. The consumption characteristics of LinkedIn for personal branding are shaped by migrant women’s balancing act, as they form a minority culture within Australia’s dominant culture.