C-level executives can advance job prospects through personal branding on social media, study shows

Executives who regularly promote themselves on social media may have an edge when it comes to offering high-paying job opportunities that advance their careers.

In a recent study, Texas McCombs professor of information, risk and operations management Andrew Whinston found that savvy executive candidates such as CEOs and CIOs who modestly, but often, touting their knowledge, expertise and skills on Twitter were 32% more likely to attract better-paid jobs after job interviews.

The finding provides compelling evidence for executive job seekers weighing the risks and benefits of posting on a social media platform such as Twitter. On the one hand, poorly placed posts can backfire on candidates like hiring managers who scour the internet for information, finding details they don’t like. The public might also view executives as self-promoting or conceited if they post too much about themselves.

On the other hand, it is understood that this type of personal branding is well done to increase the credibility of candidates and set them apart from their fellow job seekers. But the researchers found that posting to Twitter also has more tangible long-term effects in the form of better job opportunities and higher overall earnings.

“People who actively promote themselves on Twitter will benefit,” said Whinston, who co-authored the paper with Yanzhen Chen of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Huaxia Rui of the University of Rochester. “They get money back for their time.”

Counting Tweets

Whinston and colleagues came to this conclusion after examining compensation data from 2010 to 2013 from CEOs, Chief Marketing Officers, Chief Information Officers and Chief Product and Innovation Officers employed by Standard & Poor’s 500 member companies, from 2010 to 2013. plus posts on executives’ personal Twitter accounts.

The researchers chose Twitter for its social broadcast feature, which allows users to cast their posts to a much wider audience than Facebook, which people mainly use for targeted communication with friends and family.

On Twitter, the researchers measured how many posts executives made and how large their audience was. They also counted the number of personal branding tweets by analyzing how closely the tweet content matched the company and an executive’s position.

Whinston and colleagues matched two executives seeking similar jobs: One of the executives was self-promoting on social media, while the other hadn’t. The researchers also took advantage of a series of Twitter upgrades in 2011 and 2012 that included expanded tweets and push notifications that made it easier for people to use the personal branding platform. They compared personal branding and job market performance before and after the upgrade to rule out an alternative explanation: that different personality traits caused some people to get better job opportunities.

Takeaways for future executives

Whinston and colleagues found that posting to Twitter did matter to these executives. C-level applicants who post more often on Twitter and promote their personal brands were more likely to be offered jobs at high salaries than executives who had not promoted their personal brands online.

“Self-promotion worked in this class of people,” Whinston says. “We found that the idea of ​​self-promotion is indeed a valid concept and that it is worth some time and effort to promote yourself on Twitter.”

The findings also have practical applications for lower-level employees. People who want to become executives, or executives who want to boost their careers, may progress faster if they take the time to post high-quality, relevant content that promotes their personal brands.

Future research could look at the impact of social media personal branding on other job markets to see how far-reaching the effect could be, Whinston says.

The research was published in MIS Quarter.