Tricky two-some: The interplay between radio personalities' personal online identities and online personal brands

Abstract

Radio stations encourage their presenters to utilise social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to create awareness of the station’s brand, promote their shows, interact with listeners, and build their professional brands. The question is: how does this affect their engagement with social media when they are not on air? This study explored the interplay of radio personalities’ personal online identity and online personal brand. A qualitative strategy was chosen to help navigate the investigatory efforts to explore the ways in which radio presenters exist online. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten radio presenters at a South African commercial radio station. A number of challenges were identified that radio presenters encounter when they attempt to manage their online personas. A lack of training in social media communication and a lack of knowledge about the basic principles of personal branding are some of the challenges. Recommendations are made to radio presenters as well as their employers to simplify this complex issue of managing the interplay between personal identity and personal branding in creating a branded identity (as opposed to a brand identity).