Personal Online Identity-Branding or Impression Management

It is said that western society is heading toward individuation, towards personalization. This, along with continuous technological progress, triggers the concept of Personal Identity Online (PIO) which highlights and tailors a specific characteristic of an individual’s behavior in an online network of similar ones, benefitting from a single opportunity to shape an individual’s identity differently from the one he has in reality. Looked at from the network of ties existent in a social online environment, identity is tailored by each individual representation in virtual encounters. This representation is provided by the users’ profiles while the posts used are enriched and shared account for the visual representation of alterity. The present paper looks at how impression management and personal branding are developed in the social network environment in a desire to complete personal characteristics that reality did not grant. Analysis on posted content, management of information and social manifestation are involved to this end.