Personal Branding and Social Selling Survey 2017

Watermelon Social conducted its second annual online survey in April 2017 with senior professionals across a wide range of industries to better understand their attitudes and usage of personal branding and social selling outreach. Respondent titles included: Owner/Partner/Principal, CMO, President, Managing Partner and EVP. The majority of respondents (74%) have 16+ years of experience in industries such as consulting, advertising, media, publishing, financial services, real estate and others.

The survey reveals high interest and engagement in personal branding with activation of those brands (social selling outreach) for business growth lagging. Respondents value personal branding as essential in reputation management, increasingly integrated with their corporate brand, an extension of their "professionality" and a powerful new business tool. They believe these people have the strongest personal brands: #1 Elon Musk, #2 Donald Trump, #3 Oprah Winfrey, #4 Bill Gates, #5 Warren Buffett, #6 Richard Branson, #7 Sheryl Sandberg, #8 Michelle Obama, #9 Steve Jobs, #10 Jamie Dimon.

We see a great opportunity for professionals to build and unlock the power of their personal brands via social media platforms and targeted emails to grow their businesses in a more personal and connected way.