Communication Strategies and Personal Branding in Webcasting. The cases of four early-movers on YouTube: Casey Neistat, Grace Helbig, Chase Jarvis, and Gary Vaynerchuk

Sammanfattning: Both everyday people and professionals like the four case studies presented in this thesis are now more than ever before capable of bypassing the intermediaries and reach large audiences by broadcasting their content online – often free of charge – with YouTube being the most widely democratised information medium in the popular social media landscape. Being an YouTuber or even a webcaster is an interactive process between creators and niche audiences based on the creation of a strong personal brand, a community of peers, collaborative models, the use of a persuasive discourse, and a narrative around authenticity. This thesis explores patterns and success factors in these communication strategy, briefly introduces the ways in which this dynamic is becoming the new normal with renowned brands and media outlets playing catch-up with some webcasters. The research has shown similar results being obtained by marketing professionals and creators with a background in fine arts, however whether any of these paths represents an advantage when it comes to construct a personal brand for an audience of peers and capitalising on it is yet to be seen as more experiments are made in the field.