From classroom to Instagram: English language teachers brand identity construction and perception on Instagram

Despite the prevalence of personal branding among teachers, research indicates that they often grapple with the construction of their online identity and personal brands (Chao, 2022). Teachers often find it difficult to articulate, manage, and balance the various identities they aim to project online. This underscores the need for a thorough understanding of teachers' identity construction on social media platforms, as well as effective guidance for their online identity construction. However, despite its popularity and importance, the engagement of teachers on social media to brand themselves and gain visibility has received little attention (Carpenter et al., 2023) especially in applied linguistics and language teaching (Nejadghanbar et al., 2024). This study pursued two primary goals: to investigate the ways in which English language teachers construct their personal brands on Instagram and to understand how their audience interprets these identities. The study utilized narrative frames and in-depth semi-structured interviews with six English instructors from Iran and three of their respective followers (N = 18). The narrative frames aimed to uncover the processes and motivations behind the educators' brand identity construction. The interviews provided insight into the educators' personal experiences and goals related to their brand identities. An identical approach was used to collect data from followers, exploring how they view and ascribe identities to the teachers. Thematic analysis identified three principal brand identities that teachers strive to construct and are recognized for on social media: role model self, professional self, and influencer self. These identities were consistently observed in the feedback from followers as well. The outcomes of this research offer valuable insights for the professional development of language teachers, highlighting the interplay between social media and teachers’ professional identities.