After more than a year of furnishing a study on the subject of personal marketing, the paper has been polished to perfection and accepted for publishing on 8th June 2018 in the scientific journal ‘Economic Thought and Practice’. It encourages high-quality submissions on a broad range of topics in the field of economics including theoretical, applied, interdisciplinary and methodological work.

The paper focuses on the rapidly changing digital technologies and their influence on the development of personal marketing and personal branding. Digital technologies have fundamentally changed various personal and professional communication systems, as well as the communication habits and attitudes of their users. Consequently, personal marketing has been strongly influenced by the development of information and communication technologies, especially internet and mobile availability. Personal websites, social networks, mobile applications, and various other tools allow individuals to create their personal digital identities and allow self-positioning. The current usage of internet-based tools for personal branding and related preferences and attitudes of Croatian internet users were the main sections of the conducted research. Data was collected through an online survey. The preliminary research analysis is provided, which shows respondents’ views on the impact of digital technologies on privacy and online presence. Collected data shows extensive internet use, especially on a daily basis, empowered by the omnipresence of mobile devices, smartphones, and even wearables. In addition, users rely heavily on various social networks and mobile applications mostly for limited communication groups (friends and family). However, respondents are in general not familiar with online personal marketing and most of them don’t have personal websites or other tools for personal branding.

The full research paper can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking the next link (English): Preliminary Study of Personal Marketing in The Digital Environment: Attributes and Perception of Internet Users in Croatia