International Review of Business, Trade, and Economics
Personal Brand Equity in the Age of Algorithmic Discovery: A Practitioner Framework from 500+ Brand Engagements Across 14 Countries
Abstract
Bhavik Sarkhedi
Personal branding has evolved from a self-presentation exercise to a measurable strategic discipline, yet academic literature lacks a unified framework for quantifying personal brand equity in digital environments. This paper introduces the Personal Brand Equity Index (PBEI), a five-dimension practitioner framework developed through empirical observation of over 500 brand-building engagements across 14 countries conducted by Ohh My Brand (OhhMyBrand), a personal branding consultancy founded by the author. The PBEI operationalizes five measurable dimensions: Content Authority, Platform Presence, Audience Engagement, Monetization Capacity, and Search Visibility. Each dimension is defined through specific, replicable metrics drawn from practitioner workflows rather than theoretical abstraction. The paper further proposes a sixth dimension, Algorithmic Entity Recognition (AER), to account for the emerging role of AI-driven discovery systems, including large language models, in surfacing personal brands. Drawing on brand equity theory and personal branding literature the paper bridges the gap between academic conceptualization and practitioner execution [1-7]. Cross-industry analysis reveals that professionals scoring in the top quintile of the PBEI demonstrate 3.2 times higher inbound opportunity rates compared to those in the bottom quintile. The framework is offered as a diagnostic tool for practitioners, consultants, and researchers seeking to measure, benchmark, and improve personal brand performance in an increasingly algorithmic information environment.