Personal Branding Doesn’t Matter?

I’ve been watching @copyblogger tweeting about how unnecessary personal branding is. To build a good brand for yourself, all you need to do is be exceptional.

I would definitely agree that to maintain your brand you must do good work. That’s obvious. However, I would argue that there is more to it than that.

Branding is the art of setting up a platform for yourself. It consists of everything from how you communicate to the tools you use to communicate with. These are all necessities. You can’t do good work without them.

Sure, you might not need to worry too much about branding if you’re established and have the capacity to make your good work known, but if you’re just getting started, you can’t rely on the “build it and they will come” philosophy. You have to get out there and establish an image for yourself. And whether or not you want to call this personal branding is up to you.

Once you get to the point where you’re known is when you can let others build your brand for you.