Should You Self-Brand, or Establish a Company Brand?

When you run a business as an entrepreneur, it can be difficult to decide whether to run your social media accounts as yourself or as the company you feel you represent just as much. Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur, or don’t have a business, everyone has that project that they feel represents their passions and drives. They want to make sure that has a place online as well.

So this is something that everybody struggles with. I know I did. Was I going to be Gary Vaynerchuk social guy or wine marketing man? But look what happened there. That’s my answer. Look what happens when you evolve, and allow your online presence to evolve with you. A lot of people I know started out as marketing gurus but now sell something completely random, like carrot juice for example.

One of the things I like about your own name (like I do my social accounts) is that you can evolve with it. I used to do a show where I drank wine and spat it out into a bucket. And now I’m doing a question answer show about the world of entrepreneurship. I’ve made a seamless transition because the whole time, I’ve been Gary Vaynerchuk. That didn’t change. The brand stayed the same.

Many of us have a lot of different facets of our personality, and we want to be able to talk about all of them. That’s why I think going with your name as the brand is the right thing to do. It sticks with you. There’s consistency. You don’t have to rebrand. I didn’t have to change my name from wine guy to ask guy.

A word of caution though before you head from this page straight to Twitter to create your new profile: you have to put in the work. You have to earn creating a personal brand around yourself. You can’t just come out of nowhere and be a brand. Do. The. Work. I wrote about that here. Check it out. You won’t be sorry.