Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." This is great advice for those who are struggling with the question of how to establish a personal and professional brand… and in today's world; that is just about everyone. Related:What's A Personal Brand And Why Do You Need One? In fact, in today's landscape filled with social media of just about every description, branding is no longer optional. Whether you are looking to get yourself hired for your first job out of school or you are looking to establish a new company, you need to be mindful of the importance of branding. As Dan Pallotta wrote in a post for the Harvard Business Review in 2011, “Brand is everything, and everything is brand." Consider some of the brands that you already know. You are surely familiar with company brands like Google and Amazon, for example. There are also people that we know and with whom we associate a particular brand or idea. Consider the following names: Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, Beyonce, Tyler Swift, and Miley Cyrus. For better or worse, these names bring to mind immediate thoughts and impressions because most of us in the United States, at least, recognize these names and associate certain significant impressions with them. That is “branding." So, you may be asking, what are some of the objectives that brands need to meet in order to be successful? There has been a lot of discussion around this topic in recent years, and there are a lot of varying opinions. In my opinion, however, when you are establishing a brand, you need at least the following five things: