Author Archives: christian zich

Personal branding for the visual arts: the importance of the artistic work.

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Personal Branding für die bildenden Künste

In the last issue of the Atelier magazine, the 2nd part of my article series on personal branding for the visual arts was published. After it became clear in my empirical study that the artistic work is the most important reason for fans and followers to follow an artist and also to remain loyal to him, it was obvious to start exactly with this topic. In this article, I will mainly deal with 3 different building blocks of the artistic work: its uniqueness, its need for explanation and the emotions associated with it. The interesting point here is not the perspective of the artist, but that of the target audience. Nothing more will be revealed; it’s fun to read for yourself.

When I sat down to write the article, I thought that the whole thing would be done in half a day. Far from it. I sat at my desk for two days in total until the manuscript was finished. The challenge, and thus the time-eater, was to leave my own personal opinions about various artists out of the equation and to look at their artistic work from a neutral, scientific perspective. After all, I didn’t want to step on the toes of the readers of this article with a running start and thus annoy them in the long term. According to the motto: Bob Ross also has his justification. To accomplish this, I pored over all my art books to find an example, explain it, and then discard the whole thing. As frustrating as these loops were during the writing process, afterwards I found myself seeing some artworks in a completely different light now. So it was time well spent after all. In issue 241 (June/July 2022) I will continue with the article ranges. Just before that, I finished the next article. I am already looking forward to its publication.

Stay tuned, more stuff is on the way.

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Personal Branding for the Visual Arts.

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Personal Branding für die bildenden Künste

Short, concise and to the point: I am extremely pleased that I was able to convince Atelier Verlag to publish an article about Personal Branding. I had expected a single, short article and was therefore very pleasantly surprised when Mr. Fritzsche made the offer to write a multi-part series of articles. Since I enjoy writing, I didn’t have to think twice about whether I wanted to do it or not. The first part of the series of articles appeared in issue 1/2022, the topic: do you really need personal branding in the visual arts? The second article has already appeared in the April/May issue and deals with the core of a Personal Brand, the artistic work itself.

Stay tuned.

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4 questions that will make your personal branding project go down the drain.

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E-Mail-Ratgeber und Personal-Branding-Canvas gehen in die falsche Richtung.

After we have briefly clarified the essential principle of personal branding in the last article, many are probably already in the starting blocks, scratching their hooves and finally want to get started. Yay, there’s the Internet. If you surf for a while, you’ll come across a few email guides or personal branding canvases relatively quickly. Of course, these offerings are free, but in my opinion they lead you in the wrong direction from the start.

Before I solve the puzzle, briefly on the questions in the canvas or email guides that I personally find problematic:

  1. How do others perceive you? You are supposed to answer this question with friends and acquaintances. Hand on heart, who do you ask? But not the one with whom you don’t get along or with whom you fell out years ago. And this brings us to the first trap. A key insight from social psychology is that people prefer to surround themselves with people who have similar attitudes, views and values to their own. The potential for discovering serious opportunities for improvement and deficits is marginal. In this case, a comparison with product development is allowed, because you get much more interesting input from non-customers than from long-term, loyal customers. I sometimes see the latter as very generous in overlooking certain bugs, while this is not the case with the former. This was one of the most interesting learning effects during my time at Siemens.
  2. In combination with the question just discussed, you then find the hint that you don’t have to take every opinion to heart. What a wonderful invitation to pick out only what fits into one’s own world view. Or, to put it very harshly: a guide to deceiving oneself.
  3. then it usually goes into a self-analysis of one’s strengths, weaknesses, reason whys, benefits, etc. If you have a canvas in front of you, then you can delightfully write something in each column. And when the blackness level of the sheet increases, you eventually put the pen aside and are quite proud of having accomplished a lot. Yuppidu, your own personal brand is almost in place. Let’s move on to the final spurt of self-analysis.
  4. What image do you have at the moment and what image would you like to have in the future? This question may make sense for artists who can position themselves autonomously. But if you are a self-employed person looking for customers or a future employee, your image must not only match your job profile, but also your customers. Just as the strengths, benefits, etc. must fit the customer’s requirements profile and not just exist in the customer’s own imagination.

Navel gazing as a personal branding tool? Does that work?

The catch in all of these questions is the navel-gazing itself. If you are completely honest with yourself, this approach can lead you in the right direction, but I have my doubts about that. Therefore, respect to anyone who can objectively assess themselves with these questions. Nevertheless, these approaches are very popular because they don’t hurt. You look at your personal branding canvas and decide: I’m great, and I have to change a little bit, too. But in doing so, you give away a great opportunity to seriously do something for your own competitiveness. To stay with my metaphor of the journey: DomRep-all-inclusive or couch surfing in Africa? Am I leaving my comfort zone or do I really want to get significantly (!) better?

Is there another way? Yes, of course, in marketing there are so many tools with which you can gradually – even without a consultant – approach a authentic, credible and competitive core of your own personal brand. And, which tools are these?

As always, you should stop just when it’s most exciting and that brings us to today’s cliffhanger. The next post is about reference points that you should definitely consider so that you’re running in the right direction right from the start.

Stay tuned, more stuff is on the way.

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Personal Branding, a journey?

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Personal branding is one of the topics that are becoming increasingly important and interesting in the age of information overload and endless opportunities for self-expression on social networks. This article is about the core of personal branding, the creation of uniqueness

E-Mail-Ratgeber und Personal-Branding-Canvas gehen in die falsche Richtung.

Why one-size-fits-all? Isn’t everyone unique?

During my two management positions at Siemens – a long time ago – I had to read quite a few applications. After the HR department had already sorted out those who didn’t fit the picture at all, the following picture emerged: all applicants had good grades, had completed their studies on the fast track. In addition, they were highly motivated, goal-oriented, team players and, of course, ideally suited for the position. All of them were convinced that they were unique. All of them were convinced that they were clearly different from the masses. The candidates also demonstrated this eloquently in the interviews. And yet, each offered something similar and thus they were all interchangeable.

And that brings us to the topic: how can you escape this interchangeability through personal branding? Through big mouths and great internet presences?

The easiest way with the least effort is to optimize one’s social media accounts and launch a one-pager with meaningful content. Doesn’t hurt and is done with a manageable effort. With this short-term oriented approach, you definitely reach your goal, and may be invited to an interview (customer/employer). At the latest then you have to “let your pants down” and this can – depending on the competence of the partner – go in the pants or also work. Then, however, the probationary period or the first project approaches and, at the latest during this period, the “Moments of Truth” are already on the mat in the morning and accompany the test person throughout the day. Nevertheless – as examples such as Thomas Middelhoff and Billy McFarland show – you can hold your own for quite a long time even as a “Potemkin village”. But at some point, the charade comes to an end. The only thing that remains is long-term orientation.

In the long term, genuine uniqueness based on clearly recognizable results is the more promising strategy.

What can this look like? In the case of a musician, this would be a distinctive musical style; in the case of a professional, the ability to deliver better results in less time; in the case of a manager, a superior leadership style that combines increased efficiency, employee motivation and superior performance. Easy to say, but how do you create such uniqueness? Acquire knowledge, build competencies, acquire/deepen skills and get a grip on your own hubris. Sounds like a lot of work, blood, sweat and tears? Well, that’s the catch.

But now the good news, the journey to your own competitiveness is fun. Each milestone is another step toward true competence and competitive uniqueness. And it’s amazing what you learn about yourself in the process and how you successively become more efficient, better and more focused. As a side effect, so to speak, you achieve your goals much more effortlessly and easily.

What are we waiting for? Let’s pack our bags and get going.

Stop. What are we packing in our suitcases? We’ll talk about that next time. Stay tuned.

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4 years with a Surface Book. 4 months with its successor, the MacBook.

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Finally, 4 months ago, the new MacBook was on my desk. To conclude my experience with the Surface Book, a small comparison of the two systems. It should be said in advance that there is no such thing as the perfect laptop. Perhaps the last 3 posts gave the impression that a MacBook is the measure of all things and has an almost sacrosanct status with me. Far from it, but it is clearly the better compromise compared to its Microsoft predecessor. Let’s jump in.

One of the last Intel-MacBook-Mohicans

I deliberately ordered another of probably the last MacBooks with Intel processors, because I obviously didn’t want to miss the benefits of the Windows world. Locked up in Parallels, Windows 10 – disconnected from the rest of the MacBook – is allowed to lead a merry existence on the computer. This crutch became necessary because my declared favorite program, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, doesn’t run on the Mac.

I also didn’t feel like porting all my Access databases to an OS X solution. The virtual machine worked great, but was a big resource hog. Until the week before last, in 2 consecutive lecture blocks (3 hours, mostly PowerPoint presentations), a 100% charged battery was completely drained.

After some analysis, I had identified the culprit and since then I have had enough battery life for a full day of lectures. Another solution that is good for even better battery life: I present my lectures outside the virtual machine using Keynote. Now I have almost the excellent battery runtime of the Surface.

Summary MacBook vs. Surface Book

The quality of the MacBook is undeniably excellent, and the dimensions and weight are much more portable compared to the clunky Surface Book.

So far there have been no unpleasant surprises, I’ll hold off updating to Monterey for a few more months. We’ll see how the device performs in the next few years. Probably my last work notebook. All in all the better compromise.

Personal Branding for musicians.

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Personal Branding für Musiker. Ein Artikel auf Delamar.

Already in August this year I wrote an article together with Thorsten Sprengel from delamar on the topic of self-marketing for musicians. Shortly after my vacation – end of September – the article was published. Since I already have my own opinion on the topic of Unique Selling Points of musicians, the actual topic was no problem thanks to my study (https://christianzich.com/category/personal-branding/).

A challenge, however, was the search for good examples. Mr. Sprengel gave me this task right at the beginning of our cooperation. O. k., I thought to myself, it won’t be easy; but I’ll do it. It shouldn’t be that difficult to find a few highlights in the vastness of the social networks. Far from it, I was really surprised how boring musicians are positioning and marketing themselves most of the time.

There’s particularly little to learn from the superstars. Their accounts are perfect, mostly without surprises, corners and edges and thus somehow stainless steel brushed, but boring. The superstars have so many followers because they were already famous in the pre-Instagram era. They are interesting not because of their content, but simply because they have a very high profile. Nevertheless, I found some examples. More about them on the following page:

Selbstvermarktung auf Instagram, Erfolgsgarant für Musiker? https://www.delamar.de/musikbusiness/selbstvermarktung-auf-instagram-61098/

Stay tuned, more stuff is on the way.

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Personal Branding for Artists – the entire study.

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Personal Branding, die Ergebnisse der Umfrage/Personal branding, the results of the survey

After publishing all the results of the Personal Branding Study for Artists last month, it’s time to summarize all the posts in one place, or comment on the links.

The 9 parts of the entire study:

  1. Personal branding survey, the results of the survey. Part 1.
  2. Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 2.
  3. Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 3
  4. Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 4.
  5. Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 5
  6. Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 6.
  7. Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 7.
  8. Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 8.
  9. Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 8.

Stay tuned, more stuff is on the way.

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anding…

Personal branding for DJs.

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Ein Artikel im DJ Magazin über Personal Branding für DJs; An article in the DJ Magazine about personal branding for DJs

Last week on Saturday came a very special gift from the professional association Discjockey e.V. (https://www.dj-magazin.de/) A few copies of the current DJ magazine, packed with interesting articles. Of course, I was especially pleased to see the publication of my article on personal branding for DJs.

Based on my study (Personal Branding for Artists – the entire study.), I worked out many tips and suggestions during the summer on how to market yourself better as a DJ. More will not be revealed, reading it yourself is fun.

Stay tuned, more stuff is on the way.

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