Tag Archives: Instagram

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.

More about Personal Branding…

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.

More about Personal Branding…

Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 5

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What is the best photo? The fifth part of the survey results on personal branding for artists.

Personal Branding for Artists. An empirical study.


If you’re into Instagram, then it’s natural that you try to figure out which visual styles you can use to attract your fans and followers. That’s why we selected some photos from a real account (many thanks to Federica Rubartelli for sharing the photos).

The photos can be sorted into the following categories:

  • Category 1, the artist at work: number 1 (work unrelated to music), number 8 (the artist in the studio with a colleague), number 9 (the artist at home in the creative process), number 16 (the artist during a DJ session).
  • Category 2, snapshots of the artist: number 10 (a rather spontaneous, very positive photo), number 15 (a rather professional photo from a photo shoot)
  • Category 3, photos directly related to the artist’s work: number 6 (a reference to a podcast), number 13 (a reference to an event of the artist)
  • Category 4, a photo of the artist with acquaintances/friends.
How to choose the best photo on Instagram

Now to the results (bigger photos please see at the end of the article). In the questionnaire there were 2 different questions dealing with these photos. This week we’ll take a closer look at the results of the 1st question “which photo do you like the most?”. For those who have read the previous posts, there are few surprises. Number 16, number 9 and number 1 land on the 1st, 3rd and 4th place. It is directly recognizable in these 3 photos what the artist is doing or it tends to look like work. Herewith also again the consistent confirmation that the work is in the foreground.

Interesting, however, the placement of the image number 8 in penultimate place. This can be explained by the fact that it is not immediately apparent to every viewer that the artist is in a studio. This is most likely only recognizable to experts.

Also no surprise is the cut off of number 10 and number 15, whereby the natural-spontaneous character of the 1st photo was probably the decisive factor for it landing in 2nd place, while the other photo only landed in 5th place.

On the other hand, the placement of the podcast (number 6) and the announcement of the event (number 13) was interesting. Whereby I believe that fans of the artist react quite positively to these announcements.

On the other hand, the photo of the social event only landed on number 6, which was a surprise for me personally, because I would have thought that this would rather land on one of the front places.

How to choose the best photo on Instagram?

That’s it for today. There will be more next week.

Stay tuned

More about Personal Branding…