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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…

Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 4.

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What do you want to see more of? The fourth part of the survey results on personal branding for artists.

More Content please!

Let’s start with more good news for all artists, it seamlessly links up with last week’s survey results: fans and followers are not keen on prize games.

After the good news the bad news, only very few are really satisfied with what an artist offers to his fans and followers. Now – short and sweet – the remaining results.

A big surprise are number 1 and number 2 of the evaluation in combination with number 4. Here again everything revolves around the actual work of the artist. A wonderful opportunity to stand out from the masses of other artists by providing insight behind the scenes of an artist’s life in an target-audience-oriented and creative way.

Number 3 is no surprise, analogous to last week’s survey results.

Number 6 and number 7 are also interesting, why? Apparently, fans and followers certainly expect an artist to display a certain amount of serious thoughtfulness and thereby stand out from the crowd of his/her competitors.

In contrast, interaction with fans and followers is a rather insignificant aspect of an artist’s account.

More Content please!

English Translation of the questions (in the order in which they are listed in the diagram):

  1. more entertaining photos/videos of his/her activity (e.g. music videos, dance videos, etc.)
  2. more surprising and creative ideas
  3. more insights into his/her private life, hobbies, etc.
  4. more insights into his/her daily routine
  5. more stimulating and inspiring posts
  6. more posts that make the artist stand out from the mainstream
  7. more information about the artist’s future events
  8. more great, beautiful photos/videos of herself/himself
  9. more interaction of the artist with his/her followers
  10. everything is fine, I don’t want any more
  11. more prize games
  12. Other

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

Stay tuned

More about Personal Branding…

Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 3

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Why do people follow artists on Instagram? The third part of the survey results on personal branding for artists.

Why do people follow artists on Instagram? The third part of the survey results on personal branding for artists.

Let’s start with the good news: you don’t have to offer prize games to be interesting for fans and followers.

Most important reason: the work itself, i.e. the music, the artwork, etc. Conclusion: to be interesting, the work itself must be interesting to followers.

No surprise is the number 3, interest in the artist’s personal life. Number 4 isn’t a surprise as well. Instagram thrives on giving other people a glimpse into your life.

Number 5 is occupied by a positive outlook on life with a good dash of humor. This result is quite surprising, because you can overdo it with humor to such an extent that you make a clown out of yourself, and your seriousness as an artist suffers as a result. Therefore, one should think very carefully in what way one uses this stylistic device.

No surprise is the place number 6, but number 7 is. We personally thought that artists also have a role model function in a certain way, this seems to play a rather subordinate role.

Also a surprise were the places 8 and 9, because one would think that just surprising and creative ideas and standing out from the mainstream are really important for artists.

Was macht einen Künstler interessant auf Instagram?

English Translation of the questions:

  1. I am a fan of the artist (I am a fan of his/her music, books, exhibitions, etc.)
  2. I am interested in his/her personal life (How does he/she live? What hobbies does he/she have? How does he/she spend the day? etc.)
  3. She/he provides information about her/his future events/exhibitions/concerts/readings, etc.
  4. I would like to know more about her/his activities
  5. She/he is simply likeable, interesting, fascinating to me as a person
  6. She/he stands out from the mainstream, is something special in my opinion
  7. She/he has surprising and creative ideas
  8. She/he posts great, beautiful photos/videos of herself/himself
  9. She/he offers prize games
    14.She/he belongs to my circle of friends
  10. I follow her/him out of solidarity among artists
  11. I do something similar to the artist (play music myself, paint myself, DJ myself, …)
  12. She/he shares helpful information about her/his work or the creative process
  13. I like his/her interaction with his/her followers
  14. I get inspired by her/him

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

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More about Personal Branding…

Personal branding, the results of the survey. Part 2.

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The results of the survey on personal branding for artists again short and sweet. Today we’re looking at the following topics: How do artists compare to other accounts/sites/influencers? And the second exciting question right after that, which categories of artists do the participants follow?

An empirical study about the personal branding activities of artists on instagram

How do artists compare to other accounts/sites/influencers?

Welchen Accounts/Influencer*Innen/Seiten FOLGST DU? Which Categories of Accounts/influencers/pages do you follow?

The art and music category was chosen third most often by the participants. This result was really one of the big surprises in the whole study. The fact that the sports category landed relatively high was no surprise, nor was the poor showing of the science, management and business categories. The fact that fashion, cosmetics and beauty only landed in the midfield was also very interesting for us. And the gaming community seems to have completely different communication channels, Instagram is not one of the favorites. Let’s summarize briefly: Art and music is an interesting category for the participants. Combined with last week’s results (all age groups are on Instagram), a very positive result for artists.

Which artists do the participants follow?

Welchen Accounts/Influencer*Innen/Seiten FOLGST DU? Which Categories of Accounts/influencers/pages do you follow?

Let’s look at the next graph. Which categories of artists do participants follow? The excellent performance of musicians, bands and singers was also again one of the big surprises. Then comes a very big gap to place 2,3,4 and 5. These categories of artists are not so highly ranked in the favor of the participants, as the just mentioned category 1. Why this is so, we will possibly see in the next few weeks with further results. In any case, we can already briefly summarize at this point that the places 2, 3, 4 and 5 still have some potential to rise to the top places in the favor of Instagram users.

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

Stay tuned

More about Personal Branding…

Personal branding survey, the results of the survey. Part 1.

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An empirical study about the personal branding activities of artists

Let’s have a look at the results of the personal branding survey. We will make it short and crisp. Today we’re looking at the following questions: age distribution, use of Instagram and how many participants follow artists.

Do you use Instagram?

A quick look at the graph shows that a relatively large number of participants in the study do have an Instagram account. However, one has to be careful above a certain age level. There are only 36 participants older than 45, which is slightly more than 3% of the sample. We can sum up the 36 participants and get the following result: in the age category 46-100, about 38% do not have an Instagram account, while 62% do. Also an interesting result.

So what does this mean for an artist who wants to promote him/herself on Instagram? It’s an interesting channel that reaches a broad age spectrum. What surprised us was that the majority of the participants are now on Instagram.

Do you follow artists on instagram?

Let’s take a look at the next diagram. I have only selected those participants who stated that they follow various artists. Again a surprise, more than 50% follow at least one artist. Many more than we expected.

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

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More about Personal Branding…

Personal Branding for Artists – An Empirical Study, Part 1

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The Corona pandemic has hit artists particularly hard. No matter whether they are musicians, DJs, actors or singers, most have been driven into vocational isolation. As bad as the situation is, you can still do something for yourself and your own marketing. And that brings us to the heart of my study, Personal Branding for Artists.

An empirical study about the personal branding activities of artists

I can’t help any artist financially, but I can perhaps give one or the other artist a little push in the direction of self-marketing with my expertise. Maybe then the forced standstill will have a positive Phoenix-from-the-ashes effect.

What is this study about?

Together with my student assistant, Ms. Katharina Ebner, I started this project last year. It was clear to us that we were focusing on Instagram, because this social network is used by a great many people of completely different ages. We wanted to find out how artists perform compared to other influencers from completely different fields (for example, fitness, fashion, cosmetics, etc.). Another important point was to analyze the reasons why fans and followers follow their artists and to what extent there is room for optimization in the relationship with fans and followers. True to my motto: if you can’t directly create or improve something with a research finding, then it was for the trash can.

Is this study valid?

We had a total of 1047 valid returns. This is a pretty good number and so far my best result in any of my empirical studies. The study period started on Jan. 4, 2021 and ended on Feb. 1, 2021. Without giving much away in advance, some of the results were surprising to us, but more on that in the following weeks.

What happens next?

I promised to make the results of this study available for free, in a way as a small, non-monetary support for the artists. Today it starts, be curious!

Stay tuned

More about Personal Branding…