Thoughts on Social Media as a Tool For Art Promotion: Part 2

These aren't hard rules. Mostly just thoughts and suggestions that may or may not be useful in building a following on social media. You'll have to experiment with them and make a judgement call on which aspects you're willing to devote most of your time. Also try to make up your own strategies based on your observations. You're the best judge of what works and doesn't work for your art.

My thoughts are a little messy, so I apologize for that.

• Post regularly - Some people unfollow simply because they don't see any activity for large amounts of time. Posting regularly and somewhat frequently (at least once a week) will give your blog predictability. People will know when to expect posts and they'll expect to see something new when visiting your page. Posting frequently increases chances that one of your posts might become viral and net more new visitors. In this case queues can be very helpful but not every site offers this tool.

• Network - You scratch my back and I scratch yours, but expect to rarely get reciprocation back. Showing appreciation to artists whose works you love through likes, reblogs, and comments can translate to some traffic to your site and it feels nice to do! There's always a chance you'll make a new friend as well if you speak up. But don't expect to build a network quickly. Relationships take a long time through consistent communication to establish trust. So don't get frustrated, be friendly, and keep at it. 
• That said, some artists do the follow and then unfollow when someone doesn't follow back thing. I don't think that's a good strategy. Your aim is to build a following of people who actually like your art. If you have a following that doesn't like your art and follows out of some obligation it may be as empty as having bought bot followers.

• Fanart - Probably the fastest and easiest way to people's heart. Making appealing fanart will attract people pretty easily if you make sure to tag and send to groups where fans know to look. I've found a lot of artists I love through fanart. But that doesn't mean you have to feel pressured draw whatever is popular, unless you enjoy it yourself. Draw things you like and you'll attract likeminded people eventually. Doing fanart consistently of a series you love will help you build a following over time. If you don't like doing fanart, then don't do fanart as it's not for everyone.
• Thinking of things in terms of fanart and original art, I think the main distinction to make is that one is art depicting licensed characters and the other is not. However if you make art of your friends character isn't that fanart? If you make art of the Sears Tower isn't that in some way fanart? What I'm trying to get at is that everything has a "fanbase." Some like furries, anime girls, animals, sci fi stuff etc. If you keep drawing what you like, if it's original art, you will eventually attract "fans" of that peculiar thing. It's not as immediately lucrative as licensed characters but it's something to keep in mind.

• Processes, Sketches, WIPS - Especially popular on sites like Instagram. People enjoy seeing the work that went into an artwork. Posting processes and tips too can help others and attract people to your page.

• Recognizable Name - This touches on building your "brand". Having one name on one site and a different name on another site won't make it easy for people to remember you and your art. Whether it be an alias or your real name try to remain consistent. 

• Make good art - Ultimately the above tips won't matter much if you don't make "good" work. However that's a subjective concept. What makes something good? Appealing? It's not an easy question to answer for anyone. You may notice some prolific artists aren't what you personally believe is good. But remember that they may satisfy someone else's standard of good. They may have great marketing skills. They may have just been in the game longer than you. It's not something to get discouraged about but rather think about it as a learning experience. Try to figure out why. You might not get to an answer. So what can you do? Working on improving your craft is one thing. Read and practice smartly to improve. People will recognize good work whether it appeals to them or not. Since it's hard to predict what appeals to people one year and the next year, work on what you like and cultivate it into something you can be proud of. Get your work in enough faces and you'll eventually find enough people who are interested in your work.
• It takes a while - It takes a long time to build a following anywhere unless you're an extremely talented artist from the get go. The key is to keep at it.

In the end, I think it's important not to beat yourself up over social media. People and interests can be fickle. 

If you have any tips then feel free to comment about it.

Thoughts on Social Media as a Tool For Art Promotion: Part 1

Why even bother with keeping a presence for your art on social media? While I don't think it's exactly super vital to be on a lot of sites to get work (A portfolio site for showing potential employers is though), I don't think it hurts. You never really know where you can get work or what interesting people you can come into contact with on social media. That said I think it's better to focus on updating a core few sites. In the beginning it's probably good to try a myriad of sites and see what works best for you. I'm still experimenting with social media but here are some of my thoughts on some sites I've been using so far.

• Tumblr - This is probably the first site where I put thought into how to display my art as an aspiring illustrator. I used to have sketchblogs but created arodude as a place to post pieces I was proud of. In recent months I've set up a queue to regularly post art updates. My follower count has slowly grown over time after I tried to post consistently. I'm not too sure what else I can do to gain more exposure. The things that seem to work to get people on my blog are:
• Fanart - People love reblogging fanart since it's of instantly recognizable characters and pertains to their interests. I'd recommend making fanart of series you genuinely enjoy. You might attract like minded people who might have other interests in common.
• Commenting and Liking - I think this does do a bit but not a lot.
• Inevitably if you do all of these consistently it might lead to more traffic. Might being the key word.  But for me my internet speeds are not too great for tumblr so I'm not very active.
• Twitter -  I've been on this site forever. I'm most active here. Despite that I don't have a very big following. Initially I used this site mostly for socializing and posting wips and doodles. I didn't think it had potential as an art promotion site. It's great for networking though. Recently I've been trying to put effort into posting art but the problem is I don't post consistently and likely don't post things that are very good. Things that help I've noticed:
• Having "influencers" retweet your art - This is something that also happens on tumblr but I can identify it better on twitter. People with a lot of followers will increase your work's visibility. Things like 60min drawing accounts of the past did wonders for visibility as well. Also, if you make fanart and mention an official account. This feels somewhat luck based though.
• Fanart - Unlike tumblr, attaching hashtags doesn't help as much with visibility. Still, fanart is powerful.
• Networking - That is the same as commenting, liking, retweeting and so on. Building relationships with artists can be powerful and it's fun too.
• Creating and Selling Merchandise - Or something that people want and can have in their hands. 
• Promoting a Webcomic - I have no idea how this works but I think people like to follow webcomic artists to see if their webcomic updated or to just get to know the artist better. Webcomics are a project that's updated regularly and that people can get invested in.
• Deviantart - I've started posting there again and weirdly enough I think it is pretty easy getting people to look at your work there. The main distinction between it and the above sites is that it's a social media site focused on art. That also means you're less likely to attract nonartists. It can be hard to navigate for a nonartist though they have put effort into streamlining the design. Some things that help:
• Submitting to multiple groups - If you make fanart than post to groups centered around that particular franchise. General art groups also have fanart sections.
• Posting in the Deviant Thumbshare forum - People there are looking to promote themselves and are looking to find artists.
• Commenting on artists's works - They'll likely get curious and check your page out.
• Instagram - Is pretty mystifying to me. I'm still not sure what to make of it. I don't use my phone a lot these days so I'm not super active there. You can get a lot of likes and some follows but I have this weird feeling a lot of them are bot likes. And the "followers" disappear after a time. I've heard it's easy to buy bot followers and likes but I don't know much about that. The high numbers of likes and follows of some accounts seem somewhat suspicious but *shrugs*.
• Tags, Tags, Tags - Tags are king here. If your starting out then attaching a lot of tags will likely help get you noticed. I believe there is a limit of 30 though. Doing monthly challenges like mermay or inktober and tagging those appropriately may help too. 
• Networking - I'm not too familiar with the usefulness of this but it's been a common theme on other sites so might as well try it out. 
• Features? - I believe there are some accounts that feature art from other accounts. They may be something to look into but I have no knowledge about it as of now.
• Sketches, WIPs, Traditional Art - Seem to be met with a lot of love. They've also introduced photosets so that may be something you can utilize as well.

Some of these things may work for others and some may not. There's not really a surefire way of getting noticed.