Whether you are an aspiring artist or an established art master without any online presence, you should start to think about promoting your art online. In this progressive internet era, there are tons of website where you can post your work and wait for the glory (including requests for a commissioned work) but unless you have a personal assistant this activity may as well be time-consuming and distract you from your creative process. Prioritizing your work to only a few social networks is a good start, but what are the top social networks for artists you should sign up to? Here are our top picks:
1. DeviantArt
Founded in August 2000, DeviantArt is the largest online social network and platform for artists and art enthusiasts to exhibit, promote, and share their works. With over 38 million registered members and over 65 million unique visitors per month, it is one of the top social networks you need to start using right now to get a nice exposure for your works. DA’s members known as deviants upload over 160,000 original artworks every day, everything from painting and sculpture to digital art, pixel art, films, and anime. Join their daily drawing challenge, create incredible collections and see them showcased on DA or search for any particular art style in various categories. You can also become a member of their forums and chats and get critique for your work. Artists simply love DeviantArt because of their inclusive and supportive community.
2. CGSociety
The CGSociety supports artists at every level by offering a range of services to connect, inform, educate and promote digital artists worldwide. You can find interesting tutorials and workshops here or have a chat with some of the top professionals in the CG industry.
3. Pinterest
A great place for sharing (pinning) images with your followers and following other people who share inspiring material. It works like your personal scrapbook with the difference that people can actually see what you scrapbook online. Do you love drawing but also enjoy cooking? Great! No one will be bothered by your cooking recipes because you can pin all topics you like on Pinterest, people who want to keep a track of your art career can follow solely your art-related boards. Pinterest reports 150 million monthly users - that’s a huge number of people who can find your profile and look at your beautiful work, don’t you think? After signing up to Pinterest, go and follow us at https://sk.pinterest.com/escapemotions/
4. Behance
Behance is the leading online platform to showcase & discover creative work: the creative world updates it in one place to broadcast widely while companies explore the work and access talent on a global scale. Behance’s innovative platform distributes work to other online galleries, maximizing exposure for top talent on their site. Get appreciation for your art, mention companies you have worked with so far and list some past professional experience. Behance is a large online catalog where most of the page views come from non-members, so be sure to upload your finished piece and possibly get hired.
5. Instagram
A global community of more than 500 million users who capture and share 95 million photos every day enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them either publicly or privately on the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking platforms. Instagram is heavily visited by artists of any kind - just imagine that someone can find your art only because you put a #hashtag on it. Get the most essential Instagram hashtags for artists here: https://conceptartempire.com/art-hashtags/
6. Tumblr.
Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything - post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos from your browser, phone, desktop, email or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors to your theme’s HTML and make your account a nice place to visit. Tumblr hosts over 332 million blogs and gets more than 40 million posts every day, many of them focused on photography, illustrations, and drawing. So why don’t give Tumblr a try?
7. Facebook
For some people, Facebook’s days of glory are gone. But with approximately one billion users it is still the largest social network out there. If you have a private account and don’t want to mix your private life with the professional, start your fan page where only your art will be exposed. What is great about Facebook is that you can join many online art groups where similar people like you post their works and questions so you actually learn a lot too! Don’t forget to follow Escape Motions on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/flamepainterpage/
8. Twitter
Twitter’s mission is to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers. This social network states 313 million of active users to connect to people outside their current network. On Twitter, you can be sure that you’ll meet people you probably wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise. Great resources are being shared there every second, which may broaden your horizons and stimulates your own creative juices. We love to share news from our creative world on our Twitter account too so be sure to follow us at https://twitter.com/escapemotions
9. LinkedIn
As of 2015, LinkedIn had more than 460 million members in over 200 countries and territories and is the world’s largest professional network and platform for business. LinkedIn allows you to upload photos but you must keep in mind that this network is more for business talk than for showing off your work. You may ask yourself ‘Why would I need that?’. Well, you can make a few useful connections and meet other business professionals, who can bring you valuable resource as well as build relationships with potential customers, clients, and partners. Some of the things you can add to your profile include the basics of your resume, a summary about yourself, your contact information, links to your website and/or blog, previous employers, projects you’ve worked on, and more. Don’t forget to add a professional picture which is ‘a must’ on this pro platform.
10. Dribbble
Dribbble is show and tell for artists of all kinds - web designers, graphic designers, illustrators, icon artists, typographers, logo designers, and others share small screenshots (shots) that show their work, process, and current projects. Dribbble’s system is very basic: you upload a 400×300 shot (120.000 pixels), the community watches it, they like and give feedback if they want to. This system is oriented to receive a lot of feedback from other designers, so you’ll always have someone to rely on when a creative crisis occurs :)
Sharing your work on social media is a great way of getting an appreciation for your talent, however, such self-promotion may not be an ideal option for an introvert artist, or it is possible you just don’t like to ‘boast’ with what you do online. Believe us, there should not be such feelings when it comes to promoting your work. Maybe you will be surprised by how many fans you can gain just because they can find your art online. Or how good it feels when some stranger commends on your talent or a great art you created. Or how good it feels to complain from time to time because of the lack of inspiration or anything else - there are still people who listen and can even give you some great advice. And the most important part - you can make good friends online with some of your fans who will understand you because you all share a common interest.
