Instagram Take Off!

Recently, I've started to post a lot of my sketches that I am doing on Instagram. There are a lot more coming out as I'm participating in "inktober" which is an event created by Jake Parker to inspire artists and challenge them to consistently be producing art within an allotted amount of time.

I bet a lot of students who are trying to create a name for themselves can agree that "mildly difficult" is a far cry from how hard it actually is to establish yourself as a prominenet artist in any community. Some people do better than others and some just can't seem to get their feet off the ground on certain social media sites. I am the same. I can't believe how many things I try to juggle to keep myself plugged in:

• Facebook
• Blogger
• Tumblr
• Google +
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Vine
• Deviantart
• Society 6
• Red Bubble
• Linked In

And those are the ones I know of! There's also CG Hub and other like digital pages. Where do you even begin to keep up or try to involve yourself in? There might not a straight answer. I think there's a good limit as to what one can take.

So what does that mean? I'm going to limit myself. As much as I want to be everywhere, I can't, unless I hire a PR/Management team. It took me a long while but I'm finally building a little niche within the Instagram/Tumblr community.

Crazy to think I was at 116 last Monday. Connecting my Instagram posts to my Twitter and Facebook a) cuts down posting repeats b) connects both social media outlets. thisisthor - found my tumblr through my instagram :)

Don't underestimate the power of being nice to people online. If you expect your art to be loved, act accordingly to have those viewers respond to you! Some reason, people were taking more to my sketchy stuff than my finished work, made me a bit sad but maybe it's a sign to scale back and be more raw with my work. It's better to think positively. Interpret the lack of likes or reblogs as a) its a huge space, take time and don't worry b) perhaps this isn't what the audience of tumblr wants to see c) take it with a grain of salt and take a new approach!

I thought Facebook would garner me more of a following since millions use it. But that's not necessarily the case. I've been working at this page for months and I haven't broken a 100 yet. Maybe, its not the space for me? Is the audience of my friends list too small? It's a networking thing and who your peers are and where they seem to hang out.

^ Also a really hard place to get a following. But its a great site to find amazing artists to look at o3o! My previous account dragon-blade14 got a lot more hits because I floated in chatrooms and produced a lot of art and consistently uploaded. There's a lot of behind the scenes time spent on just being there haha.

^ I owe a lot of those pageviews to a feature I got in August 2010 when one of my fanarts was showcased by League of Legends in their weekly art appreciate video. Submitting your works is pretty helpful too! but the followers, sometimes I wonder if Blogger is outdated and yet... here I am, lol.

To people trying to start something, do it! Oh my god, do it. Try to start everywhere, and see what works for you. Your friend might be a god on Twitter but you might be better suited for deviant art or cg hub. There's not lecture or less to this, just wanna let people know that what they are feeling is felt with other people too. And not to give up! Just keep arting and posting. In the last 2 weeks I've risen from 65 to 127 followers on Instagram because I've decided to a) post more b) observe the popular people and noticed hashtags! haha, those stupid things. c) Talk to artists, do shout outs, comments/mentions because if a fan of one person clicks on you and likes you, well hey! They connect so much of what you do for people to find you. Also, a nice thing to do is if someone likes something of yours, go to their page and see if you can reciprocate that love. That's my tip anyways :)

I don't normally write a story on my posts these days, but I imagine someone might read what I'm up to, haha. That or this could be a page fore sanitarium.

Cheers,
neecobalt ~