How I Gain 500 Followers a Day as an Artist (My Social Media Strategy)

your art can't change the world if there's no one to see it today we're going to be exploring ways to build an engaged audience around your art if you're one of those people who make art just as a hobby and are happy with the 200 followers on instagram who just comment the fire emoji under your new posts in the hope that you're going to do the same for them well then bless your soul i love your pure heart and the dedication to your craft but what if i told you that it's not only possible and completely doable to make art for your personal pleasure and still have a passionate cheering community to help motivate you when you're not feeling as creative whether you've been taking full advantage of social media or you're a more lone wolf type who hides their artwork whenever their friends come over there are several advantages of putting yourself out there and it won't require you to sell your soul at a crossroads robert johnson's style although that would have been one hell of an origin story communities engage members with similar interests and mindsets which make them an invaluable tool for moral support creative sparks and productive discussion you can think of your audience as your personal artificial intelligence these people are interested in your work share similar values and know a lot about you as an artist this allows them to chip in useful opinions and give you fresh and objective perspectives on your art and more importantly feedback and criticism are two vital aspects of anyone's art journey having an audience that's not afraid to critique your work in a productive way will do wonders for your own artistic evolution on the other hand keeping your art to yourself is a surefire way to stagnate and constantly be wondering if you're always good enough and i barely need to mention the financial aspect of creating an audience for your art not only will this bridge the way between your work and potential buyers but having an established crowd that loves what you do opens up a lot of potentially lucrative opportunities now i'm sure i don't need to list all the ways in which building a community is a massive advantage for an artist but how do we actually do it well it all starts with your own mindset like any other thing in life the way you look at it is critical by now we've probably all seen the comic of two people looking at a digit that was drawn onto the pave walk if you looked at it from a certain angle it looked like a six and if you looked at it from the other side it looks like a nine while the whole thing lost its apparent depth as soon as you turn 15 there's no denying that your mental space can make or break your chances at becoming internet famous or building a decent community around yourself now before going wild about numbers and analytics and stressing about how many followers you get on a certain day try cultivating a person-centered approach this means thinking less about how many new followers you got today and thinking more about who your audience actually is who are they and what do they like how can you engage them how can you offer them what they want to see without compromising your artistic vision defining a target audience will not only help you produce better content for them but also set you up for success later on when the focus will shift from the number of your followers to the number of your sales another thing you should keep in mind is that you need to aim to be as genuine as possible social butterfly painfully introverted nerd qc princess social justice warrior whatever you are just make sure that people know that and that is who you are after all you're looking to build a community of like-minded individuals and that's impossible if you don't actually let people know who you are you might be tempted to emulate already established artists or give your followers what they think they want but you're making art and art is only valuable when it's genuine and don't worry about if people will actually like you there's a huge online community for everything for example there's an online community where people share photos of airport carpets nowadays you can build a community just around anything when building a community don't put yourself and your art down share everything proudly and let your fans decide whether it's bad or not you might be surprised at their reactions on the other hand if you're gonna tell your audience that your art is bad right off the bat they'll probably start feeling the same lastly don't forget that building a community takes time and commitment so falling into the trap of a get famous quick scheme is one of the worst things you can do for yourself letting people know you desperately crave new followers will put them off and let them know that you don't actually care about them as people don't buy followers don't comment under every new post on hashtags in your niche it's a bad look instead let things happen naturally engage with this week's new follower and keep making art there are a lot of better ways to grow your audience and we're going to cover them right now tip number one is to network like your life depends on it this might come as a surprise but you're not beyonce this means that you won't be able to get 200 million followers without following anyone back building your own community will require you to connect with like-minded individuals and what better way to do that than joining already established communities don't be afraid to use social media to connect artists you love and people that inspire you follow small communities engage in discussions answer people's questions on reddit and quora and let other artists know that you love their work live networking can gain you a lot of exposure pretty fast and it's an amazing way to build relationships that transcend the art to artist follower narrative being a part of a small real-life community is great for your self-esteem and will help you grow as an artist and more than a few 100 anonymous followers would even if you're more of an introvert building pleasant relationships in real life doesn't have to be daunting attending events where your passion is the main focus is a lot more fun than the compulsory drinks with your co-workers at least in my opinion go to opening nights and studio tours attend workshops and classes hunt meet and greets and art contests or even rent space in a communal studio where you can work these are great ways to meet new people that might be interested in your art without too much social pressure tip number two for building a large community is to use social media at full throttle and no this doesn't mean you should get an account on every possible social media platform and give up your day job to post regularly on all of them i don't recommend that at all choosing one or two social media platforms and focusing on learning how they work and then keeping a consistent schedule will help you a lot more than just trying to juggle 12 different accounts trust me i've tried it before it's not sustainable and to double up on that abandoned accounts and unanswered messages might negatively impact your social presence so choosing one or two platforms will not only be easier for you but will also look better when your audience looks at your page as well if you've been trying to grow on social media for a while you've probably already heard that be consistent more times than you can count the algorithms powering social media platforms love consistency and fans are more inclined to follow highly active accounts if the consistency game is something that's giving you cold sweats you might want to get into the habit of creating content in batches and using a scheduler to post on your accounts for you services like sem rush or later.com are easy ways to schedule posts save hashtag groups and plan for the perfect feed and remember social media shouldn't be treated as a portfolio where you only showcase completed and polished work your fans would love updates about your following projects work in progress shots tips and tricks and other small ways in which they can feel that they are genuinely connecting with you that's the point of social media it's to form a connection between you and your audience tip number three is you can turn your portfolio into a community hub now having a neat portfolio you can show to customers is a great if not vital way to get work and fast track your art career but what if i told you that you could use that portfolio as more than just a glorified colorful resume if you already have a personal website to upload completed projects you might want to consider turning it into a community hub i would add a blog page and start writing updates about your art journey write short guides and tutorials and showcase other artists that you like this will not only give your followers another place to find out more about you but it'll also show potential clients that you are invested and extremely passionate about your niche when your blog is up and running you can add a subscription form and start building an email list a lot of people underestimate the impact of these email lists but they're one of the best ways to build any sort of relationship in an intimate way targeted emails can convert subscribers into customers way more easily than generic social media posts because they are personal and they're coming straight to your email having a personal website that's not only a boring old portfolio but an actual place where people can come back regularly to gets value and opens up a lot of business opportunities for you you can start selling subscriptions for exclusive content one-on-one teaching sessions courses ebooks or even branded merch the fourth tip i would give you to build an online community around your art is to make being your follower fun now you're probably a part of a few hundred different communities but you actually feel like you're a complete part of each and every one probably not right you need to reward loyalty to your brand and give your followers good reasons to keep tabs on you try to include them in small decisions by holding polls and asking them questions choose some of the funniest comments you receive and feature them on your page regularly to incentivize them to engage with your content give your community a fun name and give out custom badges or certificates to your most active followers reply to their comments talk to them share inside jokes make friends while you might be tempted to treat your art as a business which you definitely should to some extent don't forget that there are real people behind each of the accounts that are following you many great artists managed to create impressive communities around their art because they were genuine and not afraid to let their weird flag fly angel ganev had one of the most loyal fanbases i've ever seen and it's because he treats each one of his viewers the way that he treats his best friends he's available he reads his comments and replies to them frequently and includes them in a lot of small games which is people returning to his channel with a grin on their faces every single time if you're going to treat your audience like friends and create a space that feels exclusive they'll have more reasons to come back and engage with you now speaking of rewarding your audience this brings us to tip number five which is to leverage special offers and promotions don't be afraid to give value away whether we're talking about free prints or something more consistent such as a custom commissioned art freebies are a great way to boost your followers and give back to your established audience you don't need a phd to understand how a giveaway can bring you a lot of new followers but there are many not so obvious benefits of giving some of your work away for free it'll make your brand more memorable which will encourage people to buy the next time they come across your products it'll also increase loyalty in your existing fans and encourage a further sense of community if you'd love more information about your demographics you can always include a small survey as one of the requirements to participate or you could just use this opportunity to grow your email list which we mentioned earlier and having a few discounted items or holding regular promotions won't only help boost your sales it'll also give you opportunities to pop up in the minds of your customers by refreshing their memory of your brand if your last couple of posts didn't get the traction you hoped they would just jump start a special offer and blast it to your email list it's a great way to say hey i am still here and look what i've been up to which further cements recognition and freshens up relationships that may have gone a bit stale tip number six for growing a community around your art is to make use of live features there's nothing quite like some one-on-one time with your followers going live frequently is a great way to build rapport with your fans without all the time and effort that goes into curating content what's great about live feeds is that you can use live features to do just about anything q and a's people love those because they get to learn more about their favorite artists and you as the artist should love them because it strengthens the bond between you and your potential customer are you working on a new and exciting project well why don't you go live for a little bit while you work on it people would love to learn more about your process and steal some of your tricks not only that working while streaming live will help motivate and keep yourself accountable which means you would probably finish your work faster anyway and what about if you don't feel like working well you can ask your own followers for their art and one or two days ahead and then go live and critique their work later tip number seven to build a community around your art is to help your followers grow with you don't be afraid to post tips and tricks that someone might find useful even if you think that no one is interested in the things that you know i can assure you that there are people out there who will really really appreciate it if you've got some spare time on your hands create short ebooks or even full-blown tutorials write guides or just share the latest hockey you discovered that made your life easier this is a great and easy way to produce some more content and give back to the community urshad kareem is by any standards and amazing artists but most people know him best from his effort to teach millions how to draw he put a lot of work into creating an easy to follow comprehensive program called draw a box i've used it quite a bit actually it was amazing nowadays his subreddit based on the site has thousands and thousands of students that not only appreciate his art but who are completely loyal to him because he put the time and effort into giving them something truly valuable whether you can structure all of your knowledge into a professional level course or you only have the time to reply to some of the questions people comment on your posts never forget to give back and help your followers grow with you you know just the way friends do with each other creating a community around your art is nothing more than constantly jumping back and forth between stellar business practices and being relatable especially with art you don't want to be relatable in the same way corporations want to seem relatable instead you should aim towards being a human and being genuine not being afraid to laugh at your mistakes and sharing a joke with the people who follow you that might not come as easy to you if you're always focusing on numbers and performance and that's certainly a great part of your potential community success but with all things in life the secret is balance and you need to be the judge of how much of your time goes into studying marketing and how much of it goes into being goofy with your followers thanks for watching guys as usual i am thomas from stylize station and i will see you in the next video

Channel: Stylized Station

Views: 35,299

Keywords: grow social media, grow instagram, grow art community, growing a community online, how to get followers

Id: GXOd_HIX5Ak

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 30 2021