Hi! I've been following you for a good while now and have always rly admired the community you've build, and, your art itself, obviously, it's always very cozy in here. May be a strange question, but as a relatively popular artist on the interned, are there any tips you could share on how to engage and sustain an audience? maybe you know some recourses for artist to get their art seen? I've been an artist posting online for roughly 10 yrs and pretty much failed at accumulating any sort of prominent presence. I don't feel bad about it really, it's not why I do art per say, but these are pretty rough times and unfortunately other means of art monetization grow thinner with stupid updates & algorithms forcing anyone who can't afford payed adds or subscriptions out of business. I kinda have to make use of social media, even if it's not my element in the slightest. Feel free not to answer if you feel like it. Thanks in advance! Also big thanks for your shouts of my art overall, I really appreciate your support!
So I've had a post in my drafts for who knows how long detailing how to build and curate your audience online. But I haven't found a good way to go about posting it because I didn't want it to come off as tooting my own horn xD
BUT YOU HAVE ENABLED ME SO HERE WE GO!!!
(im going to generalize, you may already be doing some of these things but I think its good info for anyone who wants to build an online presence)
1. Engaging your audience
A: First, you have to think of the platform you're sharing your art on and what people use it for. Not even tumblr, but the internet as a whole. It is a place where people form communities and share information. It's also one of the most popular ways to mentally escape; from school, boredom, to the horrors of real life.
So if you want people to find you, make a space where they can escape/feel community.
This means: No callout posting, no venting, no doom posting, no politics, no guilt posting, no anything that would make you unfollow someone else if you were having a bad day.
It's okay to have an occasional vent or political post cause we're human, but trauma dumping is something thats very hard for someone else to read and honestly should you be putting that kind of information online, the internet is a place of community but it also isnt safe.
B: The Value of Fandoms
It's time for some metrics, featuring my own follower count.
I've been on tumblr for 9 years and I have been making an effort to grow my base as a way of getting money as a freelancer (like you) so I started doing this allll the way back in highschool. I can remember each milestone and which fandom I got them in
1,000 I got when I was posting stuff for Undertale
2,000 I got when I was posting stuff for The Property of Hate
there was a big break between these milestones where I was just drawing ocs and object heads and stuff, but nothing I was hyperfixated on
5,000 I got from Hollow Knight
but then something really unexpected happened.
In late 2021 and early 2022 I decided cringe was a worthless social construct and decided to fully indulge in my enjoyment of doodling dragons.
I juuust inched past 5,000 when 2022 started. I Ended Up With 12,000 as 2022 ended. That's more than double. As of posting this I am at 13,600 and its only February.
So how did that happen? I could tout along and say that it was simply luck and I wasn't really making an effort anyway but that's a big fuckin lie, i've been "selling out" this whole time (it's not fucking selling out to post in fandom. You like a thing? You go to the thing's community and post about the thing)
Posting in a fandom is essentially like, now bear with me, advertising for your blog. Fandom is where the eyes are and where the traffic goes. Big tags like #artistsontumblr #tumblrart #art are used OFTEN but they're too general and often people look for things that are specific. Fandoms like Hollow Knight, BNHA, Mob Psycho, The Owl House, etc are currently popping off and have a lot of traffic.
This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to join a popular fandom to post your work in to get followers, it just means that if you're into a show or a media, post it on your main art blog and don't make side blogs. Keep it all together
Why?
Because 5% of those fandom people stick around for YOUR STUFF and those 5% of people are the best goddamn people in the world. You want those 5% to see EVERYTHING you do and THEY'RE the ones who will recommend you to THEIR friends and do outreach on your behalf because they like YOU and not YOUR STUFF.
i fuckin love those guys
So as you hop from fandom to fandom, you're going to lose some people but that's fine. Everyone curates their experience online and if you head off in a direction they don't like then they can deal with it. The rest come along for the ride cause 1: they either really like your stuff or 2: are into the new thing you're getting into.
SO ANYWAY
posting in fandoms under one name is GOOD because it puts everyone in the same bucket that will see your stuff and there's a chance that a few will stick just for your stuff. It is not cheap, its how you reach out to people to help cheer up their day and escape from things stressing them out.
C: What should you post?
So this is something that isn't an exact science but if you're looking to increase your follower count, this is something you can keep in mind.
Because this is the internet and the digital word of escaping from stress, people flock to things that are
1: Familiar 2: Funny 3: Relatable
So i've already been over fandoms and that's something that goes into the Familiar category. Familiar can also mean generalized but still popular concepts, like werewolves, dragons, vampires, apocalyptic scenarios, etc.
The more you trail into something niche, like marine biology, the seelie/unseelie courts, object heads, etc, the less traffic you'll find. There are communities centered around these but they're not massive like certain fandoms.
Which is how you end up with artists who spend hours upon hours on every piece only getting like 14 - 32 notes per piece. It's not lack of people caring or lack of interest, its the fact that these artists haven't "advertised" their blogs in fandom. Those people who end up caring about more personal posts are those 5% you find from fandom spaces. Their Familiar from that fandom begins to include your artwork as Familiar and thus they're more likely to share it.
Funny is simple. Tumblr is a platform of shitposts and memes. Do you have a favorite character in a fandom? Shitpost them. 2 birds with one stone, Familiar and Funny. I can't teach you how to be funny, but if you see something that makes you laugh online, pause and try to find out why and see if you can replicate it. (You wont get it in one go)
Relate-ability is also simple. If someone finds something they can easily associate with they will eagerly tag #mood #me or @ one of their friends in the post.
What doesn't get people following just by itself is your skill.
This sounds really fucking depressing but hear me out.
Your skill in art is a multiplier. It can take those three categories from above and BOOST IT to fantastic new heights. People love things that are from their fandoms that are funny and relate-able. People go FERAL for shit that is from their fandoms that are funny, relate-able AND COOL AS FUCK. If art represented x5 in an equation and you have nothing else, you get 0. If you include any of those three other things and then x5, you get something grand.
2. Sustaining your Audience.
If you want to set up your blog as a platform to eventually gain freelance income from, you need to make it yours and not your audience's.
This is key to prevent burnout and feeling obligation to create for thousands of featureless faces and losing sight of what made you enjoy art in the first place.
It is REALLY EASY to fall into that pit, especially as you grow your audience. When you have a small audience, it's easier to interact one on one with someone. Engagement is exciting when you have a small audience! People? Interested in your work!! Fuck yeah!!
But as you reach those milestones, the vibe begins to change. More and more people demand your attention. People who are new don't see you as an artist they knew from another fandom, they see you as a content creator and that is the worst goddamn stone wheel to get stuck around your neck.
You can still respond to requests and answer silly questions, but now you have to keep in mind that if you draw this little dragon for someone, three other people are going to ask for their own little dragons. And that's fine because you love dragons and they asked so nicely. You make those dragons but now there's seven people asking for their own dragons and you actually want to work on something other than dragons-- but you made those dragon doodles for those other people so wouldn't it be hypocritical to say no-
It becomes a spiral.
So to prevent that situation from happening, you need to respect your boundaries as an artist and what you will do and what you will draw the line at. If someone doesn't like you for that, they can unfollow.
In terms of posting regularly to sustain your audience, i've found that it helps but ultimately doesn't matter.
(this is a tumblr centric view, i cannot say the same for other platforms)
The way tumblr works resembles a massive recycling facility. You will see shit on your dash from 7 years ago but you dont mind, its how this place works.
It doesn't matter how often you post. You won't lose priority on people's dashboards if you don't make your daily art post. What matters is that you just make the post.
Each post you make is like sending out a bucket of chum into the grand ocean of tumblr. The more buckets of chum you have, the more likely you are to attract fish. The more you post the larger your radius is. The more variety you make in spreading out to different fandoms the wider your range is. And these spots of chum don't go away! They're permanent brown spots in a big blue wasteland and fish will stumble across it and then try to find the source.
Basically, you can disappear for an entire month and then suddenly return out of nowhere and shove 57 posts into a week and then disappear again and people will show up and stick around.
THis post is getting really long and there are probably some things im missing but my hadns are getting achy and i think that's my call to stop :p
if you have anymore questions tho im very willing to answer 👍
