#you obviously have an online presence since ur on reddit

[gifti3]

also! i hate how ppl will be like you cant tell if you'll have chemistry through texting you have to meet up right away!!! do yall have no online friends?? or at least attempt to know ppl past a surface level who arent in your immediate vicinity??

[alicenpai]

Hello ^^ Ur art is amazing! I was wondering if u can give me some tips on establishing an online presence? Things like networking and getting my art to be known

Ah hello!! thank you so much ;o; I’m not sure if I’m really qualified to answer this, IT TOOK ME REALLY LONG. AND TBH I DON’T EVEN THINK I FOLLOW MY OWN ADVICE, but *mario voice* HERE WE GOOOOOO –

Just a disclaimer before we start: some (all?) of these tips are specific to my personal experiences, and they may or may not work for you. I have been posting art online for a little over 10 years, and my experiences may not be the same as yours/other artists (I grew pretty slowly!!). Please keep that in mind. I think I kept this tutorial pretty fair, however. If they did help you I would honestly love to hear your story! ^^

1. First off, consider: what are you passionate about? What do you want others to see when they stumble on your page? 

For me I love games, so I’ll try to draw a lot of that (despite being slow at drawing), and I’d like to focus more on my OCs in the near future. I’m not saying you should limit yourself to labels, but, know where your passions lie! If you like cartoons, draw a lot of cartoons! If you like bgs, draw bgs! You like originals? Go wild! My message is that everyone has a thing or two that they really like! Show what you’re passionate about! There is always a community for your interests.

About fandoms: just remember that if you switch fandoms due to changing interests, lack of time etc. - some people may unfollow or express negative feelings, that’s normal. For me, when I completely stopped posting shounen anime content, my engagement went -WET FART WHOOPIE CUSHION SOUND- down. But hell you can’t please everyone! so just do whatever makes you happy (as long as it’s not harmful to others obviously)

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2. HAVE A CONSISTENT SCHEDULE. REMEMBER THAT YOUR HEALTH ALWAYS COMES FIRST. 

“Algorithms” (I dislike that word sometimes, it gets thrown around more often than the first slice of bread, you know?) will never cater to creators, so don’t beat yourself up if you can’t make 9000 shitty instagram reels a week just because the CEO says so. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO POST 1 DRAWING EVERY WEEK.* And remember that we are in a global pandemic (AT THE TIME OF WRITING) so it’s okay to take breaks, long breaks are cool too.

 Being consistent means maintaining a schedule - uploading every other day, 1x a week, 1-3x a month, etc. - however many times as you want. It doesn’t necessarily mean be “active”, but I think people appreciate knowing how often they can expect work from you! Because they love to see your content and they’re excited for it!

For me personally - I find that uploading 1 piece of artwork per month is usually a pretty good schedule (for a full time post-secondary student/working adult). And I know that may be shocking HAHA. but time really does fly and 1 month can go by in the blink of an eye! Many artists I know abide by that, and so do I - I don’t find that my audience dips too much, and if 5-10 people leave, it doesn’t really matter. In high school with a lighter workload, I might’ve posted 1 drawing a week (or like 3-4x a month) but as my workload grew, I had less time for personal artwork, so 1x a month is already quite good IMO! If you think 1x a month isn’t enough to grow an audience - in the meantime you can join communities and hang out with other artists, or just chat with a close group of artist friends ^^ (see #4)

* You don’t have to post 1 drawing every week, but I know other artists recommend posting text posts in between art so that people know you’re still online! Shitposts are cool (just don’t like.. spam so much that twitter bans you?)! You can talk about that new game you played during your downtime! You don’t have to do this if you don’t want. Some people don’t really like to type at all. Some artists prefer to just post, and that’s okay too.

In a previous version of this post, I said being “active” is important. Trying to adhere to other people’s advice destroyed my sense of self-esteem and productivity. Bad 2017 Alice! Bad! I’ve always struggled a lot with “being active”, because I draw slow, I often felt like I had to “catch up” to my peers, and that’s a toxic attitude to have for myself. I’d occasionally crank out shitty doodles that no one really reacted to, so it made me feel worse. I burn out, I delete posts, I produce nothing. Feel awful about myself as both a person and artist. A vicious cycle. 

In regards to being concerned over people unfollowing: my honest opinion is that people follow so many creators nowadays, that they can always look at another creator in the meantime while you’re busy (even if you’re someone’s favourite creator… most people are decent human beings and understand you need time off). It’s normal to get unfollows when you’re not posting every other day, or if you switch fandoms. Heck even for me I’ve lost like more than 100 followers in an inactive period. It’s normal. Your productivity and follower count have nothing to do with your worth as an artist.

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3. Join communities and be nice to others! Twitter is best for networking because of the nature of the platform (i.e.: more conversational), but obviously don’t be a pushy salesman or constantly follow and unfollow to get someone’s attention and stuff like that - use your judgement. Join art discord groups, even a LOT of fandom discord servers have an art channel too! (join one of your favourite anime or etc, a lot of them have the links posted publicly on reddit), join dA groups, drawing/theme challenges (e.g. you wanna try traditional art? get inking! your favourite ship is doing a themed week? sink with them! people love ships!) Look out for redraw memes, 60/69 min challenges, current topics, etc etc.

I think nowadays it’s easier to join communities as a young artist than when I first started posting art online ^^; (LOL I just had dA) You guys should take advantage of that!

TRY OUT NEW DRAWING SITES! Artfol, Pillowfort (NSFW?), and Sheezyart are some new sites that I’ve seen floating around. Getting involved helps attract eyes to your work. Art platforms may not get you as much attention as tumblr, twitter, or instagram, since they will likely be used by more artists and less non-artists, but art sites cannot grow ant thrive unless people sign up right? I’ve tested Artfol (briefly...) and I think it’s definitely worth trying out!

This is a given, but always tag your work according to the platform. Know what tags work depending on the platform (e.g. 4378548754875 tags on 1 tweet tend to be abused by spam bots, so the more tags on twit the more suspicious the post looks IMO). Very different culture depending on the platform. On instagram and tumblr go crazy. Twitter is good with just 1 with the series, e.g. “#persona5″, or you can just mention it in the post caption, e.g. “Haru is my favourite character! (persona 5)”, because content is still searchable that way as well.

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4. Be patient - don’t worry if you don’t get noticed overnight, or in a couple months… or years even. Don’t panic. Sometimes your work is just not ready for a larger audience. EVERYONE’S EXPERIENCE IS DIFFERENT, no one’s experiences should be discounted - look at each artist’s experience/art growth individually. And this isn’t meant to be discouraging or insulting, sometimes it really is just luck that will get you noticed. 

For me personally, I’ve been posting art online since late middle school. I think it took me about SIX whole years before my art started to go somewhere (conventions helped me too), but even then it took me another TWO years AFTER to break my first 1000 followers (at least on twitter, tumblr I kept no records of as far as I know). So yes, it took me almost EIGHT years online to go somewhere. But I did start posting art when I was quite young, and I would NOT even say that my art was good until the last few years. In fact, let’s roast my old art now:

My friends gifted me a tablet for my birthday and I took to that shit like how kids inhale sugar. I’m really grateful for them. As a teen I was frustrated as to why my work wasn’t getting eyes, I considered myself “pretty good” because of the insane improvement I made in just 2 years’ time. But I think this work just wasn’t technically very strong, or appealing to others yet.

Some people are more lucky than others, but honestly don’t worry if you struggle with your online presence. A lot of other artists are in the same boat, even if they don’t post about it publicly! Even I struggle to find the right time & content to post. Sometimes you can just blame the “alg*r*thm” (derogatory). And remember, large follow counts don’t mean the artist is rich……

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5. Closing thoughts: don’t forget to have fun! (No this is not a threat). Your personal art is all about self exploration and fun (art for work is different). You should draw what you like, but it’s... not... a horrible thing to try and draw popular stuff either. I draw fanart for series that I like, because it makes me happy, but it’s also awesome to bring a smile to others’ faces too, right? I think it’s important to maintain a balance and not go overboard/sell out, you know? Don’t forget to explore your boundaries as well! Hope you can find this useful! And if any of these tips helped I’d love to hear it!