/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>5094971
You're not getting any followers because your art is shit.

>>5094971
>It seems like the only actual way to make any money from art.

Same I want to know, but I think the algorithm fucks up everyone

>>5094971
>Instagram

I have 10k because I started up when Instagram's algorithm was less demanding. They're really trying to make it into a full time job lately. If you're not making reels, IGTV, daily stories, 2-3 posts a week, daily likes/comments with strangers, a well-written caption, and well-researched hashtags, they actively punish you in the algorithm. It's really hard to get your feet off the ground if you're starting fresh and it sucks.

I heard that IG is going to really focus on e-commerce next year. Good for artists with merch, bad for artists who focus on commissions only. Twitter seems like the move for people who aren't focusing on merch. Sadly I can't give any tips for Twitter though, I struggle a lot on there.

>>5096006
Interesting thanks.

OP here. Is 45 followers in 18 days a good rate at the beginning? I seem to be growing not as quickly now I've added all my friends.

I post about 3 times a week, use a load of different hashtags, but I really struggle to get new followers. I can get a few likes from people who I'm not following or who aren't following me, but few new followers.

What hashtags do you use?

>>5096006
Forgot to address.

>It seems like the only actual way to make any money from art.

In my experience, not true at all. Despite having a decent following, I get no commissions from IG. And even though I have just a fraction of my following size on Twitter, I've gotten a lot of commissions from there. I think people just feel less shy on Twitter because they encourage two-way discussion, it's not like on Instagram where you're talking AT an audience.

>>5095959
fpbp

>>5096021
45 follows in a couple weeks is pretty good I think. Keep up the momentum. As for hashtags: Don't use more than 30. Avoid using lewd hashtags because those can get you shadowbanned. Use about 75% niche hashtags that have about or less than 100k posts, and the other 25% can be the super big ones like just #drawing.

>>5096032
Thanks very much.

I think I'll keep up at least 3 posts per week and just view it as an opportunity to build a public portfolio incase I apply for a job in design. Would look good on a CV to have a load of example of my work and that it was liked by at least a few people. It should be less disappointing if I just don't focus on followers.

>>5096024
Time to pull out that old twitter account I made years ago that I never use. How do I grow on Twitter though?

>>5094971
stop being a moron and use twitter instead

every retweet you get is your work getting posted again, while in ig you are hoping and praying to the algorithm every time you post anything. have fun uploading low res force square cropped images that are going to flop and get buried until you upload at least 100 works and then the system finally recognises you as a person

Do not use instagram if you are new in art.
Instagram is so saturated. You are better off getting a following on linkedin(business) or tiktok(zoomers)

Know your audience. Business and zoomers are different.

>>5097213
>twatter

Worst place for art. It is a shit show.

Is Pixiv with Mastodon okay to start with?

>>5094971
engagement is the secret to IG. it is quite simple. i will explain it. IG wants posts which make people post, IG wants people who post and get other people to post. this is the key to everything.
>follow people doing the same as you in the same market
>switch on notifications so you get told when they have posted.
>when you get an alert someone has posted, view the post and make a comment, 2 or 3 sentences, not a Fire emoji or just "wow".
>if you make several comments over days and they never reply, unfollow them, this will punish them.
>add more people in your crowd, add similar people to you that IG suggests
>repeat comment on post every day
>at the same time, post twice a day plus one story (at least)
>use carousels, be creative. some slides could just be closeups of an area of your post, closeup of the subject or whatever. put a call to action on the last slide
>respond to people who comment on your pics. agains 2 or 3 sentences, not just "thanks" or a thumbs up
>repeat every day
it will take time away from your art and your real life, but this is how you get suggested to other people. also look at what # you need, have a few versions of # lists with 20 # in each and rotate them, copying and pasting them from notes.
this is how you do IG now. they want a community and promote people who make a community, not people who post a pic a week and don't comment.

if it sounds like too much trouble, then fair enough i understand not everyone wants to do it as it is quite a tedious, but this is the system

>>5096006
>bad for artists who focus on commissions only.
commisions are e-commerce too. there is a system for someone to ask for a commision. make it work for you.

>>5097244
Not them but thanks for the detailed post.
It's quite bullshit honestly. Not liking what the scene is like these days.

>>5097268
>It's quite bullshit honestly. Not liking what the scene is like these days.
i agree with you on this. it has made everything so artificial seeming (as if e-communications were ever not artificial) and it makes everyone into a shiller, just looking for reciprocal engagement in order to make a following to get visits to their e-commerce channel.
but before you also had a middleman to do such things for you while the artist just made art.

>>5097244
>>if you make several comments over days and they never reply, unfollow them, this will punish them.
What if they just like the comment without replying?

Also I heard that IG is pushing Reels super hard. There's a post going around about the "new" suggestions and those who post Reels will get more love from the algorithm, so I'd suggest posting at least 1 a week, too

>>5094971
>It seems like the only actual way to make any money from art.
It's ridiculous how many people on /ic/ think that low-paying personal commissions sourced from social media are the only way that artists can make money.

OP should be laughed off the board for saying this but most of you morons probably agree with them.

>>5094971
Consistently post high quality artwork with a moderate amount of relevant hashtags

>>5097517
Since you're not offering an alternative your post and opinion are automatically discarded, sorry.

>>5094971
For how long does the shadowban lasts and how can I get rid of it? I made some NSFW art and tags stopped working after that. Deleted everything in my profile, 3 months later I published again some of my most popular SFW works... and received 0 likes and 0 followers despite using tags! It's not the quality of art for sure because the last colored piece earned me compliments and attention on other web sites, plus my old unifinished doodle of the same character earned me 19 likes on Instagram at some point.

>>5096032
>As for hashtags: Don't use more than 30
Is this bait or actual advice?
My last artwork on Instagram used:
>#Drawing #Digitalart #Portrait #Demongirl #Animestyle
and I thought I went overboard with those tags and that people would look at my post and think I was whoring myself out too hard, but it's actually the opposite?

get GOOD pictures of your work. im talking the best, no potato phone pictures, use a DSLR and only well lit straight ahead shots, no fucking artsy angled slightly out of focused shit unless you know what you're doing. dont try to be clever just good clean pics of your work.

make a photoshop template (2048x2048)
drag in ALL of your images of your work.
clean all of them up, make sure they are aligned all the same, make the colors pop but dont oversaturate any of them, use a mask with the curves tool to make sure they all have close to the same brightness/contrast. either write down your camera and lighting settings as you take pics or just do it all in batches to save on post editing.
if you want to be gay, put a little white border around the images
then save all these to some folder
next get some lifestyle pics of you (yes put your face to your account woman) you can do WIP studio shots or you posing with a finished piece, shit like that get creative just make sure they look good. take it to PS and clean em up but again, get a batch of these too and save them to the same folder
then do some hashtag research. think of the crowd you are trying to attract, go to other artists you are similar to or are trying to emulate, see what tags they are using, go to the accounts of the people commenting on their images and see what they follow and start jotting down hashtags. youre going to want to stick to ones that have 50k or less posts, you can check this when you make a post IG gives you the popularity of whatever tag you are making.
get enough tags and make a word doc of 3 variations of batches. (batch1: #dog #car #plane, batch 2:#plane #dog #food etc) they can include a few of the same tags but try to make them each a little different.
then go make an account on Later.com
start dragging and dropping in your images. try to keep a post ratio of 2 arts to 1 personal photo. this also lets you copy and paste those hashtags you saved, so do that and switch up each batch

>>5099595
fuck, never legitimately hit post limit before. you better take heed of this shit yall.

anyway, i cant remember if Later has a post limit for their free version but trust me, unless you want to spend hours on IG, this tool is worth it. so, try to schedule at least 2 posts a day (one in the morning, one during lunch or something, if you want a following in X city then keep their timeline in mind)
once you do that and you have a month or whatever planned out then congrats you only need to spend ten minutes on actual IG a day now. or maybe twenty.
but what you do next is start going to those hashtags and going to all the posts and just start commenting on them. 'great work!' 'love these colors' shit like that, actual words try not to just spam the fire emoji on everything, even better if you can pose a question (forgot to mention this about making your post captions BTW. IG algo LOVES engagement, if you ask a question in your post or story and get followers to respond this will bump your post to more people)
anyways, spend 10 min morning and night just commenting and engaging with the community.

i think that should be it. dont be afraid to recycle posts either. if something got 3x as many likes then post it again after a couple weeks or so, theres an archive button for a reason. on and respond to all of your comments

>>5094971
You don't, Instagram is for manlets and zoomers, grow some balls and make yourself a Pixiv account.

>>5097400
>What if they just like the comment without replying?
it is engagement and so is better than none.

> Reels
yeah, reels are said to be a huge bonus to your ranking, if you can make them work for you then do it. stories are also good and should be used frequently. they don't need to be as good as posts as they are temporary. stories can be good for WIP updates and just shit about having an artist life. inconsequential moments of your artist day should be documented as stories.

>>5097587
make a brand new account

>>5099595
>try to keep a post ratio of 2 arts to 1 personal photo
i have seen this in my niche. i've seen accounts which do this strictly, so their feed looks like 3 distinct columns, 1 real life, 1 a post of a type in a certain colour with content type A and 1 a post in a type of another colour with content type B. it looks good, but obviously cannot work with everyone

>>5094971
I don't know man

instagram.com/lianafinck/

>>5097400
any examples of a good reel?

>>5100278
>instagram.com/lianafinck/
>6,400+ posts
>posts everyday, sometimes multiple times a day
>makes ReLatabLe content
>very shareable and repost-able concepts
>been doing it for many, many years
Yeah, total mystery.

Lets go through the social media thread here on /ic/. It's filled with:
>anons who simply make bad work with no appeal
>no posting consistency, uploads a few times a month tops
>generic coomers & weebs
>blogs filled with low-effort, unfinished digital paintings sketches
>post nothing but "sTudiEs"
>little to no stylistic consistency, posts often look like the work of completely different artists
>takes 6-month long breaks between posting, confused why their accounts are dead when they start up again

>>5100348
I've been trying to figure that out too. A lot of people just repost their TikToks
Here's some I've seen from other artists:
>WIPs
>sketch to final product
>erasing white layer to reveal finish art
>making little films with voiceovers from anime or whatever
>(if you sell merch) packaging merch, unboxing mail, etc

Unless you have "it". I would just focus on improving and wait for the inevitable downfall of instagram.
We are overdue a new art platform.

Instagram has fucked itself silly with all this algorithm stuff. It's the least noob friendly social media.

>>5097722
If you use more than 30 your post won't show up in any tags. Nobody gives a fuck about what or how many hashtags you use. Just don't use lewd ones or spammy ones like #likeforlike #followforfollow bc shadowban. Keep it relevant.

>>5096037
Yep, that's the way to do it. But if you feel overwhelmed with 3 posts, 2 posts should be fine. And you can always just post a wip and then the full thing, don't need 3 unique pieces a week.

>>5097268
Right there with you man. IG used to be pretty fun to be honest. Then Cuckerberg bought it and sucked the life out of it.

>>5097587
How many followers do you have? You might be better off just restarting. Their shadowbans can vary. Sorry that happened to you.

>>5096040
join whatever side of the current drama of the week mostly closely aligns with your political views and whore yourself out to its constituents

16 followers in one year and two months

>>5094971
https://yamieyams.wixsite.com/website/post/getting-social-media-following-from-scratch

Costa Long helped Ethan Becker and Ahmed Aldoori grow. He knows his shit. Give it a listen.

>>5101315
I listened to this earlier, even though it's like 2 hours long. I took notes in case anyone was curious
>Step 1: (0 followers) have 30 days worth of strong content built up first, then post every day. Don't stop making content otherwise. Don't try to go viral or anything yet
>Step 2: (Building up to 10k followers) Join communities of stuff you're seriously interested, also go to cons and talk to other artists, try and become staff of cons to meet people more important
>Step 3: (50k+ followers) Now you can start researching hashtags, Google Trends, building a community. If you get popular, now people will have a lot of your content to look at, and growth should continue
Seems like the most important takeaway is to engage. Join art Discords, forums, etc and don't just throw your art into the void and hope someone gives you a like and a follow
>Q&A Stuff: Try and focus on one platform first (IG, YT, etc), then afterwards you can start bringing those followers into other places

>>5099670
pixiv is a great way to get lost in the 'too japanese for the west, too west for the japanese' sink hole and have your work go nowhere

>>5101745
basically sycra