It’s pretty common knowledge these days that social media is a vital aspect in getting your work out there, promoting it, forming connections, finding a niche and all that fun stuff. That’s what the lecture covered this week, and it explored techniques for self promotion, professionalism, popularity and portfolios.
Out of the objectives in the lecture I can fulfill with social media, valuable feedback, networking, and building/joining a community are the most relevant to me currently, I feel. I have a DeviantArt and Tumblr account which cover the above goals fairly well, but I also see the benefit in joining Twitter and Polycount, as well as smaller art and animation forums. I only have a tiny following right now of mostly people I know from school, so I have to work on boosting that, as much as I like the coziness of my quiet little corner of the internet! The biggest hurdle for me is a lack of community engagement. I’ve grown into the habit of posting my own work but not going out of my way to connect with others or groups, so that’s something I’ll definitely have to get used to. There’s always room for improving my skills as well!
Lisa from Lachri Fine art on Youtube has a many videos with tips on using social media as a platform for art. In this video she explains ways you can expand your audience.
I currently use an alias because I am more comfortable with using that in web spaces that are completely public, which is basically everywhere except Facebook, where I at least have some control of who sees my posts. I don’t really think using an alias will affect my professional identity all that much, seeing as there are many professional artists and animators that do the same, though I’ll attach my name to it down the line if I feel the need. I also don’t really see the point of creating separate accounts for projects. I’d rather hear subjective accounts from the creators themselves rather than the impersonal updates that tend to come from project or company specific accounts.
In regards to professionalism and popularity, I’ve been lurking on the internet for long enough that so far I’ve been able learn from others mistakes before creating them myself, thankfully.
I’m looking forward to setting up a portfolio! Right now it will just scream ‘amateur’ but it’ll be good to have ready when my work is of a quality worth hiring.
And since this is about self promotion, I guess I better get some practice in! Here’s my DeviantArt and Tumblr and some art:
Dena, C. (2015). Week 6: Social Media and Your Career Self-Directed Practitioners Retrieved from: https://medium.com/self-directed-practitioners/week-6-social-media-and-your-career-21ec52b2b003
Clough, L. (2015). 5 ways to get more followers for your art on social media - w/ Lachri. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/E2odgLkxZA4
CAYEL 