In this blog post I’m going to show you how social media algorithms keep some artists stuck at the bottom while other artists seem to rise to the top.
Many people think that Social Media Algorithms are hiding their art, which is true to some degree. However, if your art isn’t that good, it’s not going to rise to the top either.
Okay, so before we get into this blog, I want to emphasise that building an audience is not the end-goal of your art career. Instead, it’s a means by which you can support yourself as an artist while also providing value for community.
Rest assured you don’t have to earn a certain amount of money from your art to be successful as an artist. Just do what you love and care about, and anything that flows from that will give you a meaningful life.
Life and growing an audience is just one method that you can use to help you develop the kind of lifestyle you want. It’s tough to stand out, so remember to keep that as the focus throughout all this.
If you feel like nothing’s working and it’s hard to get your work in front of new people, it helps to know your enemy. And one of the most important things about your enemy is understanding how they make decisions. Let’s work on how we can beat the system we’re up against together. I’ve found that the more I understand about what our competition is doing, the easier it is to win my own battles.
If you want to grow your audience, you need to master social media. These steps will help you master each platform so that you can receive more exposure and gain more fans. The principles in this blog apply to every social media channel, so you can apply them uniformly.
If you’re struggling to grow your audience, there’s a specific reason: You’re not engaging with your fans enough. The algorithm punishes lack of engagement. That’s why it’s crucial to engage your fans and make them feel like they own everything. If you don’t spend any time engaging with your audience, they’re less likely to follow you.
Every social media platform promotes content that is popular with other users. The more popular content you produce, the more you will be promoted by the platform, and therefore the more you can expect to earn off of that platform.
If you don’t push your content into the feeds and home pages of as many people as possible, you will sink into obscurity. This is because the number one reason artists don’t gain traction on social media is that they don’t get enough engagement. The algorithm punishes those who post and pray. There is a misconception in the art community that if a piece of content gets a lot of engagement, it means the content was good.
Just because there are people who become famous solely based on their skill level doesn’t mean that you can just post speed paint videos and slap some music on it without doing anything else.
Promoting your social media accounts is important because there are two ways to grow them: one, provide value to others, and two, pay for an ad. Promoting your social media accounts is not just about posting your work. If you want followers on social media, you need to give value to people. Posting things that are good enough for “good enough” is better than posting random content.
People are busy. Just like you, they are selective about where they place their time and attention. Make your content relevant to people by focusing on a niche – an audience that has a certain set of problems needs wants hopes and desires. If you want to create content that people are interested in, your best bet is to serve a niche. A niche is a group of people who have the same problems, needs, wants, hopes, and desires.
When you focus on making content for a specific type of person, the more you make the better they get to know you and the more they trust that whenever you say something, it’s going to be interesting or useful. As a content creator, it’s especially important for you to understand and identify your audience’s context and interests.
Here’s what I’ve learned: if you want to get more people to support your art, you need to give them something they can’t find elsewhere. If you want to get people to pay attention to what you have to say, make sure you’re also considering what they have to say. This is the secret I found out. People will support you if you support them first. You make them feel special and they will want to see your dreams come true.
I noticed a lot of my friends in the art community were having trouble getting art commissions.
People are not looking at your subscriber count or your follower count. They are looking at the quality of the relationships you build with them. People care a lot about how much you care. It’s important to build a community around your brand, and once you have that community, the brand will have an intrinsic value, which is going to be reflected in revenues.
Artists who only want to make friends online, or artists who want more followers, are only looking for the superficial relationships that bring fast, surface level connections. These artists aren’t going to serve you in the long run. The algorithm rewards friendship. Therefore, if you want to get attention on social media, you have to build relationships with your followers.
The algorithms reward people who create a lot of content and share it with a lot of people.
If you build an online community around your work, rather than just a following, you’ll be able to help more people, not just promote your work. It’s not about making friends for the sake of getting them to become followers or getting engagement. One of the most important skills to have as a writer is to be able to connect with people on a deep level.
The algorithm prefers predictable content; the more consistent your updates, the more often you post, and the more your posts resemble other popular content, the higher you will rank.
You should make your social media presence more human to be noticed by the algorithm.
It’s important to have good presentation, but the algorithm does not reward good presentation for its own sake, but rather it rewards people whose art people find aesthetically pleasing. Just because a platform rewards good presentation in the form of more likes, doesn’t mean that you need to pay a lot of money to look good. In fact, you don’t need to invest in your artwork at all to achieve success.
Now obviously if you’re not an artist it’s important for you to at least present yourself in the most flattering way possible. Good presentation is often rewarded by Algorithms.
Sketches are going to be with you forever because they’re literally the foundation of your audience, but you have to be active enough to engage with other people and start to lay that foundation. If you can draw a stick figure, you have a basic skill that many people lack. By posting your art online, you will be challenged to get better and continue improving.
Remember that no matter what you draw, you’re opening yourself to people’s judgment. Although it might seem like nothing, humans tend to give their opinions on things they see. If not specifically directed at them, this may be directed toward you indirectly;
If you want your channel to be successful, it’s important to make sure your channel art is nice and high-quality. Just like with anything else, the more effort you put into something, the better it will be.
Here’s an example:Look at artists that don’t have great lines or anatomy, but still manage to impress you with their colors and composition. Maybe you can find a way to apply ideas from their work, in a way that works for you.
If you’re not a professional at digital painting, maybe you should stick with simple cell shading. Because it’s probably going to look cleaner and more professional if your line art is really bad or you have really bad anatomy.
If you’re a newbie, your first step is to figure out what works for a lot of artists.
If you want to become a better artist, look at other artists and compare your work to theirs.
The algorithm rewards people who are willing to try new things.
If you want to stand out on Instagram, you need to learn from people who are getting results, rather than trying to figure things out alone.
If you’ve been working on social media for years and haven’t built much of an audience, then it’s time to pivot your strategy to bring you closer to that end result.
If you want to gain an audience, never give up. Don’t let any obstacles get in your way. Whether you change the methods you’re using, or if you decide to make a brand new pivot and do something else altogether, never give up
The algorithm is still hiding your art, but it’s not random. It’s based on the engagement of others. The more engaging your content, the better your reach will become.
You can never judge your own art based on your initial performance. As the algorithm kept improving I started thinking about my own work like that of others. What someone has done that I could emulate? When I want to reach new audiences, I think about talented artists who are able to beat the odds and make a living off of their art.
Your follower count isn’t as important as the impact you can have on people’s lives. The more of a positive impact you can have on people, the bigger your audience will grow. So you can be successful as an artist, you need to align with those people, and if you want to become friends with them. If you seek to learn from them and share your gift with the world, you can have success.