Social Media...Yay?! or Nay?!

Iain Davidson

Any social media will likely take significant time to develop an audience/engagement/recognition. Start now and at least you can start building that straight away. Start when you reach a certain level, and you'll be starting at square one whenever in the future that level is reached.
For it to work professionally, you have to invest time in it consistently to achieve ROI.

Is social media professionally necessary? More often than not these days. However, it depends on your goals... I use mine for personal accountability, not fussed about building an audience at the moment.

Kori Jensen

@Iain-Davidson I have enough personal accountability, however I believe that I will recieve the attention I need when I need it. Call it a belief in fate. With a big side of hard work my friend. I get what you're saying though:)

Nyrryl Cadiz

@Kori-Jensen not really. Most of the artists I know get work through their agent. Tho it’s still very helpful if you have a huge following. But building one on sites like Instagram nowadays has become almost impossible.

Kori Jensen

@Nyrryl-Cadiz exactly, doesn't it make you look bad if you don't have a following, despite not having that following?

Nyrryl Cadiz

@Kori-Jensen i don’t think so. I don’t have a huge following. After 3 years I only have 900 followers. That’s really abismal. But I do still get jobs. But then again, the jobs I get are not really big so maybe there is something to it.

Coreyartus

Jake Parker was telling us in a recent vid through CBPro that industry pros are finally learning that having a large following on social media does not translate to more sales. He used his own Kickstarters as an example. He has over 500,000 followers on Instagram, and if even 1% of those followers actually backed his kickstarters he'd have 5,000 backers. It doesn't happen. It has never happened.

In film and television, there was a trend for a while to consider casting actors in movies and other projects based on their social media following, thinking that it would enhance the project's promotion. But it doesn't prove true. Having more followers doesn't translate to more ticket sales and doesn't negate the need for promotion.

So I'm not sure whether having a large number of followers actually translates to anything relevant anymore. I'm not sure whether it's good or bad in the end.

What is effective is actual connection. Real conversations. Relevant comments. Authenticity. Increasing your numbers may actually work against you if it blows up your community and causes you to become less connected to those who are actually interested in your work.

Many artists are actually turning to Patreon and other subscription services like Ko-fi or Buy-Me-a-Coffee to put some element of their work directly into the hands of the people who like them. They are eschewing the idea that they need to generate "a profit" from Patreon and are settling for authentic interest. I know lots of artists that have developed communities around their work by simply having a single $1 membership tier and nothing else. This ensures that the people who are actually interested in your stuff are getting samples of what you're creating and are part of something more than a pretty something in their feed when/if it ever reaches them.

Some have found this more effective than a newsletter, as it's more in-depth and requires an actual commitment of interest on the part of the patron subscriber, making future endeavors more likely to be supported because the community is more substantive than simply following on a social media feed or getting a once-a-month easily deleted email.

But it takes time to grow an audience that is willing to support your efforts with $1 a month, and it takes time to sustain a community of interested followers once you have them.

And no Art Director or Agent is going to subscribe to a Patreon just to see your work. That being said, with Instagram's new algorithm priority, unless you're doing something in video they're probably not going to see your work anyway--it simply won't get pushed out to get any reach. I suspect finding new artists will become much harder on Instagram, so it will become less of a "go-to" tool for AD's to use. I suspect the age of Postcards will see a resurgence, and artists/illustrators will have to reach out to ADs & Agents instead of hoping to be discovered by them on social media.

danielerossi

@Coreyartus Excellent point! So excellent that I bookmarked your reply as a reminder to myself to keep thinking this way. I still find myself focusing too much on the numbers rather than the community. Thanks for the reminder.

Asiyah Pham

It is hard to live without Social medias

Alzamon

Anyone can use social media. Building a sizable audience that responds to you from it —or if you are into Seth Godin's books, your tribe— is HARD. Unfathomably hard. All in an environment where you're just a pawn for the almighty social network's algorithm, which decides whether you get seen out there or not. Unless you pay them cold, hard cash for sure. (for this very reason, some cartoonists I know are rather pushing their email lists, encouraging their fans to sign up in order to receive their content through email).

You can throw in a lot of content, following all the engagement rules in the book, and there still won't be any guarantees that will automatically turn into more visitors or more sales.

But at the same time, if you want some traction happening with your career, you have to put yourself out there. Be searchable, findable. You never know how people who'll love your work will come to find it. One exception though: these days, rather than keep throwing stuff into the void, I'd rather be finding, following and contacting ADs/rep agents on Internet directly — since after all, these are the connections that can make a difference for you. They're the gatekeepers to the book deals and job opportunities you really want to have. Deep down you don't want a huge number of followers, but an amount of seriously engaged followers that will likely patronize you or shop from you.

If you have a sizable amount of work to show, you can try recycling it from time to time so you don't feel pressured to come up with something new (and spend precious hours of your time you'd rather invest doing something else). Chances are few followers, if any, will notice it in the long run.

carlianne

I voted "yes" but I think it depends on what you want out of your art career. If you want to work for an employer, like in a game or animation studio I don't think it matters at all. I got gigs in that field without a social media presence and I don't look for that when I screen for potential illustration hires at my current job. For kidlit, it could help, but honestly doesn't matter a ton, it's good to post, it might help you get found, but I don't think it'll make or break your career unless your following is really large.

However, if you want to be a contract or independent artist and make a living selling prints, or your own products or commissions, even a small following with just friends and family will get you sales, and is vital! I have gotten a lot of gigs from referrals from friends to legit great jobs, as well as other contacts, even when my social media was tiny, or was just posting to friends on facebook.