Hey, I hate to bug you, but do you have any tips for running an art blog? I'm getting discouraged, I've been posting regularly to my art side blog for over a year and only a handful of my 100+ followers interact with my posts. Occasionally one of my drawings will get popular, but none of the people who like and reblog it will follow me. I feel like I'm doing everything I can and I'm still getting ignored.
that’s a great question! i can really only give answers from my own experience, so i dunno how helpful they’ll be, but here are some tidbits ive learned in my 7+ years of posting art online:
- encourage engagement! giveaways are a good way to gain more traction online, once you start hitting bigger follower milestones, as well as doing those emoji/palette prompts which encourage interaction from your followers! also, look for ways to participate in online art communities, such as contests, zines, secret santas, or other fan collaboration projects! making friends within a fandom, especially artist friends, really boost your motivation, even if it’s a small group at first.
- get involved in a community! focus on a specific demographic based on your interests, since it’s less overwhelming than trying to appeal to the entirety of tumblr. for example, superheroes have been my main interest recently, so in the past year or so, ive worked to establish my presence as an fan artist within the marvel/dc fandoms. its something my followers can expect to see from me regularly, and generally, my other fan art tends to appeal to an overlapping audience (such as popular sci-fi/action series). even if you dont do fan art often, you can still make yourself known by getting involved in a community that shares your area of interest. you wanna get more readers for your sci-fi comic?? maybe do a bit of fanart for voltron, or star wars, to attract people who might eventually be interested in your original work! people gravitate towards what they’re already familiar with– which is why fanart usually gets much more attention than original work– people are already invested in those characters. it takes a little more work to get them invested in your own, but as with everything else, perseverance is key.
- be strategic about your posting schedule. if you’re posting your art at like, 4 in the morning, chances are most of your followers won’t even see it! if you do a bit of research, there are tons of graphics out there out there outlining ideal times of day to post, based on user traffic, which differs a bit on other platforms. (i believe for tumblr its between 7-10 PM, or at least that’s how it seems to me).
- have patience. i know it can get frustrating, but building an audience takes time and a LOT of experimentation. not everyone gets a “big break” by suddenly going viral overnight, in fact that kind of thing is REALLY rare, and almost impossible to predict. when i joined deviantart back in 2011, i was actively posting new art for 3 years and only gained about 150 followers over that period of time. but i kept drawing because i wasn’t discouraged about my follower count. i drew, and i still draw, because i am passionate about it, and if you are too, that passion can eventually attract people.
- experiment with different social media platforms.you may end up being active on some more than others, and find different levels of success, but it can take quite a while to get to that point. as of now, im finding the most success on instagram in terms of engagement/follower growth, while i havent seemed to gain much traction on twitter, but i know other artists who experience the exact opposite. sometimes it really just depends on what “clicks” for you.
- challenge yourself!i know it might be hard to hear, but sometimes you just have to spend more time practicing and growing as an artist in order for your audience to grow, too. study popular artists, try to identify elements of their style that make it appealing. running a “successful” art blog is a combination of knowing how to promote your work, and just having the discipline to keep at it even when you’re not growing as fast as you’d like to be. additionally, take some time to self-evaluate your goals as an artist. ask yourself “how can i challenge myself artistically? what am i already good at, and how can i use that to my advantage?”
i hope some of this was useful to you! best of luck on your art journey 💜💜
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