As an artist who does mostly original stuff, do you have any tips on how to build a following online? Or what online platforms to frequent?
It's curious you ask me this because the majority of what I post is fanart (unless you are counting original characters created for existing franchises as original, while I do not)? I do work on original settings, but I do not share them online with the sole exception of my character Richter.
That being said I do have some...? Experience with this through my original characters as well as through worldbuilding headcanon stuff, so I'll answer nonetheless. Warning: there's some not fun parts about this I'll be detailing at the end. I prefer being honest even when stuff sucks.
My number one tip is to post the same thing over and over. As an artist posting on social media, you represent one post among the hundreds someone will be scrolling past. If you can cumulate that split second of visibility on posts of similar content, that will cement an identity in the mind of those scrolling. It can be art style, subject matter, compositions....but by making yourself "The [insert thing] Artist" you will win attention and followers. If I just post an image of an OC people don't know, they won't be curious, but if I post her 15 times they will know her, and with familiarity comes attachement. Once people are familiar with your original work, they'll engage with it, but you need to establish yourself first.
Second tip is to explain stuff. This is especially relevant on Tumblr as it allows you to actually type posts without character limits. When you're presenting a fully original creation, explaining what it is allows people not familiar to understand where you're going. Explaining doesn't need to rely on text in a caption: making clear artwork can "present" an idea by itself, like visual development and concept art. For my characters, I do comics where they explain their background, reference sheets for the design where I point out details. I don't dabble in background art much, but for a whole setting, you can draw scenes highlighting what makes your world unique, depictions of details you thought through, etc. Over the years i've followed them i've seen this wonderfully executed by @jayrockin to present a whole cast of characters, unique species, invented worlds...scroll down their blog and see!
Third tip (and this goes for anyone posting, not just original artists): make your art accessible. Nothing makes me want to follow an artist less than a media tab of reaction gifs & only seeing them post not what I followed them from. Each platform has their own way of doing things: IG has pinned posts and story collections, Tumblr has the wonderful tagging system and links, Twitter has the media tab... Make sure that anyone can immediatly see what you wanna show and have access to your whole output in that regard.
Now you might honestly ask: but what if I have a varied portfolio, not a lot of work to show and no dedicated page? Well, yeah, then its tough. There are other fun factors of posting online that mean getting attention is difficult. Generally speaking, people will only care if
your characters are fuckable and/or shippable
you post very often and on their time slot.
If you do not fulfill these three factors, it's hard. Replace the fuckable bit with "mainstream appeal and/or riffing off something existing" for whole settings. My characters with any recognition tend to be all three or rarely two, and i've been posting most of them for over a decade, and most of them are derivative. Yay! The people love slop.
If you do not have online fame as a goal and just want to connect with others, the best way I can recommend is exchanging directly with like-minded users. Most people will be chuffed to be contacted by someone who understands their vibe (provided you talk to them like a normal person). You cannot go "hey, here's my writing, become a fan", but you can ask around for communities where to post. I've had the most rewarding interactions on small Discord servers and in exchanging in replies over my work. Also, please don't befriend strangers for their attention, they'll know. This 1:1 exchange stuff can only mean something if you genuinely love their stuff too. ArtFight can also be a good one, Reddit if you're a worldbuilding yapper, any social media with comments and DMs works otherwise.
For more general sites to post on, I will say I'm really not knowledgeable. Tumblr's great for the asks feature and letting you type full posts with hyperlinks. I find that FYP based sites like Instagram and Twitter suck the most (unless your OCs are the sexy/derivative/10000drawings combo). There's niche community art sites like the furries having FurAffinity but I have no experience on that end. Itch can be great for comic books and art books but there's no proper social aspect on the site itself so most people supplement it with social media presences.
If you really want to present something detailed, like a whole book you're writing or a fully made up world, it's a good idea to have a webpage people can read through. A blog, a wiki, a personal website. Even free stuff like carrd allows to write a significant amount. This will not be looked into by the majority of users but you'll get the attention of the crowd who really cares and is likely to support your work on the long run.
And that is in my experience the thread to follow - try not to aim for the 90% with superficial involvment in the stuff you love and will bring you thousands of likes, try to aim for the nerds who understand and appreciate the vibe you'd like to bring and the genres and themes you want to explore and will sit through waiting for you to post. The internet nowadays is being built to sell stuff to normies and not for sharing art, so it's normal to struggle to get traction on social media when you're sharing art and not trying to sell stuff to normies
