/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

For further context her page has five drawings on it.

>>4181924
try sharing a bit of yourself in the post with the drawing. even if its bs.

>>4181927
>>4181924
I’m going to follow and like her shit now just for spite

>>4181932
Like a little "meet the artist" section?

>>4181934
I'm already following her.
I'm not bitter I'm just confused.
I just want to know how to boost my numbers so I can see some traction on print sales maybe.

>>4181924
>girl
well there ya go

My doodles during lunch break on post-it notes, got more likes than that, lord knows why? Getting more than a hundred notes is nothing.

Recognize that numbers this small are so noisy that they don't represent anything. There's no "reason" that this person got 43 likes and you only got like 12 or whatever, you're both equally irrelevant. Don't compare yourself to the dregs, shoot for something meaningful.

For context: I've grown my Instagram to around 7600 followers and things have started to pick up recently, most of my latest posts have gotten 1k+ likes and I've been averaging 50-90 followers a day. Nothing insane, but I've learned a thing or two along the way.

- timing is crucial. If you have a business/creator account you can see when your followers are most active, post around those times. I try to post at 9am or 10am PST, which also happens to be the best time to post *in general* (west coast is waking up/fucking around early at work, east coast is on lunch break, tends to be peak traffic)

- hashtags! You have a limit of 30, but I found that around 15 seems to boost your posts more. Your goal is to show up in the first 9-15 "Top Posts" of as many hastags as possible. How? Pick a hashtag and look at those top 9-15 posts. How many likes do they have, and how long ago were they posted? Do they have a few thousand likes? Ok, do *your* posts get a few thousand likes? If no, then don't use that hashtag, no one is gonna see your shit. Find less popular hastags that you can more easily show up in the top posts for. Not as many people will be browsing it, but at least those who do will see your stuff. You can use some hashtag apps to help you find these tags, or just start with a hashtag that describes your work and get increasingly more specific (instead of #art go with #sketchbookart, or #pencilsketchbookart, instead of #watercolor go with #watercolorlandscaoepainting, etc). Also, I know I said not to use popular hashtags, but I lied. DO use some, because the sheer amount of people browsing through mega popular ones mean some of them *will* see your post in the "Recent" tab, and you'll get some likes from bots and shit, but ideally you should use 5 popular hashtags, and 10 that you may be able to get the top spot for.

- like random people's stuff. Just pick a hashtag you use, go through the recent posts, and like a bunch of them. Some will return the favor, some may even follow you. It's a win win for everyone.

- post on your story. Not only is it a great way to show your personality (I post all sorts of stupid shit on mine, photos of my cat, memes, whatever), but if you do it often (like, 8+ times a day) your story will be in front of everyone else's on your followers' feed more often, and they'll be constantly reminded you exist.

- reply to stories and comment on people's posts. I can't tell you how many people I've become (Instagram) friends with because I just replied to their story, asked a question, or because they did the same with me. One message sparks a conversation and next thing you know you got a new acquaintance. Even people with way more followers than me (50k+) ended up following me and we ended up becoming friends just because we clicked via DM.

- be consistent. Be consistent with your posting schedule (I've been posting daily, which really helps A TON, but if you can only do every other day, or every 3 days, at least stick to that schedule), and be consistent with your style or at least subject matter. My style was all over the place because I was trying all sorts of things, my feed looked like a mess, and people didn't follow because they didn't know what to expect. Then I started focusing on environments, and suddenly I started getting a lot more attention from people who actually knew they could expect environments from me. It's tough, but find your niche and stick with it. Again, consistency can come from style, subject matter, or even how you present your work (you could draw all sorts of subjects, but if you consistently post them in the form of sketchbook doodles, THAT'S consistency, and that's good).

- be personable. Don't pretend to be someone you're not, crack a joke, show your personality, say what's on your mind (within reason lol), show your followers who you are. I started getting way more comments and DMs as soon as I switched from a random drawing as a profile picture, to an actual photo of me. People know I'm a real person, and they find it easier to communicate with me.

- if you can, join popular challenges like #DTIYS, #artVSartist, etc, they can really help

That's about it, being good isn't nearly as important, believe me.

>>4181924
>43 likes
My fucking bowl of oatmeal I posted a week ago has more than that. You have to be truly fucking up if 43 likes is alot to you.