Module 2 / Lesson 2.2: Share your work
Share your work
Now to the fun part! You’ve created a beautiful visual identity, you’ve got some amazing pictures of your work and you’re ready to share it all with the world. Are you wondering where to start? Well, you actually already started sharing when you created your website in the previous lesson… Now you need to start making yourself known on social media, a whole other world. I will show you how to do that without feeling trampled by anxiety. I’d like you to build your confidence, feel happy sharing what you do and grow a lovely community while doing so.
You can listen to the lesson…(give it a second to load)
Or you can read it!
Play with Instagram
As an illustrator, Instagram is your best bet when it comes to sharing your work online to get yourself known. It’s a purely visual platform and it’s perhaps already your favourite one! I know it can be a bit daunting to use this platform, but I’m going to give you a few tips to overcome your fears and enjoy sharing what you’re doing without worrying too much about what people think. If you don’t already have an account, create one using your name (if that’s what you’re using for your illustration business) and try to keep it simple. Don’t add weird characters or numbers and if your name is already taken, try adding a bullet point or an underscore. Example: @melaniejohnsson was used but @melanie.johnsson wasn’t, so I went for this option. I could also have gone for @melaniejohnsson_ if needed. In terms of the type of account you should create, I wouldn’t necessarily switch to a business account straight away if I were you. As soon as Instagram knows you’re a business, they’ll start pestering you to pay for ads and will keep your posts hidden from followers. I’ve recently switched my account to a creator account, a new thing on the platform…I haven’t noticed a difference so far from my business account, but we will see! If you really want to have a business account on Instagram, that’s fine as well. It has its benefits. Instagram business is free but it gives you insights about your followers, your posts, your stories. You can know when people look at your work, where they are from, how old they are…etc. This can be interesting but personally I’ve found it to be more of a headache. I don’t like the idea of getting obsessed with numbers (followers or likes) as it can be detrimental to our mental health.
If you already have an Instagram account (which I have a feeling you do), you don’t have to delete everything on there just to start fresh. Instagram isn’t about perfection and it will be interesting for you to look back and see how far you’ve progressed. Let’s just start with what you already have!
Build up your confidence
I see Instagram as a place for experimentation. If you scrolled all the way back on my Instagram, you would get to a point where the things I posted a few years ago looked completely different from what I do now. I evolved and refined my style over time and it is still evolving now (and hopefully it will never stop evolving as that’s what makes art so interesting). A lot of illustrators I know struggle with this idea of “style”. They don’t feel like they have their own style yet and feel antagonised by Instagram and all the perfect looking feeds. The thing is, I personally believe Instagram has helped me develop my style over the years because I never got scared of showing the work I was doing, no matter how good or bad I thought it was. It is still important to curate what you post a little bit, but don’t give yourself a hard time about it. Social media is a way for you to see your evolution and see where your interests lie. I love looking back to see what shapes, colours or things I was into two years ago and sometimes cringe at some weird lettering or illustration. But this is good! This means we all change, evolve and get better at what we do and I think using social media as a platform to test, try and experiment is great. The need to share can also sometimes push us to create more, which will only make us better. There is no secret, the more work you produce, the better your work will become. So, don’t worry about having a “style” yet, you will develop it over time. It doesn’t matter if your feed doesn’t look perfect from day one (whatever that means), what matters is that you are posting the stuff you’re making, consistently and with love. Over time, you’ll build confidence in your own taste as well and you will stop worrying about the likes and the follows. Try to do it for yourself. Post what you love and see it as your own gallery of work that YOU love. I promise you that people will flock to you once they see you’re in love with what you’re doing (and there is absolutely no shame in that).
Nurture your feed
Your Instagram feed shouldn’t be perfect… But it doesn’t mean you can’t make it look good! As for everything else, it’s important to be consistent in the way you share. You have to get your work out there, so try to post at least daily or every other day. Of course, this means you will have to plan what you’re posting, otherwise you’ll end up stressing out about it daily, which isn’t what we want. I don’t want you to feel anxious about sharing your work. It should be fun, exciting and rewarding to see the work you produce out in the wild. There are a few apps out there (The Preview App, Unum, Mosaico) which can help you plan what you want to post. I personally use a Photoshop file I created with each tile being a smart object, which means I can play around with artworks in them.
It’s nice to make your feed visually appealing when someone lands on your page. Try to group your work to create harmonious colour palettes or themes. Have fun with it! If you love it, people will too. Something you need to be using as well are hashtags. You need them because they facilitate people finding your work. Don’t add them in your caption, just create a new comment under your post with hashtags as soon as you shared your post (you need to do it then and not later!). You can use however many you like. Again, they are very useful tools for people to find you. So for instance, if you just shared a photo of you painting, you could use the following hashtags #illustration #painting #behindthescenes #artist #gouache #artiststudio #workinprogress #colours … You actually need to be quite specific, so always add hashtags to describe what you’re sharing.
Grow a community
To grow a community online, you have to make your values as a person and as an illustrator shine through your work. That’s how you’ll find your people. You want people to immediately know what you’re about. They need to know what they’re going to get by following you. Is it inspiration? Food for thought? Tips? Incentives to act? It’s also important that you stick to your guns. Post the things you love and care about and don’t worry about the likes and the follows. Don’t delete stuff because it’s not doing “well enough”. Post things you believe in and keep going, no matter what the response is. Also, make a point to interact with your community, however small it is! Always try your best to answer your DMs - except for those that clearly haven’t read anything about you - but don’t give yourself a hard time if you can’t answer to all of them when things get a little crazy. I personally think that if someone really wants advice or needs my help, they will email me. Email is always a better option for serious requests and you can definitely let your followers know, no matter how many you have. Again, when it comes to this, it’s about quality over quantity. There’s no point in having thousands and thousands of followers if they aren’t engaging with you and your work. A small, tight community is worth way more…and will bring you more joy.
Go above and beyond
Once you’ve grown a community, no matter how big or small, you have to nurture it. Let’s look at some of my favourite ways to give back to my followers that you can use too, because let’s be honest, it’s amazing to have people cheer you on, love and share your work and follow along your journey! The tips below could also help you gain more followers, if that’s what you’re looking for right now.
•Giveaways: Giveaways are a great way to give back while spreading joy through your work. You could give away a few original drawings, prints, greeting cards, stickers…whatever you want! To make sure you get some engagement under your giveaway post, ask people to follow you, to like the post and comment something specific (it could be them telling you where they’d put the stickers or who they would love to gift the print to…etc). Giveaways are even more fun if you team up with other brands or creators!
•Freebies: I absolutely LOVE freebies and so do my followers. They are basically artworks that you give away for free for a specific usage only. For instance, I create fun and colourful phone and desktop backgrounds that anyone can download for free on my website. People are only allowed to use them for that usage though, not for anything else! When you create and share freebies, you’re not giving your copyright away, everything remains yours and yours only. Other freebies ideas could be at-home printable stickers, notepads, motivational quotes, present tags… The sky is the limit. Just think about what people who follow you might enjoy and do it! I know you’re not getting any money from freebies, but you’re getting loyal followers that will really appreciate it and trust you to create beautiful things. When you do start selling things and promote them on social media, they’ll be here for it.
•Q&As: Although they may seem daunting, Q&As on Instagram are great. I know I love reading them! You can do them easily in your Stories… You may or may not get a lot of questions but I think it’s lovely for illustrators to be open about their process and their story. Let people ask the questions they want to ask you and answer them as truthfully as possible! Honesty will grow and nurture your community. Nobody wants to see or hear perfection, they want to know the nitty gritty.
•Blog posts: Sharing is caring. Don’t be afraid to share what you know. You don’t have to spill all your secrets if you don’t want to but sharing some of your tips and tricks for free can be very nice. I have written a lot of blog posts in the past sharing my process and ideas. I know a lot of those entries have helped and motivated people and that’s always the best feeling!
My best Instagram tips
•Keep your feed bright & light
•Share consistently (daily or every other day)
•Alternate content on your feed to keep it fun: drawing, behind the scene, product shot, head shot, quote…
•Don’t overthink the likes…don’t delete your post because it’s not doing “well”. Trust your gut and what YOU love
•Have a social media break on the weekends.