What Platform Works for You as an Artist?

Have you noticed, Instagram has changed drastically recently. It is no longer the artist friendly pretty pictures that it started out as without being ladened with advertising. It was good for identity and building a following. Yes, there are somethings there that entertain but it is not attracting a following just a bunch of clicks. Before there was room to grow and felt less competitive. The amount of work involved now is insane. 

Today it is so much more like TicToc and that was never for me. Tic Toc has so much access to your key strokes and all your files. It is also owned by a Chinese company. That means they can sell your information without your knowledge and/or consent. I like to keep better control than that. 

There are a few things to consider when you are making platform decisions:

Determining which platform to invest time in, depends on a number of factors…

What is your purpose for being on the app?

Where is your community or audience?

Which apps do you enjoy being on and are willing to invest time in?

Which app plays to your strengths?

One big advantage is Facebook has messenger and marketplace. Instagram is behaving like it is just trying to hang on. I am not sure what will happen to these two apps when all the older viewers slow down with social media. 

Twitter is not an app that I use much. Recently it is allowing image sharing but it is about the chatter and feels like the wrong mix for me. 

These are all short form content and might possibly bring people to your website or YouTube but your content may no longer be being served up to your followers. The algorithm has the last say.

I think you are better off picking a platform and not just pushing out content to every app out there. 

Pinterest is one I need to explore more. Pins can be coming from my website and can drive traffic but it is someone else doing the pinning and it can be a mess. Tailwind is a way to schedule pins and I need to check it out.

YouTube takes a lot of time and has a big learning curve but I still feel it is worth the effort. It is not where you are going to make money from creating but it is where I build my community. I think there is a group of people who want to be part of a community and I spend the money myself for a premium subscription so I don’t deal with commercials. 

Recently, I decided to suspend commercials on my channel because I was more interested in growing a community of like minded artistic friends. 

There are other platforms to explore but for now, I am still working on what I have created and building community. I want to share but the safest place is still my own site.

What are your thought? What works for you? Do you have a news letter and web site? Is there a better way? I would be interested in your thoughts.