How to win on social media

YOU KNOW THE PLATFORMS, BUT HERE’S HOW BEST TO USE THEM TO GAIN YOU WORK IN 2020

- TOM MAY

Instagram

Twitter

Linkedin

Behance

Is being on social media helping to advance your career? If the answer’s no, you’re not alone. For every designer or illustrator who gets their big break thanks to a post or tweet, there’s a dozen with nothing but sore thumbs and a tension headache. So what’s the secret to making social media work for you?

To start with, in 2020 it’s impossible to make good use of all the different social media platforms. There just aren’t enough hours in the day, and it’s much better for your productivity (and sanity) to focus on just one or two.

But which ones? Well, while everyone’s different, our research suggests there are four platforms that most Computer Arts readers will find useful at this present time. In this article, we’ll look at each in turn, explain what they have to offer, and how to make the best use of them.

Instagram

Design work that features a strong graphical element is probably best suited to appearing on Instagram. The most visually focused of all the social platforms, it’s the go-to place to see work by artists, illustrators, animators and 3D artists. On the downside, you’ll have to work around the default square image format, and you won’t be able to add links to posts unless you sign up to the new Instagram Checkout service for selling goods.

Illustrator Haley Tippman has been using Instagram to share her work since 2017, and around 95 per cent of her assignments originate from art directors finding it and contacting her – either through DMs (direct messages) or via the website she links to in her bio. Note, though, that this doesn’t always happen instantly.