How do you promote yourself?

[Falconius]

From what I gather of the guys and gals who do social media successfully is they have to maintain a constant and active presence on whatever platform it is they choose to use. This does mean focusing on one of them, not all of them, on the unfocused ones you do dumps and link to the place where your main activity is. The other thing it requires is time, the success stories seem to be successful after at least a year of doing it, if not two or more. When choosing a socail media platfomr to focus on I'd suggest the key factors are how much you yourself enjoy it, and the other is if you can use it effectively to gain attention. For instance, if you wanted to grow Youtube you'd make videos with time lapsed work, tutorials helpful hints, maybe telling stories about the place you are mapping, etc. And you'd have to post vids constantly like once a week or more. It's not exactly conducive to map illustration. And what with their insane demonetization schemes it may not be worth it (because making videos takes time and effort). If you were on Facebook, you'd have to gather a bunch of similar themed pages you like and comment and like their stuff as well as keeping your own wall very active with amusing comments and current projects and updates and all that sort of whatnot. I'm not sure Deviant Art is still conducive for this sort of thing, but I'd say if you like Instagrm try and work that system, and try to learn how to work it more effectively as you go along.

Frankly to me Social Media seems more like a PITA than it does anything else, but people obviously do have success with it.

[Bannister Nicholas]

I started with Simbi, the idea of exchanging electronically transferrable goods or services for "symbiosis points". Some authors and gamesmasters would "like" my mapping service, when I was ready to do the next map, I'd contact people in order to let them know I was available, we'd chat via message about their goal/needs, I'd draw the map, photograph it with a high end SLR camera and send them the image. Usually A3 sized.

I got a decent number of maps, practice and some followers, and I've banked around 500 simbi ($500US) that I can use for services in the site. But for me, more importantly, I have 10 'drawn' maps I can use to promote myself.

I think Patreon might be the next stage for me, but I'd need to ensure that I can pump out a map a month, or rejig their system to suit my needs. I doubt I'd make enough money to quit my day job, just pocket money to justify the time & small material costs.

A Website used to be a brochure you send people to after they're already said no, but might say yes, or want your services later..

Facebook pages are now that. They'll like it for later, so getting it out there for people to know how to contact you later is important, but like the old TV ads, it won't bring in a lot of customers, so don't pay for it.

I would probably put up some maps on Pinterest, with obvious email/links to contact you.. people will pin them, and others will find those pins as they browse, Imgur is another place that people 'browse' art and such, and they will contact you if they like what you do.

You could "use" Twitch and live stream yourself drawing maps.. that might be relaxing like bob ross.. I'd watch.. I'm trying to arrange to do that myself.

[Lars]

I think Patreon might be the next stage for me, but I'd need to ensure that I can pump out a map a month, or rejig their system to suit my needs. I doubt I'd make enough money to quit my day job, just pocket money to justify the time & small material costs.

In case you, or someone else, didn't know, you can set up your Patreon page to only charge your patrons per creation. You publish your work in a paid post (I believe that's what it's called) and then decide if the content is to be viewable by everyone, or only your patrons.

[jderek]

I think Artstation is becoming a great place for artists to promote themselves. The quality there is superb and it is a lot more professional than many of the other art sites out there. And there's YouTube which led me here.

[Sthenastia]

I'm on Facebook groups and deviantart mainly. On that sites I can show my works in all sizes. I hope that here (on cartographersguild) I will get some advices and support during creating my maps.