A key focus of my blog is Career Discussions. If you’re a ‘creative person, you may have a different set of career considerations than a non-creative person. A key consideration is getting your work noticed. The following contributed post is entitled, Strategies for Getting Your Creative Work Noticed.
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If you’re someone who’s pursuing a creative career and have always been in touch with your creative side, you’ll know how challenging it can sometimes be for you to get the recognition you feel your creative work deserves. There are no shortcuts or easy answers when it comes to getting your creative work noticed.
Nevertheless, there are some strategies you can use to ensure you get as many eyes as possible on your work, or ears if you’re creating music. There are lots of ways to get noticed and a lot of it comes down to luck. But as they say, you create your own luck. We’re going to talk about how to do that right now, so read on to find out more.
Create a Professional Website for Yourself
First of all, you might want to consider setting up a professional website that everyone who might be interested in finding out more about your work can visit. It’s never been easier to create and set up your own website thanks to WordPress and Wix. You can follow the simple steps and then create your portfolio on that website. Just make sure you’re regularly linking to it from social media and wherever else you talk about your work online. It’s a must for artists these days.
Maintain High Standards and Create Work Worth Noticing
If you want your work to get noticed, you need to accept the fact that it’s important to keep standards high in terms of what you’re creating. Maintaining high standards isn’t always easy, but if you want to get noticed and you want your work to be picked up by people who are influential in your industry, you need to be constantly developing and improving as an artist. That’s what people expect to see, and if you’re not creating work that’s worth noticing, the truth is it probably won’t be noticed.
Don’t be Afraid to Make Noise About Your Work
There’s nothing wrong with talking about your work and making a noise about it. This is something that people too often shy away from but that shouldn’t be the case. That doesn’t mean you have to boast about the work you’re doing, but there’s a difference between being boastful and being proud of what you’re doing and wanting to share it with the world. If you shy away from attention and avoid talking about what you’re creating, people won’t take any notice of it.
Don’t Assume Paid Ads Offer All the Answers
Many people think they can set up a bunch of paid ads online and that these will then drive the traffic to your site or store that you’re looking for. It’s a nice idea, and paid ads certainly can have a place in your wider strategy, but this alone is not going to offer you all the answers. You can’t pay your way to attention because it just doesn’t work like that, and nor should it. So, sure, use ads if you want to, but don’t discount the other things discussed in this guide.
Find the Niche Platforms That Are Most Relevant to What You Do
It’s important to find platforms that allow you to show off or sell your work. After all, monetizing your creative work is certainly a legitimate aim too and it’s what many creative people want to do. Places like Distrokid are often used by artists to distribute their music to audiences. And there are similar niche marketplaces and platforms that you can make use of no matter what kind of creative work you do; you just need to find the one that’s right for you.
Create a Brand Around Your Work and Online Presence
If you can create an entire brand around yourself as an artist and your work, it’ll serve you well when it comes to getting more attention for your work. Your online presence should be coherent and consistent so people know what to expect from you. Your brand should be organic and genuine and true to the real you. If you can achieve that, you’ll have a much greater chance of drawing people in as a result of them being interested in you and your brand.
Be Open and Communicative with Your Audience
It’s important to be consistent and communicative with your audience if you want to keep them interested in what you’re doing. If you come across as distant and you don’t really offer any real communication to your audience via social media platforms, that’s probably not going to be great for you and your chances of receiving more attention. Be sure to be as open as you can be and talk to people directly.
Make Contacts Within Your Niche
Making contacts within your particular niche and making friends with the people who might be able to give you a leg up in your career is really important. In truth, it’s something that’s always been important in the art world. If you want to move forward, you need to know the right people and have the right professionals by your side who can deliver the experience and knowledge that you might be missing.
Make Use of Competitions and Contests
If there are competitions and contests for young and aspiring artists, you should make the most of these whenever you find them. You might think your chances of winning are low, but you never know until you give it a try. You might end up surprising yourself with how well you do. And you certainly won’t have people’s attention or win any awards if you’re not even taking part and showing up, so try to remember that.
Getting your work noticed as a creative person isn’t always easy. There are many challenges you’ll need to overcome on the way towards getting your work noticed, but if you keep at it and push yourself forward, you’ll eventually get the exposure your work deserves. Giving up early certainly isn’t the answer.
