Get Out of Your Head, and Get Your Work Out Into The World.
Vol. 022
The value of promoting your graphic design work
Out of your head and into the world: 5 tips and reminders to help you get your work in front of prospective clients so that you can start landing more creative work.
A quick bite:
Posting your work or promoting your creative business on social media can feel incredibly daunting. In fact, sometimes it can be downright paralyzing! But we have to remember — social media is a tool, not an obstacle. Below are 5 tips and reminders to help you get in the habit of posting your work and getting you closer to landing your dream clients.
Continue reading below…
Getting noticed takes a lot of work. Whether you’re a graphic designer, an illustrator or a mural painter… the competition is endless.
I think there’s an incorrect perception that as a creative the best thing you can do for your career is get better at your craft. There’s this notion that through simply getting better and posting a few times on Instagram that you’ll get seen and hired by your dream clients, companies, or brands.
I’m here to tell ya that 98% of us will have to do more than just make work, post a few times, land clients, and repeat. I myself have been at this consistently for almost 6 years now. Not to mention that outside of social media marketing, I absolutely bust ass to network, get my work in front of the right people, and practice relentlessly.
But, sometimes marketing yourself on social media as an artist (let alone doing so consistently) can feel incredibly daunting. There’s so much that you could do — how are you supposed to know where to even start?!
Below are 5 common concerns I hear from other graphic designers, studio owners, painters and muralists alike. I’ve listed out some of my personal responses to those concerns in the form of tips and reminders to help you get past the thought of promoting and marketing your creative work, and get you into the habit of doing so.
The hesitation: “I don’t have a style yet, and I don’t know what to say when I post my work.”
You’ll find your voice and style through the process.
I’ve talked to numerous graphic designers and illustrators who get hung up on posting their work because they don’t know what content to post or what to talk about the caption.
The old phrase “practice makes perfect” couldn’t apply more here. Finding your creative voice and style is less of a destination as much as it is an ever-evolving journey.
Think of it like this: let’s say that as a graphic designer, you want to get more clients. If you post your work regularly on various platforms (Instagram, Dribbble, LinkedIn, Facebook, Behance, whatever!) you will be regularly talking about that work to an audience. You will begin to regularly explain what you liked / disliked about the process of creating that work. You will begin to get past the fear of putting yourself out there. With time, not only will the work get better, but you’ll be better at talking about that work—and i’m here to tell ya from experience, the ability to talk about the ideas, process and strategy of your branding design work is just about as important as the work itself.
As psychologist Dean Simpson notes, “Quality is a probabilistic function of quantity” (Ref. Shawnblanc.net) It is only through prolific output that that output will become good.
The hesitation: “It’s a lot of work and effort to consistently post work on social media, and I don’t think the time spent doing so is worth it.”
Someones always watching.
Not only does constantly putting yourself out there help you find your creative voice and the work that you love to create, but you’re far more likely to be “discovered” by a business, agency or creative director if you’re posting your creative work more frequently.
In a world where business is essentially all done online, you never know who’s watching. Even with 50 followers on a social media account, one of those individuals might need your services, but won’t really realize it until they see something that aligns with their needs. Or maybe one of those 50 people has a friend in need of a graphic designer to design a logo and brand identity system. If you’re regularly posting that type of work, this person will perceive you as a professional, and may recommend you for the opportunity.
Up until recently, I rarely used LinkedIn. I then landed a $24,000 branding project from my LinkedIn 🤯. I was speechless. I also had the revelation that if this can happen to me on LinkedIn, it can happen to anyone anywhere. Sometimes you’re only one post away from landing your next dream project, but you’ll never know unless you post.
The quote “quality is a probabilistic function of quantity” also relates to incoming work. If you put a lot of work out into the world for a long time, it’s far more likely that eventually you’ll land that dream project.
Don’t allow the posting itself to become a burden. You don’t need to create content just for the sake of posting. Document your process, your work, and your experience, and talk about that.
The hesitation: “I always hate my work a few weeks after posting.”
People always forget.
As noted above, we’re in a world of over stimulation and countless ads. According to Clario, the average person is exposed to 5000 ads each day. Insane! You’ll either need to post the best logo design people have seen in years or some of the most compelling graphic design work people have seen in years in order for them to remember for any period of time. It’s better to be in front of people frequently — and thus top of mind — than to post once a month and try and knock people’s socks off with each post.
In an over saturated creative industry, being top of mind can be everything.
Don’t put too much pressure on what you’re posting, how you’re promoting, or how you market yourself or your creative business. You’re playing the long game, and it is a learning process that can only be figured out through doing.
The hesitation: “I always forget to post” or “posting my work feels like a burden and an inconvenience”
Develop some sort of routine.
When something becomes a routine for long enough, it then becomes a habit. If you’re gonna make a habit of anything, promoting your creative work is one of the best things you could be doing.
Start small.
If posting your work or promoting freelance creative business feels like a burden, start out by creating some sort of formal schedule or routine. Maybe you tell yourself that every Sunday you’ll draft 3 Instagram posts and copy and you’ll post them at 9am every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
A combination of having a routine as well as batching your social media posts not only makes it easier, but is a more efficient use of your time.
The hesitation: “My works not good enough to post.”
Avoid perfectionism at all costs.
I’ve talked about how I feel about perfectionism when it comes to creative output. I truly believe it is you just getting in your own way. Nobody needs perfect, nobody can achieve perfect, and nobody sees perfect. The only thing that “perfectionism” does is stroke your own ego.
I’ll preach it till the day I die: done is better than perfect. You’re far better off getting something out there and moving on than you were perfecting something before it’s out there. So, stop overthinking it!
You must get in the habit of regularly producing, talking about, and posting your work, otherwise it will forever feel scary and weird. Practice makes perfect refers to more than just your graphic design work, but to your presentation, your ability to network, your ability to work quickly, and so much more. The more you do anything, the less scary it’s gonna feel.
To wrap this up, and again negate any of your fears (or excuses!):
“I don’t have a style, I don’t know what to post, or I don’t know what to say!”
You will find a style, learn what you like to post and how to talk about your work with time. Process makes perfect.
“It’s not worth the time to post.”
Sometimes you’re just one post away from your dream project or your big break.
“I posted for awhile and never got any traction, so I stopped.”
Unfortunately, people are so over-bombarded with content and info that they will likely forget whatever you do or say unless it’s extremely relevant or impactful. That not only relieves the pressure of posting, but it reiterates the importance of consistency and staying top of mind.
“It feels to daunting to post — I don’t know what to post, when to post, or where to post.”
It doesn’t need to be an arduous task or a big deal. Post about your process and where you’re currently at in your creative journey and process. “Ready, Fire, Aim”: Just start doing it, and then figure out how to adjust or adapt your process moving forward.
“My logo designs (paintings, illustrations, etc.) aren’t good enough to post”
Nobody is ever as good as they want to be. Striving to be better as a graphic designer or artist is an amazing goal, so long as that desire doesn’t prevent you from promoting the work you’re currently producing or where you’re currently at. Get out of your own way.
I think we all have a love/hate relationship with posting work on social media. Sometimes it’s great and comes super naturally. And others, it’s miserable, draining, and feels helpless. However, if you force yourself into a habit of regular social media marketing, you’ll soon find that audiences, clients, engagement and creative work will all start to flow a lot more consistently.
