I previously made a guide with some tips for promoting art but it's been a while so I felt it needed some updates! The crypto art community on twitter is huge and highly active, probably the #1 place on the internet where artists and collectors converge and find each other. There is a massive potential there so let's get started!
Personally I have observed that the artists who spend time thoughtfully promoting on twitter have done the best at selling their NFTs. Obviously there is more to it than that but I think this is a powerful component that many are missing out on.
Some tips for using twitter to your advantage
Insert the image/video/gif directly into the tweet!
For content that has words as the main focus (news, jokes, thoughts etc.) this doesn't really matter, but you are showing off your art so it is worth it to take that extra step of clicking the X on the thumbnail and and dragging the image in!
Example:
Sometimes twitter doesn't even show the thumbnail:
...and when it does the image is a bit degraded :0
VS dropping the image in:
Consider that twitter is a short form platform and people have a short attention span and many won't click through the link. But if they see some nice art they may retweet and follow you, think long term :)
Another reason to add the image directly is for quote tweets, if someone quote tweets you and there is only a thumbnail the image disappears!
Example
Original tweet:
My quote tweet:
If you want your art to have further reach and visibility always do this!
Add useful information but keep it clean
Here is a good example of a great tweet by @anafae !
Has a link to the gallery and a few images inserted in the post, nicely spaced and easy on the eyes:
Another great one by @bujubuneng, he inserted the video, tagged the platform it's on and gave a short and sweet description of the art:
Promote yourself but also promote others!
Of course the goal is to get your art visible to as many people as possible but supporting other artists and building a network is one of the best ways to achieve that. If you want others to support you, you should support them, simple as that :D
Keep in mind that many artists are collectors too!
Sharing and commenting on other peoples art is a great way to meet new artists, join groups, get invited to exhibits, collabs and much more.
Hype 0_0
Some people hate the hype aspect of crypto art but it's undeniable that it can get people excited and interested in projects.
A few ways you can create hype:
Share sneak peeks or WIP images!
Make yourself some fun graphics to tease upcoming art!
I made this one for my birthday giveaway:
- Controversial: Giveaways or trading art!
Some people are against giveaways because it means creating less scarcity of your art but some people do quite well using this approach, and it isn't always about the money! Sometimes it's fun to get your art into the wallets of people who can't afford it!
Don't be an annoying spammer / shiller
The crypto art space has had a lot of hype and many new people joining over the last few months. his seems to have brought with it a lot of terrible etiquette and spamming!
Don't DM people asking them to buy your art unless they ask you to
On discord keep art promotions in appropriate rooms, dropping a link in the middle of chat where people are talking and running off is very rude
Don't shill your art on other peoples art tweets unless they ask, you will probably get muted
Don't randomly tag a bunch of accounts unless there is some kind of plan agreement. *I am saying this with love but at some point it seems that everyone making a HIVE or NFT Showroom tweet was tagging me personally and I love you all but it just clogs my mentions and I can't find relevant things I need to respond to 😂
I have seen other artists/collectors get annoyed when they are tagged for no specific reason and ask to be untagged so please be thoughtful and respectful.
If you are tweeting a link to your NFT definitely DO tag the platform, ie. @nftshowroom, @rarible, etc.!
Community
This has been said a million times but community matters.
If you are barely engaged in a community they will barely engage you and that's just facts. This is true for hive blogging, selling crypto art and basically everything else online. Getting involved in community events or even creating some yourself will open up opportunities you never expected :D
We have over 1k artists on NFT Showroom and I have made a twitter list of NFTSR artists but still have a hard time finding people to retweet sometimes. Imagine how viral it would be if even a third of us tweeted regularly ;)
Final thoughts
There's a lot of art out there, making sales isn't easy. According to some metrics there have been less NFT sales recently and more artists creating NFTs. My best advice here is to keep creating, refine your craft, make art because you love it and can't stop! Stay engaged and persistent but be flexible in your approach and most of all have fun!
To follow on twitter, personal account, Alien Community account <3
I loved this post, every tip is well thought out and accurate, I have work to do... thank you very much for sharing it...😉
I'm happy you found it helpful!
You're right, it's worth a million hive Upvotes
Fantastic article, and very comprehensive. Thanks for going into the etiquette side of things too. Sometimes different platforms have different nuances and they can be opaque at first glance (e.g. I'm new to Discord).
I can tell you the one rule about discord is don't tag @ everyone lol, most discords have it disabled except for mods but some don't and it can ping thousands of people and you will get pitchforked quick LOL!
Ha! I'll make a mental note!
Wow thank you so much @juliakponsford. This post is exactly what I need to read. I didn't know the stuff with the images, now I know how make a better presentation of my art in Twitter 💛.
PD: is a shame that I didn't know about your birthday giveaway. Your art is amazing. Well one day I will buy one 😊
Yeah the image thing is made really badly, it should really show with a quote tweet but it doesn't!
🙈
A great post, with some good tips. I'll give them a go. thanks for taking the time to think of others, I appreciate this.
Great advice, thank you! Reblogging so I can read through this again later I need all the advice I can get! I am assuming you don’t want us to tag your personal Twitter but tagging @nftshowroom is ok?
Yeah for sure if it's on showroom always tag it! I get people tagging me personally in all sorts of stuff like tweeting blog posts etc. Lol
Awesome info
Shared and like always very cool art
Pukugretings
Great post, that's very helpful!
Especially the part where you say "Think long term".
Life on Twitter is so fast and trends change almost daily. It's easy to get the feeling that I have to do this or that to be successful. But I try to tell myself that I can do everything in my own pace and my own style, because I'm in the space for the long run.
I hope you don't mind me tweeting about this post, had to share it :)
OFC not! Am hoping to get more of our hive/showroom users optimizing twitter!
Thanks for the tips - I've been on OpenSea and more recently moved over to hicetnunc. Are there specific hash tags/topics you've found are more active/useful than others? I feel like discoverability is hard to achieve without becoming a salesman (I hate that feeling).
Hashtags are a tough one and I hear conflicting info, some say hashtags help you get discovered others say too many tags and links and twitter algo shows it as spam so I try to do a mix of using them and not using them to cover both lol!
keeeewl!
Many tips that I just found out in this post. Really helpful tips, Julia. Especially in the midst of competition between artists with their amazing works. I am still learning a lot now how to sell well on social media (and learning how to write well in English 😝).
Looks like I should try to be active in blogging here. Ok, Google Translate, be a good friend to me here, haha.
Happy it was helpful, I think the art market is very saturated so every little thing we can do to stand out is worth the little extra effort :)
Thank you for the article and helpful tips. I recognized myself when I flashed it many times in your mentions. Sorry for that, there is something to think about) I wish you success and see you in twi;)
Hehe no worries, I think at one point there weren't many active HIVE users on twitter so people were tagging everyone for exposure, seems we now have quite a lot so it makes more sense to be targeted about the niche interest of people you are tagging. For example I don't retweet leofinance really since most of my followers are interested in art it just doesn't make sense
Great write up, engagements in a community is really a key to promote oneself. Thanks for the interesting post backed up with great wisdom. You've done noble.