PPP2. Social media and its opportunities.

Last tuesday we talked about the use of different social media platforms in the world of an animator.

We first had to fill up two big sheets of paper. One was to be filled with all social media platforms we can think of. Or at least platforms where societies can be created. On the second one we had to write down what opportunities are possible through social media.

Of course, to get you name out there, networking is very important. Especially for artists and creators. This is visible very well on huge platforms like Deviantart, Facebook, Youtube or Tumblr. There are great artist "famous" on these websites for the right reasons: they create magnificent pieces of art. While at the same time people can get a huge following creating mediocre work. At the same time some brilliant artists are stuck at the bottom and that's mainly because of these factors: lack of networking and getting their names out there.

We are quite blessed and cursed with today's social media. It doesn't take much effort to put up a piece online for the whole world to see, while back in the day it would cost you a lot of money to reproduce your films and send them out to different instances to make your work known. The downside of this huge scale of social media that art theft and neglect are easily possible. People can repost your work while leaving out the source, gaining popularity through it. While you are still working hard for some recognition, another person runs away with the fame.
(I've seen this lots of times with beautiful drawings and prints that get taken off a website, get altered a bit and then sold on hoodies or t-shirts, without crediting OR EVEN ASKING the creator for permission. No one should earn money off your work without your consent.)

As a starting artist you probably use your one account you have on various website for both personal and "professional" use. At one point it's better to be professional through a separate account for your work, using another account for your personal contacts. This is quite a difficult thing to do. When is the moment you switch it all up? You basically have to start over again, gaining a following from zero when you build a new account on Youtube, Tumblr, Facebook pages etc. But to appear professional in the eyes of potential employers I think it's for the best. (That's the reason I deleted all my films from my Youtube account, except for my animations. I realise I have quite a (probably inactive) following through some lyric and music videos I made five years before, but they can suck it. hahaha!)

Ways to convey a professional impression is through platforms such as LinkedIn and by creating your own professional website through learning HTML or borrowing a free URL from a webhost like weebly or wordpress. On these sites you can maintain a CV and portfolio very easily. All can be organised to your liking and it's always a place to fall back on.

I always have tendencies to start with some platforms and never using them in the end. I created various accounts on different websites, neglecting them in the end because I lose interest. For example: I have a Twitter account. I started it because my friends shared stories they didn't share on Facebook (thank god for that though), then I lost interest and never posted anything myself because I felt nobody was reading it anyway. Then I started following multiple fan accounts and fanbases of my favourite K-pop group to keep myself updated on their activities. Then I stopped looking at twitter because I saw basically the same stuf appearing on my Tumblr dashboard. While it's easy now to separate the people you follow into lists to keep your interests on Twitter organised, I still really can't be bothered to look on Twitter.

This is where the RSS feed comes in handy. On Feedly you can create one account, and connect all of your social media accounts to one site. Divided by tags you can see all the updates of all these different accounts on one website, so you don't have to hop form website to website to keep yourself updated (only to see five out of 27 sites haven't updated anything.) This only works when the site hosts RSS feed. This symbol means it's linked to that kind of "network"


What rest for me, as a creator, is where do I start my networking? I feel like I already have way too many accounts to keep me sane. I don't even remember half of my accounts I must have created over the period of ten years spending on the internet.