Egads! Social Media Overload!

I was updating the LINKS page on my website, when I realized how many new ones I had tried since the beginning of 2023. Starting in January with Post.news, up to August with BlueSky I count 5 new social media platforms. Needless to say it has become overwhelming to post on all daily even if you just copy and paste. I have found that posting on 3 is not too bad. 

But then someone mentioned that the key to saneness with social media was asking yourself: why you felt you needed to be on social media and to stop worrying about the numbers and focus on the quality of your engagement. 

SO what was I really looking for on all these new sites? 

1: My KidLitArt community and the ability to connect with industry professionals. Twitter used to be IT But now that its X the community is rapidly fragmenting.  I was also told to be on Instagram as that's where art directors look for talent. While that may be true, most of the "calls for illustrators" happened on original Twitter. 

2: A small bit of comraderie with my fellow creatives. Being an illustrator/writer is a very solitary endeavor. It's nice to be able to rant about deadlines etc. And have someone cheer you on or commiserate. Definitely looking for engagement.

SO... from all these new sites is there a clear winner? To be honest, whenever I tried a new site my first reaction was this is great it just needs more functional (fill in the blank). However after the initial honeymoon a few of these were clearly not it. The following is my personal opinion:

POST.news - friendly enough community, left leaning, very NEWS oriented. The first month I was there, there were a few illustrators posting for #KidLitArtPostcard. But at his point it's only a handful of illustrators. Unfortunately the kidlit community never embraced it. 

THREADS - owned by Meta, the people that brought you Instagram and FaceBook. Very friendly. Quite a few editors, agents and art directors on it, at least in the beginning. Lots of kidlit people. But with no hashtags or pinning functions, it is hard to find each other or even engage properly with each other. SO there might be an art call there but I probably didn't see it. Also while I really liked it in the beggining - I'm finding that my time there is not as satisfying as before. But I will prob still pop on it as I can't delete it without deleting my IG account!

Linked-In - supposedly you can connect with industry professionals. I was on it years ago and stopped going there - tried again - but don't quite get it. 

BlueSky - This is the one. I think.   At the moment there is no Pin or true Hashag functions. However, there are Hashtag work arounds and custom feeds set up by kidlit people. Now we just need the PIN function. There's an active growing kidlit community. Yay! At the moment, Bluesky is still in beta so you need an invitation to join or you may add your name to their waitlist.

Find me at:

Website: dianadelosh.com

Illustration Blog: dtdelosh.blospot.com

Instagram & Threads: @dtdelosh

Post: @dtdelosh

Bluesky: @dtdelosh

Check out my illustrations on products at:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

Marketing Without the Bird App

My life on Twitter came to a sudden halt when I was suddenly and unexpectedly expelled from the site on December 1,  2022. I still maintain my innocence. I've requested clarification/appealed the decision and aside from the automated response on my emails never heard anything back. So my account was and is suspended and I have moved on. But the BIG question was how would I fill the void. The bird app played a big part in how I marketed my POD, Print on Demand Wares.

I was left with Instagram and Facebook. Both were problematic in that department. IG doesn't like live links although you can have them in your bio profile . Facebook did not like you being too sales oriented. So yes I can post my  GreetingCardUniverse card links, but  posting the weekend sales promo code got me a warning notice. sigh.  I did sign up for a Facebook Artist Page. In January, I signed up for Post.News. Links and images look gorgeous on that site But I feel like I'm shouting into the void over there. Needless to say, I don't post as many links as I did on the bird app cause it's just not the thing to do on any of those social media platforms. Now what? 

I did get creative in December, and did a countdown to Christmas and posted 25 winter/Christmas illustrations on IG, the majority of which were GCU cards. And yes that did help with my December/Christmas card sales.  I also did a shorter run up to the Lunar New Year, Year of the Rabbit or Cat with illustrations/cards of, you guessed it, cats and rabbits- which helped with the January sales. And now we're at the end of February and my sales are way down compared to last year. Sure I could do a run up to Spring? But do I want to? Must I? Sigh.

Have I learned anything? 

• Posting daily helps as far as engagement and getting new followers. No big insight here.

• My followers on all my sites seem to respond best to my Art Process Posts for illustrations or greeting card designs. They seem to find the  process as interesting if not more interesting than the actual finished art. Thankfully, I enjoy documenting and sharing my art process.

• I realized I stopped blogging because I was micro-blogging on Twitter. No bird app and the blog revives. Hmmmm Maybe I'll do an occasional upcoming holiday blog post.

I would love to hear what social media sites you use to help promote/market yourself or your creations. 

You can find me at:

Website: dianadelosh.com

Illustration Blog: dtdelosh.blospot.com

Instagram: @dtdelosh

Post: @dtdelosh

Check out my illustrations on products at:

Greeting Cards: greetingcarduniverse.com/dianascards

Gifts: zazzle.com/deloshdesigns*

Art Prints: wingedrabbit.imagekind.com

To Share or Not to Share?

Recently at an SCBWI event, the speaker, Grace Maccarone, executive editor of Holiday House warned never to share ideas as someone else could take it and get it out and in the stores first. To wait until you have it in a tangible form before sharing it. After all ideas can't be  copyrighted. Only the specific tangible form inspired by the idea can be copyrighted.

Of course mum's the word when it comes to commissioned art. Unless the client is OK with you sharing. So that leaves sharing sketches and other personal art but not too much of it. Must leave some of it in the bag.

Bag Head © Diana Ting Delosh - Biro sketch

But... but... but if you don't share you're invisible. Plus sharing on social media is fun and gratifying. I'm a twitter girl myself so I know participating in one of the many art challenges and getting all those faves and Retweets is very, very nice. Addictive even. And you never know whose looking. It seems like every other day you hear of someone getting discovered/published/agented due to their Twitter, Instagram, blog, whatever activities. 

To share or not to share could be the digital era's equivalent of to be or not to be. There is no question that you should share your art despite fears of copyright infringement. The question really is how much, what and when?   Quite a few of my illustrator colleagues share some piece of art daily via Twitter or whatever. In fact that's how I discovered a lot of them via their daily art practice of creating and sharing.

So I am wondering if I should make this one of my daily art biz habits. I'm also in the throes of  prepping for the NJ SCBWI June Conference - which means hyper focusing to make  lots of art. Yes, currently creating lots just not sharing yet. Guess I'll be working on my "sharing" after the conference.

web: dianadelosh.com

 twitter: @dtdelosh

 

Twitter & Creativity: #colour_collective

Ballerina Bunny
© Diana Ting Delosh
Ink & Watercolor
for #colour_collective Pale Pink 3/6/15
I will probably be making this illo into product designs for my POD stores

One of the things I love about Twitter is the art challenges and artist community. I'm currently doing my best to keep up  with #colour_collective, the brain child of the talented illustrator, Penny Nelville Lee, @PennyNevilleLee .  #colour_collective is a weekly art challenge where participants create an illustration any media/subject - based on the weekly "it" colour and post their illo on Fri on or after 7:30pm GMT (2:30pm/3:30pm NYC time depending on daylight savings time) or as close to it as possible. The next week's colour is announced on Saturday. So you have a week to come up with something to share with your fellow illustrators. From the looks of it, the majority of participants are creating fresh works vs sharing already created art.

Cupcake Fox
© Diana Ting Delosh
Ink & Watercolor
for #colour_collective Flame Orange Light  2/27/15
Think this will make a cute birthday card.

 I've only done a few weeks of #colour_collective here and there but I'm finding it a lot of fun and a bit addictive. I've decided to do whatever comes to mind. Could be a technique I want to try or my old stand by. My thing is to create something fast and furiously, stay loose, enjoy the process. Even if I can't do an illo for the week I find I must check out everyone else's pieces. I am always amazed and inspired by all the great art.

Thumbelina
© Diana Ting Delosh
Ink & Watercolor & Photoshop
for #colour_collective Powder Blue 2/13/15
Liked the way how this one turned out may use this on my promo postcard.
- Made the portfolio.

 What I've found is that's it's helped boost my creative productivity. Sure not everything I've done is portfolio worthy but I've brought doodles to finish that I wouldn't have if I hadn't decided to participate. Experimented versus just thinking of experimenting. Best of all I've worked on more personal art than I normally would have. All good stuff.

Puppy Love
© Diana Ting Delosh
Ink & Digital Color Experiment
for #colour_collective Flame Red 2/6/15
thought this would work as a fun Valentine so it's in my POD stores - ready for Valentine 2016

If you're curious and on twitter, check out: #colour_collective

Follow: @PennyNevilleLee @dtdelosh

Please feel free to join in the fun.

Penny announces the new colour on saturdays

Everyone posts their illos on Fridays after 7:30 pm GMT

Opera Rose Girl
© Diana Ting Delosh
Experimenting with Black Prisma Color Pencil & Digital Color
My first #colour_collective Opera Rose 1/9/15