On Twitter many artists including me have to deal with unpopularity. On art galleries like Deviantart, Pixiv and Furaffinity too. I've been always wondering where the lack of popularity and success comes from.
Here on e621 almost all of my posts have a double digit number of favorites, but on Twitter however I have only a few artworks with a double digit number of likes.

When I posted my drawing of Susie and Ralsei, I did 1 month ago, on Twitter, I expected it to have more than 1 like, since Deltarune is a popular game. But at the end it got only one like and I was dissapointed. On Deviantart, where I have more than 100 watchers, it got 6 likes... Over 100 watchers and only 6 people liked the drawing? Very odd.

The same thing with two of my drawings of the Marauder from Doom Eternal. They both got only one like on Twitter. It's also very odd, because Doom is a popular game.

I wonder what could be the reason for that. Many followers, but only one person likes your content...

Are there any tips and advices to get more popular, more likes and more followers? I don't think improving art alone is enough. I improved my drawing skills really a lot, but unpopularity still wins.

traction is almost entirely to do with follower count / how prolific someone who shares the content is when it comes to twitter. It's why when you're kind of small time on it, greasing the gears with things like fan art is a good idea because larger artists both understand the struggle as well as appreciate the fan art *usually*

Archive sites are possibly due to the fact that some people just browse the gallery of artists they like when they're in the mood for it given they've got all their artwork lined up and can just scroll through not needing to fav x content

e6 is kind of different given it's largely community archiving and that things such as watching user uploads and subscribing to tags are third party browser extensions *at least currently* utilizing favs/sets is more necessary for keeping track of content you're interested in.

At least that's what my speculations on the sitation are.

You start off with unpopularity before you get popular, nobody can become an overnight star unless their artworks are exceptionally good.

Twitter, as least in my opinion, is the worst place to be using as an art gallery. Sure, it can be viewed by a lot of people using the right hashtags, but it is terrible to sort through artworks. You will need to scroll through dozens or hundreds of tweets just to get to where you want. People who use Twitter will most likely find your artworks through word of mouth/retweets, so don't expect to gain any likes until you get more followers/retweets. Your visibility to new followers will mostly be by chance.

DeviantArt is more a "high class" art gallery, focusing more on the SFW side. People who use DeviantArt will most likely be looking for high quality or professional artworks. There are still the new artists that want to start out on the site, but depending on the content you're making, you will need to be good to compete.

I'm not sure about Pixiv though since their user base might be majority Japanese, but they do have a recommended section for artists who share similar content. For example, if somebody follows a Pokemon artist, they will get recommended to other Pokemon artists that share similar styles and content.

You also mentioned having 100+ followers on your accounts, but did you check whether or not they are genuine watchers? There exist a lot of bot/fake followers who will just randomly follow you to boost their own visibility by having you check out their own accounts. I have seen them on most art galleries, but mostly on Twitter.

However, my final advise though is to not care too much about popularity. You will get popular over time with the artworks you create. The most important thing is for you to continue drawing artworks as your hobby/interest, not because you are trying to become popular. You accept whatever likes/follows you get with gratitude.

If you get obsessed with popularity, you will find yourself wanting more attention and eventually questioning your own capabilities. I have seen this with an artist I follow whom I will not name, but those who know will know whom I'm referring to. They are obsessed with attention, even though they have over 10000 followers. They have the skill and years of experience to back that up, but all they get for their posts is about 100+ likes. That is not enough in their eyes, they feel that ~1000 likes should be more appropriate for their artworks and would constantly pester their followers to like/comment on their artworks, before spiralling down into a repeating cycle of questioning why their followers are inactive, why their artworks are not getting a lot of likes, why they should bother with posting their artworks if nobody likes them, and so on. And every single time, their followers would reason with them that other popular artists also experience the same like counts, people follow for different interests, or just simply that they are no longer active on their accounts anymore. But without fail, the artist will repeat the cycle all over again.

One thing about Pixiv is that if you want to have it recommend your content widely you should try to use Japanese tags rather than English ones since the site is mainly Japanese and all the Japanese artists use those tags. If you use English tags then your art will only be grouped in with English-speaking artists, which is a much smaller audience on Pixiv.

All artists start out unpopular. It takes time, patience, and effort to become successful or popular. There's no way to shortcut the process.

It takes time for people to notice you, no matter what platform you use. It takes time to create enough of a presence, develop a style and skill level, and promote yourself sufficiently. No big time artist became big time overnight.

That requires patience, the ability to wait. That's a difficult skill to nurture, but nurture it you must. No amount of rushing things will make thousands of followers magically appear.

And that requires effort, not just in promoting yourself, but in developing and advancing your artistic skills. No one is going to want to hang around if you haven't plenty of something to entice them with. Big ideas and good intentions don't cut it.

Not many people use DA anymore. Around the same time as the UI overhaul a lot of people left because they didn't like it. DA just isn't the place it used to be, and a long time ago you'd gain a lot more traction from posting to various groups. A lot of groups are dead now, though.

Twitter pretty much suppresses image posts unless they get a lot of comments, which is as counter-intuitive as it sounds. A lot of people have this same problem unless they already have a big following because, well, the issue just doesn't really apply to them anymore at that point. Some of it can also be attributed to both skill and art style, not just trying to capitalize on whatever is popular.

FA's front page is about 50% ads on average and it's made a lot of people looking for actual art less interested in browsing. Why bother when it's seemingly just a bunch of reposted adoptable and base ads whenever you look? This could be easily alleviated if FA split ad spam into its own category on the front page, but that would be work.

It feels like people aren't as centralized on gallery sites as they used to be, which can be seen as a good or a bad thing depending on your outlook. It kinda feels like a gallery drought and more than just a couple people have noticed this lately.

Well, for one, twitter is not an art archive like e621, so people don't usually go there looking for art, unless they follow an artist.

Well the first and most important thing, e621 is incredibly different. As has been said, it is an art archive, and there's just a fact that not everyone looking for art is necessarily looking for artists. Also, e621 is incredibly easy to navigate because of its robust tagging system. If I want to see Judy Hopps pegging Nick Wilde, I can put in three tags and find that. On FA for example, "Judy Hopps," "JudyHopps," and "Judy_Hopps," are three different tags, and if you search for one, you're not going to get the others unless the artist thought to put every conceivable variation of every tag. So basically, e621 just happens to be the easiest place to actually find art you're looking for.

As for Twitter, well, Twitter is a big flood of everything. And is conceptually different from FA, DA, etc in that it's more perceived as following a person rather than just their content. By which I mean, you can't really use Twitter as if it were DeviantArt. I checked out you're Twitter, and all I'm seeing is like one art piece every week or so. No other posts, no interactions with other users, you're basically just dropping a picture in the void and leaving.

If you want to build a following on Twitter you need to actually work at it, and a big part of that is interacting with other people. Also posting the right content in the right places. As you pointed out, Doom is an very popular franchise, but if you look at the #DoomEternal tag very few of the results are fanart, and of the art that is there, most of it is more "Rawr yeah guns!" than sexy. In contrast, searching #HelluvaBoss gets you like 90% fanart, the fanbase is one that's comparatively tiny, but also one that's highly focused on art.

One good way to get art seen is by doing smaller themed art prompts--AnimalAlphabets, Lewdtober, Lewdmas, etc. Anything as big as Inktober is basically useless because once again, you're just throwing your art into a slightly smaller flood of content.

Also, make sure to look at your analytics, because that's going to tell you how many people are "seeing" your art, but more importantly how many people are clicking on your profile after seeing it.
For example, post #3082701 this piece which I did for Animal Alphabets got 5 profile views on 1307 impressions
In contrast, post #3084206 this one I did for Lewdmass got 5 profile views on 373 impressions
While the first piece was shown to about three times as many people, the second one was shown to a smaller but more receptive audience.

And a final piece of advice, if you're posting your art multiple places, put multiple sources in your e621 uploads. I've gotten more watchers on Fur Affinity in the month I've been posting here than the entire previous year, and while I don't have data to support it, I strongly suspect it's because they're fining my art here and following the source link.

Oh, almost forgot, according to legend the Twitter algorithm doesn't like posts with lots of hashtags, as they look like spam.

You keep posting the same kind of thread. Just reuse the old thread.

You will never please everybody, and gaining popularity is never going to be easy. You can grab some temporary attention by drawing popular characters, but: 1. this popularity is very temporary. Like, "fifteen minutes of fame" temporary. 2. popularity is not always positive. The more popularity you get, the more haters you get. Typically any popularity will help with the actual popular character, but some people might dislike your artstyle, and those who did like that image might dislike that most of them aren't of that character.

zigmenthotep said:
Well the first and most important thing, e621 is incredibly different. As has been said, it is an art archive, and there's just a fact that not everyone looking for art is necessarily looking for artists. Also, e621 is incredibly easy to navigate because of its robust tagging system. If I want to see Judy Hopps pegging Nick Wilde, I can put in three tags and find that. On FA for example, "Judy Hopps," "JudyHopps," and "Judy_Hopps," are three different tags, and if you search for one, you're not going to get the others unless the artist thought to put every conceivable variation of every tag. So basically, e621 just happens to be the easiest place to actually find art you're looking for.

As for Twitter, well, Twitter is a big flood of everything. And is conceptually different from FA, DA, etc in that it's more perceived as following a person rather than just their content. By which I mean, you can't really use Twitter as if it were DeviantArt. I checked out you're Twitter, and all I'm seeing is like one art piece every week or so. No other posts, no interactions with other users, you're basically just dropping a picture in the void and leaving.

If you want to build a following on Twitter you need to actually work at it, and a big part of that is interacting with other people. Also posting the right content in the right places. As you pointed out, Doom is an very popular franchise, but if you look at the #DoomEternal tag very few of the results are fanart, and of the art that is there, most of it is more "Rawr yeah guns!" than sexy. In contrast, searching #HelluvaBoss gets you like 90% fanart, the fanbase is one that's comparatively tiny, but also one that's highly focused on art.

One good way to get art seen is by doing smaller themed art prompts--AnimalAlphabets, Lewdtober, Lewdmas, etc. Anything as big as Inktober is basically useless because once again, you're just throwing your art into a slightly smaller flood of content.

Also, make sure to look at your analytics, because that's going to tell you how many people are "seeing" your art, but more importantly how many people are clicking on your profile after seeing it.
For example, post #3082701 this piece which I did for Animal Alphabets got 5 profile views on 1307 impressions
In contrast, post #3084206 this one I did for Lewdmass got 5 profile views on 373 impressions
While the first piece was shown to about three times as many people, the second one was shown to a smaller but more receptive audience.

And a final piece of advice, if you're posting your art multiple places, put multiple sources in your e621 uploads. I've gotten more watchers on Fur Affinity in the month I've been posting here than the entire previous year, and while I don't have data to support it, I strongly suspect it's because they're fining my art here and following the source link.

Oh, almost forgot, according to legend the Twitter algorithm doesn't like posts with lots of hashtags, as they look like spam.

In which way should I interact with people? Saying "Hey, check out my profile" would be an option, but then it will result in a block.

demongirl_demoness said:
In which way should I interact with people? Saying "Hey, check out my profile" would be an option, but then it will result in a block.

You're overthinking it. Just keep working on improving your skills and be patient.

demongirl_demoness said:
In which way should I interact with people? Saying "Hey, check out my profile" would be an option, but then it will result in a block.

Not by directly @-ing or DMing people. The more you "beg" for something, the more you would drive potential followers away.

Get off of Twitter and use more dedicated art galleries like FurAffinity where interaction can be more personalised and people can get direct notifications when you post something (as opposed to Twitter which is terrible with keeping track of people you follow).

Let the interaction come in naturally, people will follow, people will like, and people will comment when they want to. Do NOT spam journals or tweets telling people to like/comment/share certain posts. When the time comes, you will eventually gain traction, and more people will interested in your artworks the more friendly and consistent you are. Mix things up a little when things get repetitive, create a series or comic to get people invested.

demongirl_demoness said:
In which way should I interact with people? Saying "Hey, check out my profile" would be an option, but then it will result in a block.

Best way I can put it is this: people are going to react to you based on how you approach them. Bugging people to check out your profile is akin to handing out flyers in a parking lot, they'll toss it in the nearest trash can and the interaction will just be a minor annoyance in their day. People on social media follow other people, if you do nothing but self promote you're not a person, you're a brand... but like in a bad way, technically you should be a brand but that's a whole other topic.
Basically, you need to present yourself as an interesting likable person and interact with people with the intention of joining the conversation, not trying to control it.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Not by directly @-ing or DMing people. The more you "beg" for something, the more you would drive potential followers away.

Get off of Twitter and use more dedicated art galleries like FurAffinity where interaction can be more personalised and people can get direct notifications when you post something (as opposed to Twitter which is terrible with keeping track of people you follow).

Let the interaction come in naturally, people will follow, people will like, and people will comment when they want to. Do NOT spam journals or tweets telling people to like/comment/share certain posts. When the time comes, you will eventually gain traction, and more people will interested in your artworks the more friendly and consistent you are. Mix things up a little when things get repetitive, create a series or comic to get people invested.

Furaffinity is a bad site. I had to delete two accounts. The view to like ratio on my drawings wasn't good. I made a third account, but after posting twodrawings of Loona and Cherry from Animal Crossing, I found out that posting on FA is nothing for me. I sometimes do crossover ships with the Doom Slayer and since it's different, it's going to end up having no favorites at all. I have bad expierences with FA.

I'm thinking about to create a comic. It's a good suggestion.

demongirl_demoness said:
Furaffinity is a bad site. I had to delete two accounts. The view to like ratio on my drawings wasn't good. I made a third account, but after posting twodrawings of Loona and Cherry from Animal Crossing, I found out that posting on FA is nothing for me. I sometimes do crossover ships with the Doom Slayer and since it's different, it's going to end up having no favorites at all. I have bad expierences with FA.

I'm thinking about to create a comic. It's a good suggestion.

You will not get high view/like counts just from posting, don't expect people to behave like they do on e621. You benefit from (and I'm not exaggerating) the best tagging system a furry art site can provide, people can search up anything they want here quickly and easily. Art galleries rarely have that, or would only have generic tags to search from.

On sites like FurAffinity, DeviantArt, and even Twitter, you have to build your follower base from the ground up before you can get any decent view/like count. People will need to be exposed to your art first, don't expect high amounts of likes when you have little to no followers. Also, total follower count is not a reliable gauge of interest, some followers may be non-participative, inactive, bots, or dead accounts. They wouldn't be able to view or like your artworks if you think about it. Then, you have to consider what your (active) follower base actually likes, some would like only Loona posts while others would only like Doom Slayer posts. You need to ask what your watchers like, then tweak your content towards that. FurAffinity and DeviantArt are equipped with tools to notify watchers of new uploads or journal announcements made by the artist. Twitter does not, and you have to rely on who actually had stumbled across and read your tweets. Same goes with uploads you make on Twitter, it is tough to navigate between your daily Twitter feed and things an artist had posted when you follow hundreds of people.

Then, you have to consider what websites cater to which userbase. FurAffinity is mostly furries and people who like furry art. DeviantArt has a wider audience and includes interests more than just furry art. Pixiv is mostly for Japanese artists, interests may vary but I'm willing to wager that people will be interested more on Japanese-style artworks (i.e., manga, anime, etc.). Twitter is a social networking site where any type of content can exist, but it lacks a proper art gallery element.
Knowing this is important for you if you want to understand how to get more followers (and have them like the content you post).

demongirl_demoness said:
Furaffinity is a bad site. I had to delete two accounts. The view to like ratio on my drawings wasn't good. I made a third account, but after posting twodrawings of Loona and Cherry from Animal Crossing, I found out that posting on FA is nothing for me. I sometimes do crossover ships with the Doom Slayer and since it's different, it's going to end up having no favorites at all. I have bad expierences with FA.

I'm thinking about to create a comic. It's a good suggestion.

You're thinking about it backwards. Views aren't a bad thing, they're good. You have to keep the profile available, and not delete it. Ever. The longer a profile sticks around, the more views it gets, and the more likely you are to get fans.
The moment you delete your account? Bam, every single fan is gone. You're back to zero, because you made the choice to delete the profile they were keeping an eye on. Whether they officially watch you or invisibly bookmark you, they were there, but now they can't be. And just as watchers can be invisible, their "favorites" can be too--whether they bookmark it or download it, it doesn't keep track on FA.

TL;DR keep your account open, be patient, and don't be bothered by the visible numbers.

After publishing art on the internet for 15 years, I can tell you that popularity is roughly 25% advertising and 75% dumb luck.

Just this morning, I discovered a very talented artists who had been uploading to FA for 3 years and only had 30 watchers.

Some people will get popular overnight, even if they have no substantial talent, and some people will grind for years and will never get recognized no matter how good their work is.

Art is dumb like that. There is the conventional wisdom about artists being sensitive souls, but the reality is that to get any kind of success in art, you have to have a will of iron. It is miserable even at the best of times.

lonelylupine said:
After publishing art on the internet for 15 years, I can tell you that popularity is roughly 25% advertising and 75% dumb luck.

And boy howdy do people hate hearing that.

I think your work is worth it as long as it brings you joy
There is no need to cater to the interests of others
There will always be people who will like your work

rockyvalentine said:
I think your work is worth it as long as it brings you joy
There is no need to cater to the interests of others
There will always be people who will like your work

This, Totally this, Dood!

╹‿╹)
Plus unpopularity has its perks
You can take all the time you want on the next project without peeps thinking you bit the dust
No surface pressure (The Expectations for your next great thing are pretty crushing, Dood!)
You're free to do pretty much anything you want since peeps haven't said one particular
thing is your specialty and only expect that from you or the opposite where they always
expect something new. The list goes on, Dood!

Being unpopular is possibly the most liberating state an artist could be in, m8!
◠‿◠)~★

Besides, It's just a number, No need to base validation on it ya know?