Marketing on Deviantart

kami

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(I haven't posted one of these guides here before, hope this is all okay x'D)

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Deviantart is a massive art sharing website, perfect for a wide variety of visual artists. Drawing, photography, sculpture, crafts, literature, and a whole lot more. This is a great tool for art-related channels, but I think it could also work for vloggers and others as well, depending on how you use it.

I've been on Deviantart for nine years, and I definitely know my way around. I've compounded a list not too long ago just how exactly I market myself on there and use the popularity from my accounts to drive traffic from Deviantart to Youtube.

The original guide I wrote can be read here: http://fav.me/d8ykf2k
However it includes some terminology that, for those not familiar, may not understand, so below is more of a breakdown of what to do, especially for beginners:

1. Make an account. Choose a username, email, etc., fill out all that good stuff.

2. Edit your profile. Upload an avatar (hover over that little 50x50 square in the top left of your profile) and a DeviantID image (a picture of you, some photo you took, as long as it's not blank). This helps your profile look more complete and shows you're more serious about your stay.

3. Work on uploading a few 'Deviations'. These are things published publicly and are another way of showing your promising activity. These can be artworks you've drawn, photos you've taken, etc. If you want, upload things related to your channel. If you're a vlogger, perhaps you've taken a photo of somewhere you've vlogged. (Like at the park, out on the street, etc.) If you are a DIY-tuber, upload photos of projects you've done. Or if you're an artist like me, just upload your art! xD

4. I'll leave out details on titles and tags, I think ya'll can handle that. Always include a link in the description of the uploaded piece to either a specific video or your channel. Take advantage of HTML codes if you want and make it in large bold font :)

5. Optional, but helps you look friendly: upload your first journal entry. Talk about yourself, what you like to do, mention your channel, etc. Take advantage of posting your channel/videos all over your profile.

Examples: (my own profiles, I have videos embedded everywhere, haha.)
http://ringoyan.deviantart.com/
http://wondering-souls.deviantart.com/

The embed code:
Code:
<da:embed profile="youtube" id="ELvqk_UnGwU" />
(but replace with your own, or leave mine, either works ;))

And now you've got your profile all set up! Feel free to play around with things a bit more to get them more homey-feely and such. The real action starts up with utilizing some fun marketing tools.

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I have three main techniques for driving in the most traffic. Two are free, one costs money. (But compared to other costs of running a channel in general, this is probably the cheapest advertising ever.)

Giving Out Llamas
Deviantart has a badge system. All it is are little pixel images given out when you do certain tasks. Most users receive a notification when a badge of any kind is given to them. Llamas are given out for free by any user to any user, but can only be given out once. That means, for the majority of the time you give out llamas, users will get a notification about you, and some of those people will go check out your profile, which could lead to people checking out your channel.

How to give out llamas (basics):
http://lilyas.deviantart.com/art/How-to-give-a-Llama-165496578

I use an extension though which makes things go a TON faster:
http://kishan-bagaria.deviantart.com/art/One-Click-Llama-Button-450957519

"GetWatchers"
This is a third-party website designed specifically to help drive traffic toward peoples' Deviantart profiles and creations. The use of this website is completely free. You earn 'points' in viewing artwork and extra points for comments/favs/watches. Points equal views, so the more points you earn, the more views you'll receive.

If you want to be super special awesome, you can use my referral link:
http://wondering-souls.getwatchers.com/?refby=36929

Or if you just want to go directly to the website (and not be super special awesome):
http://www.getwatchers.com/new.php

dAHub
This option involves money. It's an account using a bot (aka program) to automatically give out points to people in exchange for services. Points are a digital currency used on Deviantart. It costs real money to purchase it directly from the site (thought it can be exchanged freely between users).

http://dahub.deviantart.com/

You can check out the page to learn more, but it's essentially a way for people to pay to have people watch/favorite/llama their accounts/work. The idea is that new people will discover you via this system, and if they like your work enough, they'll hop on for a ride. Granted, not everyone uses that account that way, so you can end up with what amounts to fake watchers, which is rather disappointing but inevitable, given human greed, haha.

I personally have had myself featured on there twice. I use the points feature where I pay to have my account be placed in the "Watch" section, and I also paid to have myself featured on the main journal on the front page under "Exclusive Features." The exclusive journal feature is very cheap for advertising, but I can't 100% say it's worth the traffic unless you have something that /really/ stands out.

The point is to drive traffic to your page and works, which hopefully lead to traffic to your Youtube channel. This way is probably my favorite because it's the laziest way as it does all the work for you. If you want to try it out, drop in at least 100 points for the bonus 25%. (As explained on the page.) It's 80 points to the dollar, I normally drop in 200-ish every month and that typically lasts me the whole month. I've been doing this for a while though, so starting out, you'll probably need to drop in more.

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Using these three main marketing tools, whenever I post a video onto my Deviantart account, I easily get at least 100 views on that video pretty quick, which is a lot for a small channel like mine. (My average ranges between 10-50 views, if I'm lucky.) There are definitely other things I do/use, you're welcome to check out the original guide (linked at the top) to read more.

Hope that helps! ;o;
 

TheSuperFunArt

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good tips thanks!
i had a deviant art account when i was in highschool but stopped using it, i might think about making one for my youtube channel as my artwork had changed alot
 

kami

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good tips thanks!
i had a deviant art account when i was in highschool but stopped using it, i might think about making one for my youtube channel as my artwork had changed alot
You're welcome :D
You might as well take advantage of it, especially since you already regularly produce artwork for your channel. It'll be that much easier to build up your audience on Deviantart :)
 
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TheSuperFunArt

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You're welcome :D
You might as well take advantage of it, especially since you already regularly produce artwork for your channel. It'll be that much easier to build up your audience on Deviantart :)
yeah it's a very good idea! thanks.
 
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Painter

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From my own experience, it's not that easy to build an audience on DA. It's actually rather difficult if you haven't been on for long. You need to be on that site for many years to get a good amount of followers or you need to be famous before you sign up for a new account. If you have a new or newish DA account, I wouldn't depend on it to help promote your YouTube channel.
 

kami

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From my own experience, it's not that easy to build an audience on DA. It's actually rather difficult if you haven't been on for long. You need to be on that site for many years to get a good amount of followers or you need to be famous before you sign up for a new account. If you have a new or newish DA account, I wouldn't depend on it to help promote your YouTube channel.
In 1.5 years I was able to make a new account and gain over 10,000 watchers on it using the above methods. (I probably could've done it faster had I used these methods from the start.) That account led to my second most popular video reaching over 7000 views in less than a year and another video 700 views in two months. Not super big numbers compared to other places, but they're big for me, and I already use this platform, so it's a win-win in my case.

If you do things right, you can get quite a bit of attention through it. Though this route is more time consuming than other outlets. Facebook, Twitter, and such are a bit more straight forward, this one requires a bit of patience.
 

Painter

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DA is just not for me. It's too much work for such little results. I've gotten hundreds to thousands of views on my videos within days-weeks of posting them. I'm not trying to discourage anyone, just sharing my experiences and opinions. If DA works for you, then more power to you.
 

kami

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DA is just not for me. It's too much work for such little results. I've gotten hundreds to thousands of views on my videos within days-weeks of posting them. I'm not trying to discourage anyone, just sharing my experiences and opinions. If DA works for you, then more power to you.
No no, that's perfectly fine ^^ The whole point of this thread was to share experiences too. If someone tries it out and it works like it did for me, great. If not, well hopefully some things were learned from the experience. I'm glad to hear you're doing well though :)
 
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darkstarmedia

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Thanks for the article! I've been on dA (on and off) for about 6 years or so?
I'm currently DarkStarPhotoUK on there, aha. About 5 months in, I got a Daily Deviation!
 
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