Everyone is looking for an effective way to market their work. I've spent years and a lot of money on marketing in various ways and found this free site triples my sales. I get over 1000 views a day on any one item I share on this site and it's free. This will work great for most handmade items. The more unique the better.

     Some of you have heard of Deviant Art and some of you haven't. I will refer to Deviant Art as DA though this explanation. DA is a site that many artists of many many mediums share their work or sell prints of their illustrations and paintings. There is also an artisan crafts area which many of you will fit under.

     The first thing you want to do is create an account. Then you want to "Submit Art". Submitting art is pretty much adding a photo to your account to be able to share. It's like a portfolio of your work. When you first start your account... you will want to add 5 images. You will want to join groups to submit your work to after a few days. Most groups will approve you fairly quickly. Groups are what get your work seen. Groups are very very important to get your work seen.

HOW DO I FIND GROUPS?

     In the upper left corner next to the Deviant Art logo... there is triangle pointing downwards. Hover over this and select groups. You want to search and join groups that relate to your work. Once you join some groups and they accept you... you can share your photos of your work in these groups.

     In the description of your item... put a link to your Etsy shop or that item. I find a link to your shop works better than directly to the item you are showing. Treat the description as you would the description of your Etsy listings.

GOOD WAY TO FIND EVEN MORE GROUPS...

     You can find groups under the groups tab, by searching related terms that relate to your work. A great way to find groups is to find others artists that do the type of work you do. For example... I do jewelry. I will go into a group and look at the jewelry or crafts section of that group. I will see what groups other artists belong to. I will usually find groups I didn't even know about from others.

YOUR PRODUCT SHOTS ARE YOUR MARKETING...

     If you are like me... you make similar items that vary in color or design. Do not post all your images of your work at once. You want to submit an item in the morning so the admins from groups have time to approve of your submission. You will find that more and more people, everyday, start to follow your work and what you do. You are building a following more and more everyday. I find that posting one image... every morning... is very effective vs the evening.

HOW TO SUBMIT WORK TO GROUPS...

     In the upper dark green bar... in the middle... you will see your Username. Hover over it and go to Profile. This will show all the images you have on DA. Click on the first image. This will go to your image. On the right side of the image you will see Featured In. Select SUBMIT TO GROUP. A window will pop up. Keep the Submit to Gallery option selected. You will however want to select TYPE A GROUP NAME option. Then you want to type the letter A. This will bring up all the groups you belong to that have the letter A in it. I go through just the vowels... since vowels are in all words. Do not use Select from these groups... it will not you all the groups you belong to.

     When you select a group... you will get an option to submit to a gallery folder within that group. Select the folder that most fits your item and click Submit. Some groups will accept it automatically or the moderator has to accept it. Some groups also have a limit on how many or how often you can submit images.

     Once you start using DA... this process will become second nature. It's all about exposure. One of my pendants was featured as a daily deviant and I got over 6500 views and 15 sales on Etsy that day. I use DA just about everyday. DA is a powerful tool after you get your following going. The more you use it... the better it works.

     If you share this article... please give me credit. This has proven to work for me with awesome results. I will try to answer any questions you guys have. I am however in my busy season but will make all effort to help.

     Check out one of my items on DA to get a feel of how this works...  http://create-a-pendant.deviantart.com/#/d3fjnmx


Matthew Nix