Social Media Success vs. Artistic Fulfillment

Do you ever get tempted to make content strictly for views?

When Tiktok first started popping off, all I saw was opportunity. The new social media platform was fresh and users were excited about following new types of creators and seeing different types of content. I understood "dumb" humor did well on the app and quickly grew a small following of 10K followers from posting "live drawing" content with captions that said things like "tell me my feet smell".

Then I jumped to 20K after shifting my content to art tutorials and releasing free educational content for beginner artists (i.e. Notion Digital Art Study Guide and PDF Anatomy Printables). Every year, I implemented ideas that grew my following and strengthened trust in my brand.

Now, this all sounds great, so what's the issue?

The content I made attracted one specific audience: artists who wanted to learn digital art. This trapped me in a niche (education). And this is a great niche to be in! The problem was, I had two main goals back then and one was being neglected. I wanted to help others learn and continue learning myself while discovering who I was as an artist. The first goal gave me purpose and the second goal was important to my artistic identity. I wanted to learn how to confidently create original illustrations that fully expressed my unique perspective on life.

However, I poured 95% of my time and energy into teaching others and the remaining 5% participating in trends. I knew education was good for views because it's valuable and trends were also good for views because they're interesting.

I basically sold half of my dreams for views!

I think I should say, there was nothing wrong with either types of content. They performed decently well and because teaching is a passion of mine, I was happy to have helped other artists. The problem was balance.

One thing that comes to mind is that I could've made videos sharing what I recently learned to pursue both goals (of helping others and learning myself). However, I was very much stuck on, "Even my educational content needs to be perfected!". This thought contributed to why I rarely spent time learning and focused on topics I was confident would do well on social media.

I learned the hard way that views and financial success won't bring me happiness if I'm sacrificing who I am as an artist for meaningless success.

If you're thinking about putting your work online, I encourage you to be as authentic as you can be with yourself! Pour your focus on goals and projects that align with what you want, not what you think will work well. Eventually, you'll figure out how to do whatever-it-is-you-want-to-do well. But first, you need to figure out what you want! That's the most important thing.

Of course, you may disagree with what I've shared today and that's totally okay! I hope my experience provided valuable insight to you today and that it helps you progress in your artistic journey.

Good luck everyone!

Majestics0ck