Is this not much of a thing anymore? As in posting your work on there (rather than looking for inspiration).
I started using it around 6–7 years ago and would normally get around 10–20 likes per project… but I had a couple that got around 60–75 likes.
These days I post projects and hardly anyone even looks at them, let alone clicks the appreciate button. I’ll be lucky to even get 1 or 2 likes within a couple months of posting it.
I’m pretty sure my work is of a decent standard, but regardless of that – it wouldn’t really explain why my interactions have dropped so much (unless my work has got progressively worse )
It’s like putting a poster up in a town that has a low population
Unless you can attract people to your town, your poster won’t get seen, and people won’t know about it.
You need to interact with the town - the people - and neighbouring towns - to garner more visitors.
So start by cross-posting your behance page with your facebook, twitter and linkedin accounts.
Check out my latest designs on Behance! Don’t forget to Appreciate and Like!
Then you need to go to the peoples pages who have liked your stuff - and appreciate their stuff.
Or Have a gawk around other Behance profiles you like - interact with them - leave a comment.
Make friends with other Behancers.
For example - if I started a Behance page there would be 0 views. As nobody knows me, who I am, or what I do.
You need to promote yourself. And better yet, get others to promote you.
Ask for feedback - and update your designs based on the feedback.
Become more interactive with your audience.
Is Likes and Appreciations necessary to what you do on Behance?
I’ve never put much stock in Likes or Friends or Followers, but I suppose if you use it for drumming up business all that crap is necessary.
I’m not sure I’d update any designs based on feedback from Behance though.
And also, Adobe bought up Behance. I wonder what happened to the user base when that happened. That was probably in the last 5 years. I’d probably avoid it just on principle. But I’m weird, I guess.
I’ve neglected my Behance portfolio and probably ought to update it, but it’s never been that effective. In the past, I might have received one or two inquiries from prospective clients who found my work on Behance, but only a couple of those inquiries amounted to actual work. I put much more effort into maintaining my personal business website.
Likes, followers, appreciations, etc., have never been important to me since the point of my Behance portfolio was to generate work, not accumulate likes from other designers. Even so, I’ve noticed the same thing as you — a steady decrease in views.
If I were a business owner looking for a designer, Behance would be a great place to browse through relevant work. However, I doubt most business owners know about Behance and, for that matter, can’t make the connection between what they see there and how it might be relevant to their needs.
Anyway, Behance seems more like Adobe’s way of promoting itself and its products than Adobe’s way of promoting the work of the designers who use their products.
Unlike me, if you’re serious about Behance beyond likes and followers, @Smurf2 had some great suggestions.
I guess one question would be, can you activate a Behance account without an Adobe Account?
While I’m guessing probably, like B said, there isn’t a lot of promotion coming from the owner end of things.
Adobe seems to assume the reason for designers using Behance is to show off their work to other designers — similar to an online art show. Adobe’s reason for hosting Behance is to promote Adobe products to those designers who attend or participate in the online art show.
In my opinion, Adobe should be marketing Behance to businesses as a tool to evaluate and connect with design pros. However, this notion seems absent from Adobe’s Behance formula or marketing.
As fine and dandy as it might be for other designers to like my work, that’s not what I’m concerned about when it comes to my work portfolio. My portfolio is a component of my marketing efforts to attract potential clients.
Until Adobe starts promoting Behance to businesses as a place to find design pros, Behance holds little value to me other than for that fleeting half-second rush I get when another Adobe product user clicks the button to say they like my work.
I was just on Behance and found it…disappointing. Like the design field, there is a whole lot of meh there. I was particularly enamored of the direct rip illustration of clown Lou Jacobs ripped from a beautiful, early, color photo taken by John Hinde, a circus photographer ca. 1940s.
I see that kind of copying stuff all the time on DeviantArt (usually just practice pieces or mood studies,) but if you want professionalism out of Behance someone’s gonna have to lay down some rules. And it won’t be Adobe.
Someone at Adobe thought it would be ‘hip’, I’d imagine.
Like the way Adobe sponsors MTV - a bit late to the party, I don’t think young people watch MTV any more - they consume content online.
I worked with a 20 something year old a few years ago, and I was talking about the News that was on TV - I said did you see that on the news last night.
Had never watched a news segment, read a newspaper - I asked how they keep up with what’s going on in the world, and they don’t.
All news and content is consumed through social media.
I did think that maybe I need to interact more, but then I don’t think I used to interact that much years ago when my work would get more attention (maybe I interacted a little more…)
I’ll probably try commenting on other designer’s posts and following etc, wont get my hopes up though
It does seem like it’s not as popular as it used to be anyway.
My plan isn’t to try and get clients however (Im full-time employed), more like Im just trying to get more of a following and promote my prints to sell… but any cool freelance clients would be a bonus.
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