Put your lazy Twitter bio to work!

Illustration Marketing Series

Feb 24, 2022

Hi friends,

This letter is part of a series of notes I’m making about How I market my illustration. I’ve made a Directory page of the topic, where you can see what’s coming up next, and what’s already been covered.

I’ve also started a Discussion page for you to share your own experience ask questions and meet the others.

Before we jump in, I have a small ask, and that is for you to share this with someone who would be interested in the topic. Thank you!

Before I signed a contract to illustrate my first book my Twitter and Instagram bio said:

“Knocking on the door of the illustration industry, somebody let me in!”

I’m not actually going to tell you what to put in yours, in fact, I think this is the part most people get right, getting attention. It’s what happens next that I really wanted to talk about.

Because once you’ve gotten their attention, they are going to do 2 things

Click your bio link (which we’ll cover in this note)
Google you (which we’ll cover in another letter)

You are responsible for what they find.

So it’s important of filling up your bio link wherever can online.

The easiest way to do this is to have a bio site (links to mine).

I think of the bio site as the menu for your internet presence. By putting a link to your bio site on every web service that allows you to do so, you’re guiding the people to the best places they can find out about you. There are various services that allow you to create essentially a webpage of links. I’ll put a few in the next steps portion of this note.

Your bio site should link to the social media platforms that you’re active on and your website. Ideally ‘your name.com’

When you invariably need to update the URL to one of these places, or add a new place. You only have to update the bio site to ensure everything is up to date.

The ideal experience should be something like this. Someone discovers you somewhere on the internet, it could be a Facebook group or Linkedin, or Twitter, or a skillshare class, they like something you shared so they’re looking to find out more about you.

They click your bio link, which then offers them links to your Instagram, your Twitter, and your website.

They click on Instagram (ideally @yourname _art/studio/creates/etc.) they scroll through and fall in love with your work, they go in and click the bio link

They get the same familiar menu and this time they click on your Twitter (ideally @yourname _art/studio/creates/etc.) and they enjoy your quotes and laugh at your puns and gifs, and they click the bio link again… things are getting serious

They finally click Yourname.com - And that’s when the good things happen. I’ll cover “what to put on your illustration website” in another note.

SO..

The principle here is to reduce friction, you want to make sure that people don’t lose steam once they’ve already discovered your work. “Moral of the story: make your product easier to buy than the competition, or you will find your customers buying from them not you” - Mark Cuban
🐦 Tweet this!

I just want to say, by writing this I’m sharing my experience of what has worked for me in case you’re interested. I want nothing more than to get paid to make great art. I think doing things like taking time to sort out the bio links, gives us the peace of mind that as we’re working on new things, people who are discovering us for the first time are being guided around the internet by our biosites to find the various things that we do.

Leave a comment here or visit the Discussion Page!

Next Steps:

Do your best to have all your handles and URL be consistent.
Create your biosite using one of these services bio.site , linker.ee , linkinbio ( or any other you can find)
Use this link where ever you can, even as the signature to your emails.
Ps: if you have one feel free to share it in the comments