The key to getting curated as an artist, proof of human/process and personalizing your posts!
It's been almost a full year since I joined Steemit, my cakeday will be in June, hurrah! Since joining I have been blessed to have been curated for my art posts by @curie, @ocd, @slothicorn and also some kind hearted "art whales". It is always a pleasure to see that my art and contributions to Steemit are appreciated and those generous curations have allowed me to pay it forward and continue doing my weekly art contest.
I now do a weekly art curation for @msp-curation and though I don't curate for Slothicorn I am an admin on the server and have a good understanding of what types of posts they look for. I often get asked how to get noticed, who to contact etc. and I always give a pretty standard response.
You don't find curators, they find you!
Now of course there are some things you can do to make it easier for them to find you, and also more likely to give you a vote. The advice I'll be dishing out here applies to all types of posts, not just art, but I'll keep my examples in the art realm as that's what I know best!
Human Verification
If you have already been a Steemit contributor active on the site and various chat communities like discord there's a good chance that people know who you are and you've become trusted! If you are relatively new though and you post some amazing art you might be under suspicion as a plagiarist.
I know it sounds terrible but don't take this personally, there have sadly been many cases of art fraud on Steemit so people have become cautious. Most curators will go to the trouble of reverse image searching and will use various sleuthing techniques to make sure you are the original artist.
What can you do?
Make it as easy as possible! If I am trying to curate someone and I have doubts or can't ascertain if they are presenting their own work I might just move on. Making an introduction post where you verify yourself with a photo holding a piece of paper signed and dated with your username is the easiest way to prove that you are a real person and not an imposter. Here's my intro post and proof:
OK, so now we know you are a real person, that's a nice start :)
Verifying your art
As an artist we may need to take the extra step though of showing that we are indeed the artist!
There are a few ways you can do this:
This is obvious but state clearly that this is your art! I have come across posts where people don't straight up mention anywhere that they are the artist. I know it sounds odd but it happens fairly often! In some of these cases after investigating I see that it is indeed their work, but in others I have found that they have stolen the art and are kind of lying by omission. If you use someone else's image and don't source it properly most will assume it's your work. Be direct or add a disclaimer at the bottom of your posts stating that all the images were created by you.
Process! Aside from making the post a richer experience and much more appealing for the reader showing your process images can give the curator more confidence that they are rewarding the correct person.
Make it interesting and personal
Now that we have the technical aspects out of the way we can dive into the more subjective side of curation.
Obviously we all have different tastes, in writing, music, art etc. but there is something in the beauty of the presentation that can make even an otherwise dull subject matter come to life.
We are content creators! We are communicating through mostly text and images so we should make the best of these tools, the more the reader is drawn in to the narrative of your post the better. One of the best ways to do this is to make it personal. When I am viewing even the most beautiful work of art I will usually skip curating if there is nothing more than an image and a few lines.
I want to know what you were thinking when you made the art, what does it mean to you? Yes it takes some extra time, I understand! Sometimes we want to just post that art we worked on all day or week and allow it to speak for itself. When you are showing your art you are showing a piece of yourself and it feels very personal. Some may struggle with articulating these abstract feelings, but I guarantee you, the reader will appreciate it immensely :)
In a sea of content this is what will make you stand out! This is something that only you can bring, your thoughts are unique, precious and illuminating, they add another dimension to your art, we want to hear them :)
If anyone wants to translate this information into another language I give full permission as long as you indicate that I was the original author of the post!
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmW3GqbMdWkMLoweD3S1hbjXAvCePT6qiy4iHpz6wpnvLd/alienbanner1.gif)
Truly a nice post. Though I'm more interested in your pic. Lol.
It is nice to actually see your face, a true beauty indeed. Not only a beauty, you've been helping lots of people here and there, especially artists by having the weekly contests and the curation. Much love.
:D Thanks I see so many posts when doing my weekly curation that I ned up skipping and I don't want to!
Nice to meet you! Great information :)
I find it really hard to write about my art when it's really personal.... Like I said in my latest post.
If it's not too personal I can :)
I know it's really tough and I definitely struggle sometimes with it too, I think it becomes easier if you start thinking about it during the creation process!
Beautifully written and I think it should be very easy to remember!
The following is my old post with more details on how to present your art :)
(Preapproved by @juliakponsford)
https://steemit.com/art/@kristyglas/improving-you-posts-and-getting-noticed-artists-edition
(Don't upvote, old post)
Resteemed this post for visibility!
Congrats and very useful article! Sharing with all the friends, thank you for inspiration :)
This is Sam Prock @samprock, commenting as came across the post from Silent Zen. Beginning to start support work for musicians, photographer, artists. Fresh beginning on Steemit and thrilled with platform potential. For years I am conducting support group for musicians on SoundCloud and dozen of modern music share platforms. For the most the time Facebok became a hub for artists communication. And indeed folks I am honored to know and have fun with, rarely fit into one genre of art, while it simply impossible to follow a multiplier of platforms for photo, video, art and writing and all.
Aggregating and letting a person to expose different forms of art living within seems the best steemit feature for me. Myself, I am having fun with dusting off some photo and showing them day of light in addition to music posts. And I am learning more of steemit including curation. Thank you!
☮ Silent Zen ~ Indie ~ Music ~ Photo ~ Art ~ Support ☮
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://media.giphy.com/media/xT0xeAzF74FCevHfgc/giphy.gif)
Thanks for this! Great post. I've just joined Steemit as an artist and had a wonderful time here already. Looking forward to the days, weeks and years to come!
So true! also, with the improving of the quality in steemit comes an improving of the quality of your art and yourself as a person. Honestly, I think it's impossible to stay stucked in the same formats, since we are continuously looking for new resources, art techniques and feeding our knoledge through the months.
We all want to be noticed, but you need to keep improving for that, and obviously, making things from the heart. 💖
🐎 Unicornia 💫
@juliakponsford. There are very many fraudsters in this steemit. Even those who commit fraud are often trending. Unfortunately for us original content creators are always under.
This is a great post for beginners guides.
Yes it's unfortunate, all we can do is our best to support the real artist
yes right my friend
Nice and thoughtful of you to share this...
WOW!! Thank you very much for all the data you give and I will do it from now on and my fault is that I always want to publish my work and I do not say much about it once many thanks !!!
LOL I understand, we get excited to post but steemit is a blogging site so words are important too!
Excellent guide. I will show this to other artists when they’re asking for tips and guidance :).
-upvoted-
Great, I want all the artists to flourish as much as possible!
Thank you for taking the time to write this article. Indeed this is really helpful in many ways.
I choose to make the best of this in my future posts.
Thank you I hope it helps you improve your posts :)