Social media has integrated itself as a prominent aspect of the twenty-first century, being that society is rife with technology of the digital age. It provides a virtual platform for individuals to communicate and engage with the world beyond their scope, allowing for everyone and everything to be interconnected across the internet. Moreover, artists–much like businesses–have recognized the significant role that social media plays to increase visibility and cultivate a captive audience towards their brand. To that effect, an artist’s production of work and career path can largely be influenced by the ways in which they utilize social networks as a marketing tool to showcase their art. Being that graphic design is a broad field revolving around …show more content…
Additionally, it also holds many grounds for self-promotion to gain viewers and to connect with other practitioners that can lead to career opportunities within the industry. For instance, Tony Futura, who works as an advertising art director, created his Instagram account in 2013 as a personal space to explore his creativity with visual puns that poke fun at popular culture and values of Western societies. Although Futura initially had no intentions of joining Instagram as a means to further his career, but more so as a “new challenge” to see “how much stuff [he] would be able to produce and how many ideas [he] would be able to find” (Artnology, 2017). As time progressed, his number of followers began increasing and his Instagram was shared across various media platforms, thus creating a new channel for him to gain exposure. Furthermore, with such newfound visibility, this has led to companies–such as Google–asking Futura for collaborations to work on campaign projects as a creative partner, along with offers to take part in art shows. What is more, Futura does not have a personal website to showcase his portfolio like most artists and designers do–but rather, all of his work is published on Instagram, making his art discoverable with the use of hashtags. A hashtag is a “type of metadata” associated to a “keyword or phrase” to categorize content on social media. In the case of Instagram, when a hashtag is used in the caption of a post, it can be found by anyone who searches for that particular subject. In addition to topic-based hashtags, there are branded hashtags which are “specific to [one’s] company” or brand that can “tie back directly” to one’s brand (Jackson 2017). To demonstrate, Futura uses the hashtag “#tonyfutura” on every image he posts, as well as topic-based hashtags that are related to his art.