Short answer: yes!
While it seems like it might be the easiest solution for you to just have a Facebook or Instagram account, as an artist it is important for you to have a platform for yourself. Specifically, it’s important for you to have a platform where you are in control of the content that’s on it. Facebook and Instagram are great places to help you build an audience, but do you really want to show off your Facebook page to a potential client or Art Director? We go into the reasons you should have an artist portfolio website so you can make a best decision for your artistic career.
Control Your Content
Facebook and Instagram are great… Until they put you in “Facebook jail” for posting something they don’t like. Artists deal with a variety of subject matters including those that are considered sensitive or unsavory. While Instagram and Facebook may have problems with nipples and nudity (add Tumblr to that list as well!) most web hosters do not. Instead of trying to modify your work and censor it for family-friendly places like Facebook, having your own artist portfolio is a safe haven for your artwork to reside.
With constantly changing and tightening terms of service, taking your artwork to a “safe space” like a private web host can help you get your message across and avoid being censored.
Avoid the Negatives – And the Ads – And Keep Your Audience Focused
Having an artist profile versus just a social profile with your art on it allows you to avoid things like unsightly ads, people who have nothing except negative or derogatory comments to say, and other things. When you take away the “social” aspect of an artist profile, then your artist profile becomes more like a virtual gallery space, forcing the viewer to listen rather than waiting for their turn to talk — or in this case, make a comment that could be full of unsolicited criticism or something else. On top of this, your website likely won’t be advertising other artist’s pages as well, popping up notifications, and more, so your visitor will likely be more focused on your work than the rest of the network.
Look Professional – Even if You Aren’t
Which is more professional? A business card or an email address written on a piece of paper? This is essentially what you are doing by creating an artist portfolio website. You are creating a digital business card for art directors, commissioners, and more. A portfolio that is carefully curated by you and adjusted to match your art is much nicer than a standard cookie-cutter Facebook page. Just make sure you have clear information on your page about contacting you!
Reach Places Unknown
While it seems like social media seems like an awesome place to share and get shared, the reality is that many artists struggle with being seen on social media. With an artist portfolio website, having your own dedicated space and placing your art on it is like giving your art a home. Rather than living in an apartment complex owned by someone else, your art lives in a house, and people can stop by, visit, and hang out for a while. The longer your art stays around on these pages, the more likely it is to get found organically on search engines.
You can, of course, help this by optimizing your site using search engine optimization tools such as adding much needed alt text to your images or schema microdata to your pages, but ultimately a home is a better place for your art to live than an apartment.
Beat the Thieves
Many of us have the same story: our art was lifted from someone on the web and it started circulating without credit (or worse, it was scraped via AI). While you can’t really do much to stop the circulation, one thing you can do is by giving your art a permanent home on the web, making it easier to find the original artist when someone does do a reverse-image search on the image.
Since you are allowing search engines to crawl and index your page, finding the source image is much easier when it doesn’t just live on through reblogs and shares. Instead, your website will likely hit the top or close to the top, allowing someone to find the proper artist quickly, rather than wading into page 20 of Google results to find it.
How do you feel about having an artist portfolio? Let us know in the comments below!