Stand Out On Society6: A Roadmap to Creating Art that Sells

1. Introduction: Earning passive income from selling my work with Society6 has allowed me to create from anywhere in the world. I no longer have to worry about packaging orders or customer service. They pretty much take care of everything so I can focus on what I'm good at, creating. Hey, I'm Charly, I'm a greeting card designer, illustrator, and top teacher here on Skillshare. In today's class, I'm going to share my top tips on how you can create artwork that sells on Society6. I started selling my greeting cards and prints around seven years ago, and I was fulfilling the orders myself. I was spending so much time packaging and printing orders that I just didn't have any time to create my own artwork. Once I factored in my time and my material cost, I wasn't making much money at all, so I started to look for other ways that I could make money selling my work online, and I came across Print On Demand. I remember getting so excited about the prospect of not having to do everything myself. I now run my creative business full-time from my laptop and iPads and license my work out to companies around the world. My work's been seen on puzzles, greeting cards, phone cases, magazine covers, and even bank cards. As artists, it's really important to diversify our income as much as possible. That's why I've put together this road-map, so you don't have to go through years of trial and error like I did. Throughout this class, we're going to talk about trends, why planning is such a vital part of the process, and also how to stand out in a crowded market. We'll also look at how to optimize your store through keywords and titles. I'll also share lots of tips on how to market yourself in a way that feels natural to you. I know that there's this worry that if you don't have a big social media following, then you won't make sales on Society6. I just want to reassure you that there are other ways to make sales that doesn't require a big following. Maybe you want to open your own store, but don't know where to start. Or maybe you've already tried to open a store on Society6, but you're just not making any sales. If this sounds like you, then you're in the right place. I hope that by the end of this class, you'll have the confidence and know how to get started. Let's jump in. 2. Road Map Breakdown: In this video, I'm just going to give you a breakdown of what to expect from the class. It might be really tempting to skip ahead to the creation side of things, but there are a few important steps you should take in-between. I found the more time I spent on the research stage, the more sales I make. It is really important. The roadmap has five simple steps. In Step 1, we're going to start looking at trends. Trends are really important to create mass appeal for your work. We're going to look at ways that we can tap into those. Step 2, is all about product planning. This is where we can start planning ahead for those all important holidays and seasons. Step 3 is all about bringing what you've learned in step one and two and creating your products. Step 4, we'll start optimizing our store through keywords and titles. This is where you can really sought to target your work to specific customers. Step five, marketing. This is where you get to shout about the amazing work that you've created. I'll also share some top tips on how to market yourself, It feels natural to you. Now we know what to expect from the class. Join me in the next video where we're going to be looking at trends. [MUSIC] 3. What Are Trends?: One of the most important steps that I take before designing any product is researching the latest trends. Jumping on times early has played a huge role in my success on print on demand sites over the years. In this class, I'm going to cover what trends are, and why trends are important. Trends are something that becomes really popular or hit at any time. I normally break it down into three categories, subjects, color, and style. Popular subjects can be anything from mushrooms, faces, the space, popular TV shows, and events in the news. Popular colors could be influenced by fashion or packaging, and it could be a really popular individual color or maybe an unlikely color combination like pink and green and style. Joint styles have shifted a lot over the years. Vector art for example, used to be really popular. But over the last six years, we've seen a real shift from that clean digital leg to more hand-joint organic fill. It's really good to pay attention to different styles as well. You might remember back in 2014 when we saw the rise of Cacti. They were literally on everything from apparel to book papers, ceramics, greeting cards, and homeland. But all trends have a lifecycle. When the Cacti's trend finally faded out, it's because it hit market saturation. Basically, once a trend has been seen over and over again, people start to lose interest, and eventually the trend just fizzles out. It's important to spot those trends early on. It can be really difficult to predict a lifecycle of any trend. Some trends come and go really quickly and other trends stick around for a really long time. But this is great for us because this means that we could be making money from the same trend for years to come. Why are trends so important? Firstly, you will make way more sales on print on demand sites because your work will have mass appeal. The more people you work with PLT, the more sales you make. Setting on Society6 is a numbers game. They'll do all the hard work of printing your products and shipping them, but they'll also set their own prices. You really need to think about creating work that appeals to a large audience. Number 2, it makes your work a lot easier to find by people who are searching for popular trends. Adding popular trends and themes into your work will increase the chances of it showing up in front of potential customers. Here's an example where I suddenly added a popular theme on to one of my characters. Now when people search for pizza, my artwork pops up on the search page. Using keywords in the title too for example, space or main, will start to draw customers to your other artwork as well. You don't have to have everything related to your space in your art, but having one or two pieces with a popular theme will increase the likeliness of it being found. I'll talk more about keywords and tags in a later video. Number 3, Society6 will be a lot more likely to share your work in their monthly roundups. Here's an example of my dreaming of Japan illustration I created last year. That was featured on Society6's Instagram. Using trends is a great opportunity to get noticed by Society6, and to be featured by them. Number 4, your following on social media will grow much faster because your work will be more relatable. Creating artwork that has mass appeal will not only attract more customers to your shop, but also to your social media platforms. The more relatable your work is, the more likely people will share it. The last reason, bigger companies will be more likely to discover your work and offer you exclusive licensing opportunities. Companies want those products that they know will sell well. Society6 is actually part of another brand called Deny Designs. This is a curated website that brings artists a host of opportunities with different companies like Urban Outfitters and Nordstrom. If you have work that stands out on Society6, this could open so many more doors for you and your business. When should you jump on a trend? Now, I'm not saying that you have to jump on every single trend that comes your way. I'd actually advise you not to, because not every trend is going to fully align with you or your brand. For example, just because Star Wars has got really popular all of a sudden, it doesn't mean that I should start adding Star Wars characters into my own work. This could look really strange and out of place for my brand. It's really important that you're looking for trends that fit you. If you want to maximize the amount of sales you make, then it's really important to jump on these trends from the beginning. The best way to do this is to pay attention to everything that is going on around you. It can be really easy to miss out on trends if you're not paying attention. What I normally do is keep a diary and make mental notes of themes and recurring trends that keep popping up on social media or in the news. For example, the new documentary, Fantastic Fungi, completely put Mushrooms on the map. Blogs were raving about it and every YouTuber seem to be talking about it. Could this be the sign that Mushrooms have become the new Cacti? Who knows? But it could be worth jumping on this trend anyway. You're probably thinking that trends are all well and good. But if everyone's doing the same thing, how can you stand out? That's a really good question. Join me in the next video where I'm going to show you how to follow trends while standing out in a sea of other illustrators. 4. How to Stand Out: Here's a struggle I had when I first started out. I had always ask myself questions like, what should I even be drawing? Should I be creating work that is focused just on what's popular and trending? Or can I draw what I love to create? It's so important that you create work that you love. This will avoid feeling burned out. But print on-demand sites and shops are looking for products with mass appeal. We do need to look at trends as well. How I normally look at it is like this. If you only draw what you love without thinking about the potential market, you could struggle to make sales. But if you only focus on what's popular and trendy and what everyone else is doing. You could run the risk of not being original and getting lost in a sea of other illustrators. The truth is, you have to focus on both. You have to combine what you love and what makes you unique with what's popular and what people want to buy. Me in the middle, this is what I call the sweet spot. Of course, there will be other artists that share similar styles to you, but what they won't share are your values and experiences. I want you to lean into the things that make you different. I've actually found that the more art I create, the more I start to learn about myself. I want you to experiment and explore your style as much as possible. The better you get at creating the art, the better you get at communicating your ideas and emotions. For example, look at how three different artists have approached the same popular trend, sunshine. Even though the subject matter is completely the same, each artist has interpreted it in a different way. Here's a quick exercise. I want you to brainstorm for around five minutes and ways that you can re-create the theme, sunshine. Maybe it could be through humor or graphic design, a topography piece or a pattern. Think about ways that you can infuse your favorite color palettes or a style that you'd love to use. There is no right or wrong answer her, it's just about getting creative. I found this amazing quote by Austin Kleon that I had to share with you guys. It's not about trying to create something completely original, it's about learning how to take something that's already been done and make it your own. Ask yourself these two simple questions. What are my strengths and how can I interpret things in my own unique way? Remember, the sooner you're able to jump on a trend, the easier it will be to create artwork that stands out. 5. Exercise 1: Trendspotting: There are so many different ways to spot trends, but in this video, I'm just going to show you the method that has worked for me. Transporting muscles is just like training any muscle. We need to exercise it in order to get stronger. I've put together a worksheet for you to fill out, and I call this the Pinterest formula. The reason why I love Pinterest so much is because it's an amazing resource for finding visual trends. I also want you to get in the habit of pinning on a regular basis. Not only is it an amazing place to find inspiration, but it's also great for marketing your products. I'll speak about that in a later video. For the first part of this exercise I want you to create two boards in Pinterest, and then with the black sheet we're going to start to analyze what we found. We're going to jump into Pinterest first. I want you to create two boards, one with pattern inspiration, and one with wall art. What we're going to do is pin inspiration to these two boards, and with the worksheet we're going to start to analyze what we find. We're going to go to the Homepage. I don't want you to pin directly from the homepage. This is because Pinterest is actually showing you what they think you like rather than what people actually pinning. This will give you a proper overview of what's trending and what's changing. I want you to get more specific with your search terms. I'm going to look for surface pattern design and I'm just going to start pinning lots of pattern inspiration to my board. I'm not looking for patterns that I like, I'm just pinning everything I see on this first page because this is only Explore page. I know this is what people are pinning right now. I'm just going to go through and start to pin as much as possible, and I'm not going to analyze it until I create my board and then I can use the worksheet to start having a look. I want you to spend around 5-10 minutes on each board, so not too long. Just pin everything you see on this first Explore page. Once you've pinned some patterns to your board, we can go back and start to create the same board for our wall art. You should have your worksheet. This is called Pinterest formula, and we're going to start to analyze the boards that we created in Pinterest. You can fill this out on your computer or print out if you'd prefer. I'm just going to use in Procreate to show you how I analyze my boards. I'm just going to bring Pinterest in, and I have my pattern inspiration and also my wall art. I'm going to start to analyze my wall art first. I'm going to start to look for recurring themes in styles, subjects, and colors. I'm just going to start to analyze my boards. First thing I'm going to look at styles and styles can be anything from textured art or maybe it can be more graphic. We could have abstract, something that is really not realistic at all or portraits are very realistic. You can have vintage or modern boho and plastic. Just any styles that you notice I want you to start filling out in this box. This is just a great exercise to get you in the habit of analyzing what you see. I'm just going to have a look to see what styles are recurring, and straight away I can see that there are two pins with Matisse. I'm just going to write that down. I'll just go down. I'm seeing a lot of abstracts as well, so I'm just going to write that and line work. You don't have to completely change your style just because it's becoming trendy. Maybe you could infuse some of those style choices into your existing designs. This could be a good opportunity to just push you work in a different direction. I'm noticing a lot of line work. I'm just going to circle this to emphasize something that I'm seeing repeated over and over again. Abstract seems to be popping up a lot as well, I'm just going to start with that. I'm also seeing this textured watercolor, I'm just going to write water color. Again, I'm noticing textured a lot, I'm just going to circle that one as well. Once I've finished this, I'm just going to move on to subjects. Subjects can be anything from plants, animals, space. I want you go back to the start of your board and start to look at some of the themes that you're seeing. I'm noticing a lot of florals already, so I'm just going to write that down. Sunshine and rainbow, just going to write those. This is a great way to get lots of inspiration for what to create, especially when you're feeling stuck. I'm just going to circle florals because I'm noticing it over and over again. I'm seeing this daisies as well as so I'm just going to write that down. [MUSIC] Lastly, we're just going to focus on the color. Can you notice any one times or co-times, are there any unusual color combinations that you are seeing come up over and over again? I'm seeing a lot of black and gold, I'm just going to write that down, black and white. These color combinations can be a great thing to start adding into your illustrations. Black and gold, and black and white seem to be really popular at the moment. These could be potential trends that we want to bring into our own work. I'm seeing a lot of warm tones, golds, and this dusty pink keeps coming up. These warm tones could be because we are going into full now. A lot of colors that you'll start to see in art work will be reflective of the season that we're going into. These orangey cozy colors are definitely going into autumn. [MUSIC] Now that we have our first board analyzed, it's time to analyze our second board. I want you to go back to your Pattern Inspiration and repeat this process with all the categories again. Hopefully you were able to analyze both boards and filled out all the categories for each one. As you can see, I've circled a few words that I found kept popping up. I have a lot of abstract art work, there's a lot of line work, textured, also vintage, that kind of textured vintage feel that comes from the warm colors and the distress look. Also some florals, sunshine kept popping up, also the female form. Mushroom seems to be on the rise and also some flowers, lastly, colors. These are the popular colors that I noticed just from this exercise. Black and gold, black and white, dusky pink, some orange. These are really warm colors. But also royal blue which is very contrasting to the warm colors. The royal blue came up about three or four times. Again, I've circled them. If you're noticing lots of themes coming up, then I want you to circle some of these words just to emphasize what's popular. Remember combining what you love with the latest trends is the best way to stand out and make sales on society's sake. This does mean that we have to get to know ourselves and our work better. This will help you start thinking about ways that you can bring your personality into your own work. The more you can lean into your own experiences, the more unique your work will be. I've just created three questions for you to start analyzing yourself and your work as well. The first question is, what do you enjoy creating most? I've just got my answers here just to save a bit of time for you guys. I've written down a strong female characters. It's really important that we are creating work that brings us joy, that always shows in our work as well. These are just some of the things that I love to create the most. Everyone's answers are going to be completely different, which I'm really excited to see what you find out about yourself and what you love to create in your own work. The second question is, what are your passions, interests, and things that make you unique? I have this answer here. I love traveling. I'm really passionate about exploring new places and try new foods. I also obsessed with Netflix. Some of my best-selling greeting cards have been inspired by my favorite TV shows, like the US Office and Friends. I'm also allergic to a lot of things. I have allergies and I've experienced social anxiety in the past as well. These two things are a big part of me. I created a piece of artwork based of these two things and it said, I'm allergic to pollen and social situations. What I love to do is try and find humor in the things that make me different. When you're filling this out yourself, you can ask things that are positive and negative and think about ways you can share these differences through your own work. Lastly, how would you describe your art in three words? I put down positive, relatable, and also playful. I really do try to create work that is inspiring, makes people happy. I really enjoy infusing humor into my work as well. These are three words that I describe my work with. This is forever changing, our style and our tastes are always changing. This is something that I want you to start filling out or asking yourself on a regular basis just to make sure that we're heading in the right direction. If you're struggling to answer these questions, please don't worry. The more you practice, the easier it will get. Eventually you won't need to use the worksheet because analyzing will just become second nature. Now that you've filled out both of the exercise sheets, hopefully you have a better understanding about yourself and also you have lots of inspiration for up and coming trends. Now that you have analyzed your boards and yourself, join me in the next video where we're going to be planning our products. [MUSIC] 6. Exercise 2: Product Planning: Things take time to create a market well, so you're going to want to give yourself enough time to plan your products. Of course, there are always exceptions. There may be a big trend that you want to jump on, but for the most part, you want to plan ahead. There are a few reasons why planning ahead is such an important part of the process. Number 1, you get in there fast. Remember if you jump on a trend too late, it will be harder to stand out. Number 2, if you're working with licensors they'll want your designs months in advance so they can start getting ready for wholesale. Number 3, for your own sanity. There is nothing better than feeling organized and planning ahead rather than constantly being reactive. Throughout the year, you'll see ups and downs when it comes to your sales so it's important that we're covering all the seasons and holidays throughout the year so your income is more steady. You want to start planning for special holidays months in advance. I create my valentine ranges as early as October, and I can create my Christmas ranges as early as June. It might feel really strange to be creating Christmas ranges in summer, but I found that when I plan ahead, they sell so much better. Here's a tip for you, rather than creating the illustration fast and then trying to fit it on a product after, think the other way around. Firstly think, what would people want to buy? Second, what could I illustrate that would work well for these specific products and seasons? In January 2020, I noticed that the subject daisies were popping up everywhere so I saw this as a really good opportunity to jump on this trend and start creating my products for summer. I created my trippy daisy design months in advance. By the time summer moved around, Society6 not only featured it on their homepage, but they also released their Android phone cases and used my design as their phone cover. This is an amazing example of how powerful planning ahead is. I've put together a product planner for you to start filling out popular trends, products, and key events that happen throughout the seasons. This is going to give you so many ideas for your products. We're going to head over to Society6's creative brief, and start filling out the relevant seasons in our table. I want you to fill this out as best as you can. Start to think about the types of things that happen in these seasons. Don't worry if you're feeling stuck, I do have a little tip for you that I will share in a bit. I'm now thinking about key events that happen in summer. I know that there are lots of outdoor parties, people love to socialize, so I could write down festivals. [NOISE] Also, people love to have picnics, enjoy the sun, and they go to the beach so a lot of beach time. From there, I'll just show you an example of how I would then start to think about the types of products that people would be buying. I know that for festivals, people love to show off their phone. They use it all the time so phone cases could be a really good product to focus on. Bum bags and fanny packs. I can then start to think about the types of designs that people would love to show off at festivals so I can get really specific with my designs. I could also create something really summerly for the beach towels as well and blankets. I could use my transporting exercise to really get specific with the Tulsa designs that I'm doing. This is normally how I work, but I understand that this isn't giving us a big enough picture for what's actually happening in this season so what I would recommend is once you've played around and had a go yourself, head over to Society6's blog and go to that creative brief. I'm just going to get that creative brief up quickly. I'll make that a bit smaller. This is just an old creative brief. This is spring into summer. This will give me a really great breakdown of some of the events that are happening throughout summer. April, May, June, I can see straight away that they have a Mother's Day, a Mental Health Awareness Day so that's something that I would actually want to write down as well and make a mental note because this could be something that I could talk about on my social media. Also looking at this Pride Month could be something that I could also talk about or design products around that, Father's Day and Mother's Day as well. You got to think about the types of products and things that people will be buying for their parents. Then I can scroll down. They also have really great trends that will show you a great break down of all of the trends, what people are searching for. Because this is an old creative brief, these trends obviously have changed so you're going to want to go onto the Society6 blog and quite regularly just to make sure that you're staying up to date with those trends. I'll just go down. This again gives me really great breakdown of some of the products that people are buying in summer. You've got wall art. I'm just going to write that down. I'm just going to pick a few that I would like to focus on for the next few months. Yoga mats and towels. Also floor cushions. This is obviously very popular because you've got picnics and people who are partying outside. Let's go for some throw pillows. Again, that could be a fun one to design for. I've got a really great overview now of not only key events, but also products that I could start to design for. I want you to fill out this whole planner and go back to some of the older creative briefs to fill out as best as you can. This is going to really help you get more specific with the types of products that you are designing for. You should now have lots of inspiration for products and seasons and be prepared for the next few months. I also want you to have fun with this, it's really important that we enjoy the process too. Join me in the next video where I'm going to be showing you how you can take everything you've learned from transporting and product planning and bring it into your sketches. 7. Creation: In this video, I'm going to be sharing my product sketches, which dimensions I work in, and also product multiplication. Before I start sketching, I always ask myself these three questions. One of the recurring themes from my transporting exercise, are there any special holidays and season's coming up and also, which products am I designing for? I'm going to share some of my sketches with you guys just so you can get a feel for how my process is. I normally use Procreate and an Apple pencil, but feel free to get your ideas down on your phone or piece of paper is totally up to you. These are my sketches. As you can see, I've been really influenced by the exercise that we did in part 1 and part 2. I've got down all of the words that I found kept coming up over and over again in the transporting exercise and I also created this really fun typography piece and influenced by the going back to school campaign. I thought I could add some relatability and humor in this, I have no idea what I'm doing. It's a very simple idea, but I just try and get down everything I can onto my piece of paper. This is a really important process for you to get everything that's going on inside your head out. It's like a brain dump and I don't focus too much on how it looks or anything, it's just my random do doors. I just want to give you permission to be as playful and goofy with your designs as you want, because you never know when these designs could go on to be one of your best sellers. I have abstract written down and I thought I could combine abstract mushroom to create this kind of fun, playful prints. Also, I really love the idea of creating this mushroom character as well. You can see that I'm bringing in those really popular trends into my sketches. This is what I want you to do when you're creating your sketches is to really have a play around with all of these recurring themes and trends that you've spotted. I've just created lots of different ideas that I can think I want to finalize. Instead of just coming up with one idea, I'm going straight to your final, having a page of ideas that you can take from is really important for your workflow as well. I think I'm going to choose this one to upload to Society6. I think it's really fun and I love how I've been able to infuse my style. I'm known for my fun characters, so I want you to show my personality through this or so, includes some retro road escapes and mushroom as well. You've seen my sketches, and this is the final illustration. I created my character in a canvas size of 5,500 by 5,500 pixels with a DPI of 300. I found that this size works really well when I put it on to Society6. It works on pretty much every product. Remember, you can always work large and size down, but you can't work small and size up. This could be the difference between your work looking blurry and pixelated and crisping clean when you upload it to Society6. If you are working in Procreate, unfortunately, they do limit the amount of layers that you get when you work in large. I found that the size just works best for my workflow. A little tip though, if you are working with creating patterns, for example, you can't create the tile in a canvas size of 2,000 by 2,000 pixels and then you can build up the rest of the pattern in a canvas of 7,000 by 7,000 pixels. I found that this is a really good size for patterns and it works on pretty much every product. Then from there you can always resize it on their website. Society6 always rewards the artists for posting consistently to their website. The more work that you can create and post on their site, the more likely they are to feature you. But I understand creating artwork on a consistent basis is not always possible, especially if you have a family to take care of or you have a part-time job, I completely get it. Here are three tips to optimize your time better. Number 1, batch your work, and this has saved my productivity. I found that if I'm already in the creative flow anyway, I'm more likely to focus on my art. Why not dedicate one days a week on batching your work? Number 2, use multiple colorways of the same design. A really easy and quick way to build up your library of designs is to create in different colorways. I normally create between 3-4 different colors and then I'll drip those out over a few months. Not only will this save you lots of time, but it will also attract several customers to your shop. For example, someone might really love your design, but it just doesn't work in their home. Maybe they're looking for more neutral colors, but your work is all vibrant. By changing up the colors, you've given the customer more choice and it will increase the likeliness of them buying something that fits their aesthetic. Number 3, repurpose old artwork. Taking elements and subjects from existing designs and making them into patterns not only adds variety to your shop, but it also adds a little bit more consistency as well. Some people might be searching for a design to hang on their wall, while others might be looking for a fun case with a passing on there. You want to make sure that you're maximizing your cells. Remember posting consistently is key here, but I also want to make sure you're not spreading yourself too thin. Think about different ways that you can make the process of creating artwork easy for you and your schedule. Join me in the next video where I'm going to be sharing some tips on how to optimize your store. 8. Optimizing Your Shop: The easiest way to drive traffic to your Society6 shop is to optimize your put-ups with keywords and titles. In this video, I'll be covering how best to display your products for potential customers. How to find keywords and titles, and why you should only be using relevant tags. Your shop is one of the first things that people are going to see when they click on your designs. So you're going to want to display everything in a way that's really easy for your customer to understand. Firstly, you want to have just a really simple banner. This could be a pattern or something that represents your brand and also an avatar which could be your logo or just an illustration that people are recognizing. I also have a really short bio that just describes what I do and also it has my Instagram handle and website. I think your [inaudible] is really important so that customers can find you on different platforms as well. I have my artwork displayed in a way that is really easy for customers to pick a design that they like. I have it set to New and I'll just show you if I'm to edit my shop. We have shop settings here and appearance. This is where I can change my cover image, edit my avatar, and also my bio. Then the shop settings is where you can start to display your products in a way that is easy to show. I have it set by new, wall art, and art prints. I'm just going to give you an example of how it would look if I set it to All and just save that. Straight away, you can see that my pattern is now displayed on several different products. But we don't want to display it like this because when customers come to our shop, they don't want to have to be scrolling all the way down just to find your second design. It's going to make it a lot harder for them to see exactly what's in your store. You want to keep it quite concise with having just your work displayed on one or two products. I'm just going to go back and just set that to wall art and my art prints. You can play around with different departments and products as well. Sometimes patterns work a lot better on different products. My work is very much targeted towards prints, so that's how I like to display my designs. It's totally up to you. I just don't want you to have lots of different products for customers to have to sift through to find your work. I'm just gonna go save. Just refreshed that. Now we have everything displayed in a neat way. Before I upload my illustration, I am going to want to start doing some research for some tags and title ideas. I'm just going to type in mushroom because this is what my artwork is going to be. I'm just having a look to see what other artists have titled their work. I'm just looking for keywords and inspiration. I can see night has been mentioned a few times, also retro and vintage. So I know that this is a very trendy keyword, vintage, so that could be something that I could add. Also, we've got seventies, magical, magic, is coming up, so I'm still getting some ideas for my own work. Then I can go down and just click on something that is quite similar to what I'll be posting, which is mushroom and I'm just going to go down and see what other words are in the related searches. Search where I can see plants, natural, fungus, vintage, so this has given me so many ideas for my tags. Another way that you can have a look for keywords is by the Filter by, so you can just click on here and this will give you a long list of words that you can use in your text. I'm just going to duplicate this so I can keep the list. We're going to go back and start to upload my artwork. Go to Sell, Add new artwork, add my Retro mushroom girl. I've already figured out the title for my girl and remember, I spotted this retro word, not only my [inaudible] and exercise but also a lot of other artists were tagging their mushroom art with this word. So this is really important to get it in the title. When other people are searching, they're going to find my art. Retro mushroom girl, continue. Now I am going to pick my cascade so drawing and I'm going to start to add some of those relevant tags. It's really important that you will not just keyword stuffing and just using trendy words for the sake of using trendy words, it's important that your tags are as relevant to your artwork as possible. This means that customers will be able to find your works. So if they type in a word, there'll be more likely to buy the work. I'm going to start to add tags and of course, the word mushroom should be in there. I'm just going to refer back to this list to see what other words I can add. I know that magic seems to be popular and also magic I can use because I have these sparkles, it's quite a magical piece so I know this is relevant. When you're adding your tags, you want to add individual tags. You don't want to use multiple words or spaces. If you are going to use two or three words then it is recommended that you use a hyphen. I always say write your name but have a hyphen in between the names. It's important to have your name because when people are searching for your artwork, then you wanna make sure that your work is being found when they type in your name, always add what colors in your art as well so people looking for pink print, then my work could be relevant to them. I'm just going to go through and keep referring back to this list. So fungi, fungus, quirky, could add fun, playful, girl, female, forests. You should have around 20 tags to work with. Once you've added all of your tags, you are then just going to want to go through your products to see which product works best for your design. This way, you're giving your customers lots of different choices and you're also able to use all of the products that is available on Society6. Once you're happy with how your artwork looks and you're happy with your tags and your title then you can just click here and publish your artwork. Once you've optimized your shop, join me in the next lesson where I'll be sharing how I price my products. 9. Pricing Your Products: Even though Society6 already sets most of the prices for their products, we do have the option to change our prices for prints. So we can mark up the framed prints, our Canvases and also art prints. I know it can be really difficult to know how to even price our art. So in this video, I'm going to give you a few things to pay attention to, if you're looking to change your prices. Number one, price, your work competitively. Research what other similar artists are charging on Society6. I want to do this by looking at similar trends, and subjects and then looking at the average price. Let's use daisy as an example. This is where I can start to see what other similar artists are charging for their work and look at the average. Then from there, I can either match it or condensation in the lowest. It's really important that you're aware of what other artists are charging for their work. You don't want to be charging a lot of money for a print, where someone would then just choose a cheaper print. You want to make sure that you are finding that balance between pricing your work competitively and being comfortable and valuing your work as well. Number 2, respond to demand. If one of your illustrations is selling really well, this could be a good indication that you need to raise your prices. For example, I've noticed that my shear face print is doing really well. I want to amend my prices to reflect that. How I would do that is just going to manage my pace. This is where I can set my artwork markup for that specific product. At the moment is 11 percent, but it's normally about 10 percent. This is where you can change the percentage to however much you want. I'll just show you an example. If I was to go up to 14 percent, an update for all of them, then you can see the base price and then the total that people will have to pay. I'll make the 14 percent difference. I think 14 percent for this piece of art is slightly high. I think 12 or 13 percent, let's go for 13 percent to try out is fair. I want you to change your prices depending on how much work is in demand. Because a lot of people are willing to pay a lot for art if they really want it.10 percent or 13 percent might seem quite low for a royalty. But I have had experiences with licenses who have paid me anywhere between 7-8 percent for designs and as low as five percent with some of them. So 13 percent or 10 percent is actually quite fair. This is why it is really important as well to create work with mass appeal. Even though it's slightly lower, you can hopefully make that up by the mast cells that you make. Just submit those changes and it takes around two hours to change the appearance in my shop. Number 3, look at your ideal customer. Who is your work targeted towards? For example, some of my work is targeted at slightly younger audience. I do need to adjust my prices with that customer in mind. Maybe for some of my more younger, playful illustrations, I might not be able to charge as much as I would for maybe more detailed work that is aimed at a more mature customer. At the end of each week a month, take around 10 to 20 minutes to just look at your results and see what's working. I want you to look at things like what sold, what hasn't sold, and ask yourself that difficult question of why. Also, look at what's gotten good engagement on Society6 and also social media. So what type of product is it, what themes and colors and can you spot any patterns emerging? Just a disclaimer here. I've had a lot of designs over the years that have completely flopped. I don't want you to feel discouraged if you're not seeing any changes or if you're not seeing sales right now, it will come. Every failed design is a lesson learned. Just keep getting in the mindset of analyzing and really paying attention to what's working and what isn't so then you can change things up going into the future. 10. Marketing Your Work: You finally have your work uploaded to Society6, and now it's time to share it with the world. I want you to celebrate the amazing work that you're creating. It's about putting yourself out there even if you don't feel ready. In this video, I'm going to be sharing my tips on how you can market yourself. Number 1, use mock ups. Using mock ups not only showcases your work in a really professional way, but it also helps brands visualize exactly what your designs will look like on their products. When I shared my sleeping sun pattern mocked up on a phone case to my Instagram Live Share, within about a week I received an email from a company asking to license that out for phone cases. Showing your work as a finished product will really get you noticed by those big brands. It's also really cool to see how our designs will look once they're on a product. The sites that I use for my mock ups are Creative Market and Placeit. Number 2, add your mock ups to Pinterest. Once you've created your mock ups, you're going to want to find different places to post them. I found that if I spread my marketing over several different platforms, then it gets easier. You're not just targeting the same people over and over again on Instagram. I love using Pinterest. It's an amazing marketing tool. I use a lot of my mock ups that I create and post them onto my boards. Remember that creating new boards on a regular basis on Pinterest is a really important part of your marketing strategy as well. Number 3, give your followers value. No one likes to be sold to constantly and I was guilty of this myself when I first started out. But I now follow the 80-20 rule. Eighty percent of my post are targeted at giving my followers value and then the remaining 20 percent is all about promoting and sharing my products. Followers will be a lot more likely to purchase from you if you've built up authority and trust. Number 4, start a weekly newsletter. This is something that I've started recently and it's a great way to share more behind the scenes and intimate moments from you and your business to your followers. The best platform that I've tried is Flow Desk. If you want to start your own newsletter, It's really affordable and really, really easy to use. The best part is it's beautifully designed as well. Number 5, use affiliate links. A great way to earn extra money from marketing your products is by signing up to the Society6 affiliate program. The way it works is you'll get a unique link to add to your shop's site and then you can use this link in your social media bio for your shop and every time someone clicks through your link and makes a purchase, you'll get a kickback. You'll get about 10 percent commission from that sale. I know that marketing can feel difficult and a bit pointless if you don't have many followers. I remember being there at the beginning, we all have to start somewhere. But I want to leave you with something that is inspiring and hopefully will encourage you to post on Society6, even if you don't have a big following. I found these amazing artists who are absolutely killing it on Society6, but when you go over to their Instagram, they don't have that many followers at all. I just want to encourage you to keep going and to show you that you don't have to have a big social media following to do well on Society6. If you follow trends and keep creating work that Society6 is looking for, then you don't have to rely on doing the marketing yourself. 11. Final Thoughts: Thanks so much for watching my class today. I hope you have more confidence when it comes to standing out on Society6. Earning passive income from selling my work online has completely changed my life. I really hope it can change yours too. I've covered a lot in this class, so I don't want you to feel overwhelmed. Just refer back to the five-step formula anytime. Remember, spot trends, plan ahead for holidays and seasons, create your products, optimize your shop, and market yourself. You may have some questions about the process or maybe you're not seeing results straight away. I just want to reassure you that that's completely normal at the beginning, quantity leads to quality. I want you to get in the habit of creating on a consistent basis. I hope that in today's class I was able to give you the tours and inspiration to get started. Keep asking yourself, am I operating consistently? The more artwork you upload to Society6, the more likely your products will be found. This isn't to say that you should sacrifice the quality of your designs say. If you follow the five-step formula, you'll be able to easily create quality products on a regular basis. Having a community of like-minded artists is incredibly powerful. Make sure you're taking advantage of that. Share your wins and exercises in the project section of the class. I'd love seeing what you guys create. If you have any questions about Society6 or the class in general, then post it in the discussion section as well. If you want to find more of my artwork, then follow me on Instagram at charlyclements. If you want to learn how I create my illustrations, then be sure to check out my other classes here on Skillshare. I have classes on how to create stylized characters, how to animate your scenes, and how to pick colors that pop. Thanks so much guys. Bye.