The Ultimate Guide to Networking and Promotion for Graphic Designers

Whether you run a graphic designer blog, work as a freelancer, or just want to take your hobby to the next level, one thing is for sure – good networking and promotion is crucial.

Promotional primarily gets you more clients, but you also want to be building up your brand, your online following and getting your work seen by more people.

My advice for networking and promotion is very simple:

Be everywhere, and be active.

It’s really that simple. If your networking extends to setting up a blog and a Facebook page, then your work probably won’t get much exposure. However, if you’re really active in a variety of areas, from blog posts, to forums, creative networks and more, then you stand a much better chance of getting great exposure and meeting more of your peers.

Below I’ve outlined some of the best ways to get exposure if you’re a graphic designer. Try to do as many of them as you can, as often as you can, and watch your following grow!

Guest Post For Other Graphic Design Blogs:

Guest posting is an awesome way to network and promote yourself simultaneously. Here are some of the benefits of guest posting for other blogs:

Your writing will get exposure to a new and larger audience.
You will get backlinks and exposure via your author bio section at the bottom of your articles.
You get paid very well by the top sites. This can be a full time job for many writers.
You will be dealing with well established bloggers personally (or at least their editorial team). This is basic networking at it’s finest.

Comment on Relevant Blogs

Another great way to ‘be everywhere’ is to comment on relevant blogs. My advice would be to use a feedreader (if you aren’t already) and subscribe to as many quality graphic design blogs as you can find.

You may want to start by subscribing to PSD.FanExtra

My recommendation for a quality feedreader would be Google reader:

Join Creative Networks

Creative networks and membership galleries are one of the best ways to give your graphic design work exposure. These networks are designed so that designers can post their work and get feedback from like minded members.

Below is a fairly comprehensive list of all the top creative networks:

Deviant Art

PSD Bucket

Shadowness

UCreative

Design Flavr

Creattica

Dribbble

NotCot

Behance

Designers Couch

Flickr

Artician

Design 21

Use Social Networking

We’re all familiar with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Youtube. However, it’s likely that you’re not using all of these sites to promote your work. Even if you are using all of them, you can probably use them more effectively.

Below I’ve laid out some useful resources for expanding your social networks:

How to Mimic Twitter Power Users and Explode Your Followers

100 Ways to Become a Twitter Power User

5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page

Network Offline

No one wants to be locked in their bedroom all day not seeing daylight! Offline networking remains probably the best way to land clients and form relationships. It’s far more personal and can be great for repeat business and referrals.

Get Some Quality Business Cards

If you’re networking offline then quality business cards are a must. We got ours from UPrinting.com. Check out our review of how great they turned out.

Attend Industry Meet Ups and Events

If you can afford it you should be attending top events in your industry. If not, free meetups are a great way to get yourself out there and meet others in your field. Graphicdesign.meetup.com looks to be a great way to connect with other professionals in your area!

About the Author:

Tom is the founder of PSDFAN. He loves writing tutorials, learning more about design and interacting with the community. On a more interesting note he can also play guitar hero drunk with his teeth.

6 Comments:

Salacki says:

February 7, 2012 at 10:57 am

Very interesting websites, keep it up. I would add Abduzeedo Blog – good blog all about design.

Reply
- Tom says:
  
  February 7, 2012 at 8:19 pm
  
  Yeah Abduzeedo is a great blog, I’m a daily reader!
  
  Reply
Su Hall says:

February 12, 2012 at 11:28 pm

Hi, Tom,
Great read! I do many of those! I like keeping up with what is happening. LOL This is all new to me since my blog has been such a casual thing for me. I am trying out some of the things you’ve been teaching, though. Like, I looked at my page hits the other day for the first time – ever! LOL It was about what I had expected. It was interesting to see what posts had the most, so I can see what folks like. That is one good advantage to it. I know I will find more as I get used to this.
Thank you for your comments on my blog. I wanted to tell you that the rest of that kit is coming out with some of those frames isolated, 4 of them. Two parts come out tomorrow and the last two come out next Monday. I’m glad you like! I confess, though, I din’t make all of those! LOL ’123RF’ had some of them!
Also, I caught the most recent App Sumo special! When they had the last one, I wasn’t able to get it. Then, I saw where it was on again and I jumped on it. So, you’re stuck with me for another year! LOL
I am loving this series on blogs. Keep it up.

Su

Reply
- Tom says:
  
  February 13, 2012 at 11:32 am
  
  Thanks Su! I’m really glad that you’re implementing some of my tips. As far as this post if you’re doing these points, and doing them well they should definitely help boost your traffic tot he next level.
  
  I’ll look out for the next kit, as I mentioned I loved the first one .
  
  That’s awesome that you’re with us for another year. You’re honestly one of our most active members and it’s been awesome getting to chat with you so much!
  
  Reply
Alaa Kabalan says:

February 13, 2012 at 10:35 am

So many websites and blogs to check oO I know some, but many are new to me. I guess I have a long night tonight checking them out :p

Reply
- Tom says:
  
  February 13, 2012 at 11:28 am
  
  I’m glad you found this post useful Alaa . I do recommend checking out all of the sites mentioned as they can all benefit your business.
  
  Reply

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