5 Ways Illustrators and Artists Can Use Google Plus

Unless you’ve been in a creative cave recently, feverishly working away on your latest piece, you’ve probably noticed the online crowd is a-buzz with the latest social network to hit the scene: Google+

I jumped on it a couple of weeks ago and immediately saw some excellent ways it could be used as a business tool but in this article, I’d like to share some of the ways that we feel it could be a fantastic tool for illustrators and artists (or anyone who has creative work to share)…

To Run Critique Circles

One of the smartest things about the way Google+ works is that it makes it very simple to control who your updates are seen by. While Facebook has this ability (if you’re comfortable using lists or you set up a private group), the fact that Google+ is built upon a structure of Circles and you have to determine who is in each Circle from the start means that you have a natural network of connections set up, allowing you to very easily filter and control who sees your updates.

This makes it ideal for having private groups to run Crit circles, get feedback from trusted people and reveal some of your WIPs to a limited number of people until you’re comfortable with showing a wider audience.

For Publicity & Engagement

The vibe of Google+ so far seems to be far more interactive per posted item than either Facebook or Twitter. This makes it a great place to showcase your work and engage an audience around it.

What is very neat about the way Google+ displays images is that you can see other comments and interact with the image in a window right next to the image itself – it encourages comments and feedback far more invitingly than either Facebook, Twitter or even Flickr. It also looks really smart and showcases your work very nicely.

Note: If you’re concerned about Google+ Terms of Service and their rights over your images, check out this post which gives an insightful and more balanced view of the issue.

As A Portfolio Site

There’s even an argument that your Google+ profile could function as a very effective portfolio site. The profile page lets you display information about you with any number of links to other websites, social media profiles and more, as well as the posts (there’s no limit on how many characters you can post in an update so you could very easily share blog-length posts if you choose to) and resources you share (a nice way to give people an insight into the personality behind the illustrations).

As you can see, it’s also very easy to see any photos/images you upload and also videos (Work in Progress videos, perhaps?) right from within your profile.

While I wouldn’t recommend putting all your eggs in the Google basket (you don’t own this platform in the same way you own a self-hosted portfolio website), this could be a very useful interim or supplementary portfolio site for illustrators and artists who can’t yet afford their own custom one.

For Better Collaboration

Using the Circles set-up above, it is very easy to create a Circle with project team members and use it to share resources with those people only. Because Google+ integrates seamlessly with the whole range of other Google tools (docs, spreadsheets, Picasa, YouTube etc.), it makes it even easier to share things across this platform.

The other neat feature is a Hangout – which is a video chat you can initiate with all members of a certain Circle. This is done from within your browser meaning you don’t need any other software to take part in a group video conference.

To Conduct Research

One of the lesser well-used features of Google+ currently (possibly because it’s not yet as fully developed as it could be) is Sparks. This is a way to follow stuff you’re interested in (a bit like following a FB page or a hashtag of topics you like on Twitter) and is a fantastic way to see new things and be introduced to new people.

You can also use your profile as a bookmarking site – if you visit a site and see the +1 symbol on the post (see just below here), if you click it, this will save and display this content on the +1′s tab on your Google+ Profile.

Whether Google+ is a Facebook-killer or Twitter-killer (as has been touted), that remains to be seen. What is very obvious though is that Google Plus offers some very compelling reasons for creative entrepreneurs – illustrators, artists musicians and more – to get a profile, dive in and start experimenting with it themselves.