Everything is re-linked at the top, so you can follow-up later. Resources cited are not my own, credit to their creators!

Percentage Calculator | Listifications w/o Blocks | Bluesky Hub

Clearsky | Starter Pack Directory | Custom URLs in posts

deck.blue | Bluesky Art Hashtag List | ALT text bot

Art Share Reposter | Saturday NSFW Art Share | Artist Labeller

OnlyPosts Feed | The 'Gram Feed | Art: What's Hot

Furry Artist List | Bluesky's official Art Feeds

If you appreciated this post, please check out my own art account on Bluesky! I draw detailed, oceanic illustrations with colorful palettes and shiny backgrounds. This post took many hours of work that I spent trying to help other artists instead of working on new pieces. Thank you!

Original post of this thread on Bluesky

Note: Bluesky post embeds may be hidden if you are logged out. This is a setting users apply to their profile outside of my control.

I do NOT include tips for how to monetize your content whatsoever (getting commissions, print/merch sales, patreon/twitch subs)

*Reasoning included at the very bottom of the post.

I'll be going into detail on how to:

• Encourage healthy & realistic expectations for social media

• Effectively track and measure your follower growth

• Set yourself up to be an appealing artist account

• Utilize Bluesky's specific tools for maximum exposure

But first...It's important to be honest.

I post art on the internet because I want likes, reposts, and followers. I also enjoy the process of optimizing social media to expand my reach. I'm writing this for the purpose of helping other small artists with the same goal, but you have to be both sincere & respectful if that's how you want people to feel about you too.

This post is specifically about how to utilize Bluesky’s platform to gain followers for small art/artist-focusing accounts. Ultimately, social media is a mix of pure luck and getting back what you put in. I'm not a professional data analyst or numberhead, just a girl that pays attention.

Instructions require greater context. To be on the internet and preserve your mental health, you need boundaries & self-awareness. Along with explaining how to utilize Bluesky's tools I'll be placing a heavy emphasis on practical, healthy mindset to staring at numbers on a screen.

Encouraging healthy & realistic expectations

Social media numbers are fun. It makes us giddy to see numbers next to the bell after we post. But it's just a number meant to make you happy when it goes up - You need to internalize that your self-worth is not decreased by a post flopping and the 'flop' post could actually be performing perfectly fine metrics-wise.

There's a quick measurement of interaction you can perform to see how you're doing, by using your follower count and a post you're measuring. This % can vary per platform. Here's a calculator.

An average Bluesky art post gets about 1-4% follower engagement. If you have 1,000 followers, that means that 10-40 likes is where you can expect most of your art to fall. At 5% is a post doing very well (50+ likes) and anything beyond is a certified banger.

Don't get discouraged if your engagement isn't close to total followers (i.e 100 followers does NOT = 100 likes). That number is a reflection of people who each have hundreds of accounts on their timeline, may have gone inactive, secondary accounts, don't live on Bluesky, different timezones, etc. Remember the 1-4%.

My best post is 1,303 likes but that's 26% of my follower count. That's absolutely huge! The post did amazing! But it's a quarter of my following. Maintain a reasonable perspective. For me (At time of writing) with 4,987 followers, 50-200 likes is where I can expect my art to average.

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I heavily utilize Quote Reposts to bump my art:

• Adding new context "This piece took me 14 hours and I broke my leg midway through!"

• Replying to Art Shares with QRP instead of reposting my art

• Replying to new art with a related piece, like for a speedpaint my reply could be "Finished image! (Quote of original post)"

I'll circle back more to Quotes later, but for now I'll break down how well they do for additional reassurance of normal social media engagement fluctuations as well as the priceless value of trying even with a majority chance of 'failure'.

I took 5 of my best art posts & compiled the likes on their Quotes.

Total sample size is 129 quotes.

(Sources: 1 2 3 4 5)

When we add it all up...

That is 54% chance that my quote will get under 10 likes.

But it's a 19% chance it'll get over 25 likes!

You have to keep trying. You have to be genuine. Put your heart out there and TELL PEOPLE about your art and your inspirations. You don't know if it'll resonate to 0 people or 50+ but you have to be outspoken, yap anyway or your art may never be seen at all.

Many of my art posts have 20-30+ quotes on them. It's fine.

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That's all LIKES. I need Reposts. What do I expect for Reposts?

That's trickier. The ratios (Reposts as fraction of Likes) will always vary. Personally, I think for art they fall sort of like this:

1/10 or less - Lower end of average

1/5 - Better end of average

1/4 - Fantastic, post is doing great

1/3 - Peak of what you can expect

1/2 or more - Emergencies, resources, etc

20 Reposts and 100 Likes = 1/5 Repost Ratio

HOWEVER...

I have posts that have done very well on a lower end 1/10

(The reposts had a wide reach outside of my circle)

and poor exposure on a wonderful 1/3 ratio

(Usual likers reposted, so there wasn't a lot of new eyeballs)

On an example art post of 20 Reposts / 100 Likes, that's still 100 people who enjoyed your work. That is an appropriate ratio regardless of account size. Resist any impulse to find disappointment in that.

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Tracking Your Growth, What to Expect, How Nosy To Be?

Metrics Trackers

There's stigma around artists using trackers. They are tools, not cursed artefacts of ancient prophecy. Bluesky's data being public means free and in-depth tracking tools exist. Have you ever seen YouTube videos say "Only 29% of viewers are subscribed"? It's nothing new that creators track their engagement and it's not shameful for artists to do so either.

If tools are utilized obsessively or maliciously, people are responsible for themselves. It's ignorant to operate as if bad faith is a tracker's default usage, or you might be projecting if you assume everyone uses them that way. Trackers are optional at your preference, but I'll be explaining how I use them.

My favorites include Listifications w/o blocks; which sends you a DM when you are added to a list or starter pack, and Bluesky Hub; which tracks your Follower growth over time.

IMO, these are the only two metrics that really matter. What your +followers trend is, and letting you know if you're added to something.

Clearsky is also popular, tells you a bunch of overall things like who blocked you and the date. It doesn't help with account growth much other than tell you where a bunch of new followers are coming from if you've been added to a new starter pack recently and don't have Listifications on.

Here's my Bluesky Hub graph; I set it up last November.

I LOVE Bluesky Hub! You can use it to track a few things, but I just check my Followers graph a few times a month. I recommend setting this up immediately since it's really cool to watch the data long-term. It starts tracking when you first log in with your acct.

Here it is set up to show October 2025's data only:

I had a huge spike on October 11th of +57 followers, which I can easily track to being added to a starter pack that took off. You can see individual days' stats, but I didn't so the graph is clear.

Shout-out to Devaunbeats, who makes awesome packs!

Listifications did the job, but Clearsky works if you don't like DMs.

That is a perfect gateway to my next section...

Why are starter packs important?

Starter packs are lists with a +Follow All button at the top,

usually themed such as "TTRPG Artists" or "Under 1k Followers"

Posts are made frequently calling for people meeting the requested demographic to submit their art to be added to the list and I HIGHLY recommend speaking up for yourself if you meet the criteria.

You can also use the Starter Pack Directory to search them! A pack is full at 150 members. Searching "lgbt artist" I found 733 packs!

You can be upfront and simply find packs with keywords you apply to. For example, searching "Black artist" or "Indigenous artist" and spotting packs with creators that speak your language, with spots left, that don't mention "Closed / Don't ask me to join", send the pack creator a DM! Example:

"Hi there, I'm a NSFW artist and I'd love to be added to your NSFW art pack if you're still taking slots"

Keep it quick. Don't be rude if they say no. Thank them for their time; you're asking for a favor. You're not entitled to a slot.

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Setting yourself up to be an appealing artist account

Okay, this section might sound a little weird at first. (YOU pov) I'm an artist. Why do I need instructions on how to be creative and decorate my profile and posts?

The answer: In the age of social media, branding is essential for any account hoping to amass a following. Digital marketing and effective advertising is now a required part of an artist's skillset to gain notoriety. As much as we have to draw our own content, we also have to be making it as easy as possible on ourselves to gain attention for that artwork. So yes, there's certain things you should be doing.

What should my profile look like? What settings should I have?

MAKE YOURSELF EASY TO FIND ON OTHER WEBSITES.

You need to put your links & your email. Upfront. Opportunities will not hunt you down. These are non-negotiables!

Optional but adds flavor: What you create (i.e adopt artist, oc artist, background artist, character design), your name/pronouns, country, languages spoken if multilingual, funny personal anecdote

If you're a working artist, your availability should be here too.

Here's a (white lie) example with all of this information:

I'm Blake, she/her. OC/Character design artist.

I don't like ketchup 

ENG / GER / JPN

Links: Blakelinks.com (Not real)

Email: Blakemail.com (Not real)

Inquiries: CLOSED

Spice it up with emojis and whatnot, but get the information out there. The white lie is I definitely don't speak German/Japanese.

Your header and pinned post should ideally feature your own work, so glancing eyeballs can get a good peek at you. I recommend putting your ‘Top 4’ pieces and remaking it a few times a year.

Pinned posts can also use Hyperlink, which bios cannot. You can put your links here instead to be fancy. Here's a tutorial.

Sky-tan

@sky-tan.kawaii.social

Learn how to make links prettier! ✨

You will need to use the third party client deck.blue. You can log into it with your Bluesky account and an app password

#sky-tan #tutorial

1040

I also highly recommend enabling this setting requiring ALT text before posting any media. I'll circle back to alt text in a bit, too.

As well as setting your content warnings for NSFW/Graphic media to your preference.

Show = No warning is shown

Warn = Post is spoilered, but shown

Hide = Posts are hidden entirely

Here is an example of Warn, with the author labelling the content.

If it's labeled by Bluesky moderation, it means the label was not applied by the OP upon posting.

Your Pretty Pictures And How To Post Them

So the first thing you should do is choose your path. Are you mainly an artist, or also want to post memes and whatnot?

If you want to post memes, that's no problem. You should have a way to filter your art from that, though. The most popular ways are feeds and hashtags.

If you post all of your art with a specific tag, you can put that tag in your bio and it'll give a popup “Show all #BlakeArt posts by this user” which neatly sorts it. You can reply to old art with this tag to attach it to that search inquiry.

Just say “For my art: #BlakeArt” in your bio somewhere.

For the more technically inclined, you can create a Feed which includes your art and it'll show up under the Feeds tab on your profile. 

Just say “For my art, check Feeds” in your bio somewhere.

If you'd like to be followed for your artwork, but don't want to make a feed or remember a tag, you should tidy your Media tab by deleting some of the Not Art and other stuff like memes so your art is the main event. Them’s the breaks =( We've all seen the reaction images before, it'll be okay.

There's one other big source of media clutter I see all the time; Reposting instead of Quoting when participating in Art Shares.

I say this with love. Please don't repost your art for an Art Share, it's 54% that my 5k account will receive 1-10 likes for taking part in one. If there's any advice you apply from this whole post, have it be this. There's several artshares a day and I typically participate in a few. If I reposted my art every time I posted in one for usually under 10 likes, it makes it impossible to see the rest of my art (pushing away potential followers looking for it).

Here's an example using a WIP of mine, showing media spam.

To attach a quote to a reply; simply click the up arrow on a post to copy the link, then type up your reply, paste the copied link, and remove the URL. Removing the link won't remove the embed.

This works for any links, not just Bluesky posts. Links are 0 characters on your post when you delete the URL but keep embed.

Here is how it'll look:

This drives traffic to the original post. A quote doesn't add to your media. This art share post got 0 likes, but that's okay because it didn't clog up my media either. Nothing lost. It happens! 

(I cropped the art out to save your scrolling)

Above post was before I found out about the delete-URL trick.

Many of my artworks have huge #s of quotes (20-30+) on them. I said this earlier but I'm repeating that this is normal. It's just a quirk of Bluesky's platform having a lot of things like art shares. It's just pixels, I recommend this method to keep media tab cleaner because I love to participate in art shares and blab to strangers while keeping my feed orderly for potential new followers.

The numbers on your art should bring you joy. Wanna feel better about numbers? Okay, additionally add the quote likes/reposts that you put in art shares to the original piece's stats, once you accumulate a bunch of quotes.

My best post has these metrics:

The total of its quotes' metrics:

43 Reposts + 352 Likes

Which puts the actual engagement of this art at

446 Reposts, 1,652 Likes

I'd say this piece got 1.6k. No shame. It literally did!

Utilizing Bluesky's specific tools for maximum exposure

Now that we have gone over everything else, it's time to explain how to craft an ideal art post for best chance at exposure.

You've drawn the art piece, and now you'd like to post it. I highly recommend posting on deck.blue, similar to Tweetdeck.

There's a few reasons, but the main one is hidden hashtags.

You can add tags without them appearing in the caption. If I posted this to Bluesky through deckblue, it'd have #food attached despite it not being in the caption. That means any feeds that pick up #food or the word food will detect my post anyway, even though I didn't write "...pretending I don't #food"

There's a character limit on hashtags, so you can usually fit about a dozen. I very much enjoy using this Bluesky Art Hashtag List when tagging my work, but I've pretty much memorized my favorite ones by now. I don't have a source for the tag list, but the only Bluesky result is this post so I must have found it from there. My usual art (OC personal art) is tagged:

ocsky, bskyoc, bskyart, artsky, supportartists, myart

Much, much cleaner and more aesthetic than posting like this:

"doodle of my oc #ocsky #bskyoc #bskyart #artsky #supportartists #myart"

BUT WAIT! We will NOT forget the ALT text!

I mentioned earlier to enable the setting in Accessibility section to force ALT text before posting media as a reminder.

ALT text is what screen readers will speak for blind, visually impaired, disabled people (or anyone using accessibility tools) to describe an image. This is NOT AI-generated text, it's added by the user before posting. Including ALT text is essential from an ethical as well as an advertising perspective for visual artists.

A good comparison is it's like being a radio broadcaster for art.

It's written to describe the who, what, where of a piece of media. If a blind person asked you to describe an apple, you might say: "A red, round piece of fruit with a stem in the middle" and that'd be perfect wording for ALT if you were posting an apple.

Why bother? You should care about other people. Have a soul.

However, if you need extra motivation - ALT drastically helps the exposure of a post in several ways, and some users will decline to repost unless it's included. You're missing out by not adding it!

You can also re-use a WIP's alt text for the finished piece.

ALT and hashtags are read the same by feeds - this means if you have "an art piece" in your ALT, it will count as #art too. So if your caption says "Mermaid doodle" you don't need to use a hidden #mermaid hashtag on deckblue, it's already counted.

This means that the longer and more detailed your ALT, the more feeds your art will end up on. Highlighting art-related keywords and creating some example ALT for this wonderful post:

Juno

@jsketch12.bsky.social

if you want to learn how to talk to a lady, ask your mum

29

A digital art illustration of Mega Starmie, the Pokemon from Legends: Z-A. Mega Starmie is a purple starfish with a pinup figure, very long legs and a gold-trim red octagonal gem in its chest. The lineart is pencil textured and the background has Bayonetta with low opacity.

If this was the ALT for that image, all feeds that pick up those keywords or hashtags would include this post even though the caption is a mom joke. It's important to ALSO be accurate; adequate ALT text helping artists is a bonus, not the primary purpose of the feature. Pokemon keywords are bonuses here too!

DO NOT DO THIS:

"starfish #art #pokemon"

OP absolutely didn't put that, I'm just continuing the example! It's very rude. People counting on that accessibility text are just gonna block you lmao. One or two sentences is enough. Nobody is expecting a novel!

What if my ALT is fed into AI? I'd rather go without.

That's a boogeyman, plenty of people need ALT. I prioritize helping humans. We unfortunately live in a world of crawler bots. You can't guarantee your post won't be scraped, but you can guarantee that it won't be accessible to others. Pick kindness.

Resources are available for disabled people who cannot type their own ALT, or if your posting language is not your primary one. Accessibility is for everyone!

I love to reference this post which was a reply to me:

eustace

@eustace.justshootme.ca

Alt4me is a keyword that summons human volunteers to assist if you’re unable for any reason to add alt text to your media posts. The alt text bot (alt-text dot bsky dot social) is only capable of reading text.

2

The bot in mention retrieves in-image text on images with no ALT.

Add Alt4Me to your post for assistance, and #nofeed to exclude it from the requests feed Alt4Me routes requests to automatically.

OKAY. Can I post my art now?

yes. =)

Add your hashtags, ALT text, and hit send!

Now what?

Well, 1-4% of your followers = likes in the first 24hrs (or so)

1-4% is so low! How do I get it higher?

Yes. We can do that. We have things like reposts & quotes. Lunchtime-Afternoon weekdays EST is a great time to post, but the important thing is to continue to circulate the art at appropriate intervals. If you post in the morning, repost it before bed. You're looking for eyeballs in vastly different timezones to get a glimpse of the work. Posting at 2pm and reposting at 4pm might have more viewer overlap than posting at noon and reposting at 9pm, you see?

You can also participate in Art Shares, but there's ways to optimize that too to have a better chance of standing out.

Stay on theme if possible - If it's a cat-picture art share and you haven't drawn any cats, maybe sit this one out. Being respectful is important. Getting in early when the post is new helps too!

You can follow this art-share reposting account or manually search "Art Share". There is usually several per day, and ones consistently hosted on certain days of the week (Such as LoS' NSFW Saturday share). Participate as often or as little as you'd like, but they're a great way to get new eyeballs on your work. 

You can repost your Art Share replies a few hours later, to bump them up in the thread (Most users keep default thread settings; showing highest replies first) as an additional boost.

Shares are fantastic - If you have a couple of common genres, I recommend making 'Big 4' posts of each of them to easily quote in threads!

Hi, I'm Blake, I love to draw (4) Underwater pictures

Hello, I'm Blake, I dabble in (4) Beach pictures

and so on.

Sharing your art and keeping it circulated every once in a while will help it continue to get likes/reposts long after the initial post gets pushed out of chronological timelines.

THE single most important thing you can do to get attention is to be social and be authentic. Leave replies on others' art, pay attention to your mutuals' interests, be an account that YOU'd want to follow (If your goal is to get followers - This post assumes it is)

There's a few other miscellaneous things that might help your Bluesky experience; I'll list them here:

Use Labellers. Many creators opt for this one

See Intl posts. Settings > Languages > Content Lan. > Unselect ALL

Feeds. Discover sucks. Use Art: What's Hot, OnlyPosts, The Gram

Furry list. Specifically highlighting anthro/furry artists

Bluesky's official Art Feeds. With public criteria (how to get on)

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And that's it! Thank you for reading!

This post took me almost a week and I hope it helps other artists.

Repost this on Bluesky if you learned something, and now...

Self promo! I've earned it!

I ask for a moment of your time, or a repost if you enjoy my work As obvious per this blog's theme, I love the ocean!

I draw ocs inspired from the sea, with bright & colorful palettes. Consider following me if you enjoy summery, beachy art! ❤︎

BLAKE 🏝

@aerifiretruck.bsky.social

Last day of summer 💋☀🌊

17

BLAKE 🏝

@aerifiretruck.bsky.social

Diadema is mostly blind, so Sirena lures in tasty sailors. Don't let her pink hair fool you, she's quite deadly 🤭✨

16

BLAKE 🏝

@aerifiretruck.bsky.social

Mermaids have saved you from drowning! 

...But who will save you from them? It's lunchtime 🤭💕

18

BLAKE 🏝

@aerifiretruck.bsky.social

under da sea ⚓

16

BLAKE 🏝

@aerifiretruck.bsky.social

Celeste's new swimsuit line photoshoot 👙🌊

13

BLAKE 🏝

@aerifiretruck.bsky.social

guardian angel

5

I also have a humble ever-running event where you can post your abandoned WIPs to let other artists finish them! #wipthrift

BLAKE 🏝

@aerifiretruck.bsky.social

✨🎨 WIP THRIFT! 🎨✨

Bluesky has many artist-oriented events (Art shares, portfolio day, reply with xyz art) and I believe #wipthrift is worth a try!

Reposts appreciated to spread the word 💖

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That's all I got! See you on Bluesky!

*For those truly interested in why I declined to mention profit:

Why isn't there any resources on monetization on this post? I want to grow my account because I want profit from my work.

Truthfully, I do not recommend art as a career path or even side hustle at the moment. With the AI bubble, lack of entry-level industry positions, (USA especially) economy, and financial instability many global consumers already face - Luxury spending is down. Art is a luxury, and that means when people are tightening budgets the first thing they will cut is their trinket or commission spending.

Many artists don't have a choice of job, due to lack of opportunity such as living in a rural location, having poor currency conversion, being in a heavily sanctioned country (like Russia/Cuba), or simply possess disabilities or situations beyond their control that require them to make their living from odd-jobs such as freelance work using their artistic skills.

I sympathize deeply. I spent several years with art as my only income, but on average I would make $700 a month with my best month being $1200. A $15 commission taken and worked in the same night would pay for my dinner many, many times. In my corporate job I can work up to 60 hours a week and truthfully; I probably worked harder for that $700 a month from art than I do in any 60 hour work week nowadays.

There is no "magic tips" I can give you to get commissions. There are plenty of marketing resources specifically tailored for advertising your services or merchandise in a wider-scale than this humble post about Bluesky's tools for account exposure. I can't in good conscience link resources or explain "How to get paid for my work" because there are industry titans with decades of experience struggling to make ends meet. I don't write any of this section with joy. Things should be different. Support artists where you can, because a disclaimer of "This is unlikely to make a living wage" is soul-killing for artists to hear about a career I won't really recommend others to pursue anymore.

I fully support artists making the dream work, but the dream did not work for me and my life improved exponentially when I changed careers entirely. I don't feel qualified for, nor am I interested in providing financial advice to artists.