How to promote designer portfolio on Behance?

Here's how you can promote your portfolio so that it gets noticed by the big companies.

From this material, you will learn

• How to support your portfolio promotion - with cover art, case names, and tags;
• Why you should post links to your case on social networks;
• Why it's important to like and comment on other people's work;
• How to get into curated galleries.

Organic promotion

The first thing you should start promoting is optimizing your cases. This can help to increase the visibility of your work in search results.

For example, if a user types the name of the company you designed for into the internal Behance search engine, it's best to have your case appear in the first row of the search results. This will be the result of organic promotion - quality optimisation of the case.

You should optimize the case at the stage of publishing the project on Behance. But if you forgot about it or decided to refine your portfolio over time, you can do it after the fact in the case settings.

This ensures that your case will be visited more often by users who are interested in your particular direction. They are more likely to like the project because they found what they were looking for. And a good ratio of likes, comments and views from real users is important because it affects search engine rankings.

Case covers are displayed at 202×158 pixels, but the resolution of the image you upload should be at least 808×632 pixels.

Title

Make sure your title is as accurate as possible - it will have a big impact on the promotion of designers portfolio and on how cases appear in search results. It also has a direct bearing on the URL that will be used to reach your case.

The more words you put in the title, the higher the case will appear in search results.

Tags

Tags are keyword tags that can be used to find a project through the Behance search engine. For example, Web Design, User Experience, Design System and others.

A maximum of ten tags can be specified. That's how many are worth adding. You can see the tags at the bottom of the case page.

Although tags will not have as much impact as the title of the case, every little detail will make a difference during the optimization process. If you're not sure what tags are best, take a look at the cases you're competing with and make a list of the tags you see most often.

Tools

This block is about the tools you've used while working on the project. For cases with tools from Adobe, there are special curated galleries. There's a chance of getting in there if you add the appropriate tool.

Categories

When you publish your project, you need to indicate which professional area it belongs to. The list is long, but no more than three categories can be chosen. Try to be as precise as possible, because in the search settings on Behance there is a similar list that users can use to filter the results.

Description

"A good description makes it easier to find your project," is what it says in the description box prompt. Here briefly describe your project, using keywords if possible. But remember: the description should be written for live users, not for search engine crawlers.

Social media

When you publish a new case, share it on your social networks. Add a short description so that account guests unfamiliar with your work or Behance in general will understand where you're taking them and go look at your project.

Even non-Behance registered users can give likes to cases. Their ratings won't boost your project in the results, but they will improve your case statistics. It's better than nothing at first.

Interacting with other users and cases

Some users leave complimentary comments on other people's cases, asking them to rate their latest work. Don't do this. Begging on Behance is considered bad form, and such comments are deservedly left unanswered.

If you want to get feedback from other users, research cases that interest you, give them likes and leave sincere comments. Often Behance authors will look at the profiles of users who like and comment on their cases out of curiosity, and if you have something appealing on your profile, you will get feedback.

Cheat your stats on Behance?

In recent years, profiles and cases with obviously inflated views, comments and Behance likes have become common.

It's strange when top agencies' cases barely make it past the one or two thousand likes mark, yet possess several ribbons of curated galleries (about them - below). And every freelance web-designer's work with a portfolio of outdated Photoshop-drawn projects can flash the sky-high stats of five to ten thousand likes.

These are, of course, extremes, but even a neat trick is almost always conspicuous.

If your goal is to get job offers from serious companies, it's not a smart decision and it will work against you.

Those who advertise recruitment services say that a case that gets a lot of stats in a short period of time after publication is more likely to end up in curated galleries. Such chances do exist. But the chances are small, because even with good quality work the competition is too high. At the same time, there is a risk of getting banned for cheating on your stats, because Behance rules forbid it.

Achievements on cases and curated galleries

There are many curated galleries on Behance, each of which focuses on a certain type of project. The full list of galleries can be found here. A select few curated users select four submissions a day for each of these galleries.

When a case reaches one of the curated galleries, it receives a ribbon - a special badge with the abbreviation of the gallery's name.

This badge is displayed both on the case itself and on the author's profile. Ribbons should be seen as small rewards, and awarded designers look more attractive in the eyes of employers.

Once in the curated galleries, cases become more popular: they are more likely to be recommended by users and to climb in search engine results.

How to get into a curated gallery

There is no magic pill that guarantees a hundred percent entering a gallery. Most of the gallery selects outstanding work, but occasionally, very infrequently, it also includes mediocre cases and projects by beginners.

So chances are dependent on luck, but don't count on luck alone. The surest way to get into the gallery is to make quality work that the curators will like.

However, here are a couple of ideas to increase your odds a little:

Getting into trends. They change, and something that was in the galleries not so long ago may be boring to the community. So analyze the pieces that have recently made it into a gallery you're aiming for and try to do something in a similar style.

If that style hasn't bored you yet and you can pick it up, and ideally diversify it in some way, you've got a good chance.
Likes from top profiles. It's hard to earn them, but they give a very high probability that the curators of the right gallery will notice the case. Many of them are subscribed by top users, and when they like something, their followers can see it in their profile recommendations.

If you're not afraid to get in touch with industry leaders or know a few top Behance users, try asking them unobtrusively on social networks for feedback on your work.

Just ask for suggestions on how you can make your work better. You can really get good advice that way. If you listen to it and update the case, share the result with the person who helped you. Perhaps this will get you the coveted "likes".

Remember: when you ask someone for help, be polite, considerate and unobtrusive-no one owes you anything. If your request is ignored or rejected, don't be offended. Leaders in the design industry are very busy people with busy schedules.

Conclusion

• Optimize the case studies at the publication stage: think of a title, choose the right tags, note the tools you used.
• Share your case studies on social networks, as the likes of your friends, even those not on Behance, help improve your stats.
• Rate and comment on other users' cases, but do it sincerely.
• Do not beg for likes and do not use scam services.
• Try to get into curated galleries: follow trends and try to politely and unobtrusively get the attention of top users.