Well I’d argue the first step is asking someone who is actually popular.
Srsly have I been mistaken for someone else what is this.
Anyway. There are actually a few ways of being “noticed", some totally normal, some normal but generally underhand, and some total “lol pay attention to me" methods.
- The tippy top one is to make friends with people (but make sure you’re actually making friends, not just deliberately worming your way into social circles just to get popular). This one is not really something you can do on purpose, however.
- Next up is don’t be afraid to self promote - you’re allowed to advertise yourself! Just don’t be obnoxious and send out a million billion asks to people with your blog URL in it, or reblog the same post 20 times. There’s a fine line between promotion and spam.
- Draw and draw and draw and draw. The more artwork you do, the more there is to find. Also you get better at art, which helps a ton also.
- On Tumblr and deviantArt especially, learn to tag your artwork properly. On Tumblr, only the first five tags count, so make them relevant to what people will be searching for - characters are a big one, then the specific theme - so if for example I drew an anthro Twilight Sparkle, the tags would make sense to be "#Twilight Sparkle, #Anthro, #MLP, #My Little Pony" and…I dunno…"#Furry" maybe because technically it would be. Just make sure your tags are actually RELEVANT and don’t just try to pick popular ones, because not only is that a rather dickish thing to do, Tumblr filters the more popular tags anyway, so you’re wasting a tag.
- If you run a themed blog, like an Ask, promote OTHER people. They will usually promote you back. Don’t overdo this, as it can be seen as cheap, but having a cameo from someone who enjoys such things from time to time can’t hurt - make sure you tag them or otherwise let them know!
- In a similar fashion, fanart of peoples OC’s is usually welcomed by the owner of the character, and will get your work out there a bit.
- Submit your art to aggregation sites, like Derpibooru, 20percentcooler, deviantArt’s groups, and Reddit. Make sure you link back to your blog though!
Things that you can do but SHOULDN’T do:
- Hold your followers to ransom. Don’t refuse to update until you have more followers. Just…don’t.
- Take someone elses super popular character and use them as a recurring character in your own blog without their permission.
- Churn out poor quality artwork / poor quality updates in the misguided belief of “quantity over quality". This only works for some people. For everyone else it’s just bad times ahead.
- Spam Skype group chats / chatrooms with your blog or artwork, without actually ever talking in the room otherwise.
All I personally do is draw and, as of recent, tag properly - and I have a few friends I’ve made online, but I haven’t really gone out of my way to try and get noticed, but I know the general rules of the game, as it were. I’m sure if you try and keep trying, you’ll get your work out there!
Just remember, fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s nice to be noticed, but if you’re only drawing to be popular, you’ll never be satisfied.
Good luck!