Behance is one of the numerous service-based products offered by Adobe Systems Incorporated, an American multinational computer software company founded in 1982. Other well-known products from the company include Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, the Portable Document Format (PDF), and Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Behance itself is a social media platform created to discover and showcase creative work and was founded by Scott Belsky and Matias Corea in 2005. Before they were acquired by Adobe Systems in 2012 for $150 million, the company relied initially on the  revenue they generated from job postings and banner ads. Click here to learn more about Adobe Systems Incorporated.

Its services have been used by many established businesses like Adweek, AIGA, LinkedIn, and renowned art schools like the Arts Center College of Design, Savannah College of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and the School of Visual Arts (SVA).

Since its launch in November of 2005, the platform has grown consistently and by July 2018 had garnered over 10 million active members. Impressive growth like this goes far to tell the relevance and value this platform has in the creative industry. It is no wonder professionals are members of the network.

Why Behance?

There are several reasons why professionals and creative individuals should join Behance and related platforms. A few of them include:

• Build a professional portfolio
• Free promotion
• Protect your shared work

Build a Professional Portfolio

Behance provides members with the opportunity to build digital portfolios that professionally display projects that they have worked on in the past. Being able to showcase your work on a platform with so many members is a great way to reach out to other like-minded individuals and connect with potential partners or employers for new projects.

Being an active member on these types of platforms creates social proof which could be handy when applying for a new position or job that relates to your shared work on the platform. For people in art, the benefits of being active on this platform cannot be overemphasized. It allows you to build a reputation within the community.

Behance gives its members the privilege of embedding galleries of previous projects that link to their own official website. This is a great way for potential employers to find you and learn more about you since they can easily be directed to your website from the platform.

Free Promotion

Breaking into a new industry especially the creative and design industry can be challenging, but using platforms like this is a great way to get started. As you upload more of your work and projects, you quickly become involved with the large community, which avails you the chance to follow and connect with other professionals. You also get to build a genuine fan base of your own as more and more people across the globe interact with your posts.

Staying active within the network by engaging with other people’s shared work and posts also encourages them to do the same with yours, which significantly increases visits to your profile and the projects you showcase on your page. It gets even better because users can link their social media accounts to their Behance account, making for more free promotion and exposure. Visit https://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/4-simple-ways-boost-your-exposure-using-social-media to learn more about boosting visibility with social media.

Protect Your Shared Work

Many creative professionals struggle with protecting the works they share on the internet. Usually, these artworks are used for other commercial purposes without the consent of the creator and without giving them credit. But Behance ensures all shared projects are protected from unauthorized usage.

Getting More Views on Behance

The fastest and most effective way of getting more profile and post views is by getting your work to be featured in one of the platform’s curated galleries. For this to happen, you must:

• Present your work in a saleable and professional way.
• Only use cover images that are catchy enough to get other members to click and view your project.
• Only publish when you are confident that the project is ready to be seen by the world.
• Get people talking about your project.

Promoting Yourself and Growing Your Followers

To promote and grow your followers within and outside the community, you will find the following steps incredibly helpful:

1. Only showcase your best work and projects. On these types of platforms, it is better to have just one great work that people will happily share with their own network than several mediocre ones.
2. Have a complete profile with every necessary information correctly filled in.
3. Interact with other users’ projects; they will nearly always return the favor.
4. Share your work on as many other social media platforms as the platform suggests. Also, ensure your social media accounts are linked to your profile.
5. Very often, behind-the-scenes posts spark more engagement than the finished projects themselves. So, ensure you share some of those from time to time as building a story behind every project engages emotions which is the key when trying to sell yourself.
6. Make use of the tag feature to reach other curators.

Who is Doug Ebenstein? – A Case Study

If one were to ask the question above and require an immediate answer, a visit to Behance can prove very helpful. In our example, a visit to Doug Ebenstein’s profile will reveal, among other things, that in Falls Church, VA – Doug Ebenstein presides over a commercial properties company.

Other information that can be gotten from this single page is that he is also the president of Eden Center, Inc., the famous East Coast, Asian shopping center. We can also learn of his academic records where we see that he has earned a four-year economics degree from Brown University, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from Duke University before starting his career in property development and real estate.

On this same page, we learn that he was active on the tennis court at Brown University, coming up top in the varsity singles and doubles tennis in both his junior and senior years. He gives back to society by donating to both Brown and Duke Universities, as well as the schools his children attended.  He also actively supports the Morgan Pressel Foundation for Cancer awareness and research.

While one cannot expect to learn all there is to know about an individual from their Behance profile, enough background must be covered to create a kind of connection that will motivate the interested party to reach out to you.

Conclusion

Platforms like Behance help eliminate obstacles like distance and reach in business. Because users from all over the world can sign up, it brings the world even closer, allowing employers to discover talents from other parts of the world. Professionals are therefore advised to take advantage of this opportunity to enhance their careers and build quality connections.