By Voogla: Social Media Tier List
A designer’s path begins with a portfolio — but which platform to choose for its best growth? We found out and are ready to share.
We have carefully collected real and raw data from top designer companies around Europe and the U.S. to present you in a concise format — no filters and decorations. Simple and straightforward.
Consider this a game — we will rank the most popular social media platforms for designers from 1 being the worst to 10 being the best. We will share the best tips on the entry, growth and inquiries; you just have to pay attention and act swiftly.
Before we dive in, there is an important notice. Your path relies on your determination and actions. There is no platform that does the job for you, so prepare to put the necessary work in. We are talking consistency, style, studying the platform and developing your unique profile.
But, to make it all easier, there is a cheat code: design communities. They are closed groups for prospective professionals with passion for design and development. Communities help minds alike gather together to share ideas and inspiration, grow retention and interact with each other for better stats.
We at Voogla have our own design community. We value quality work, so we make sure to cherry-pick the creators who really put the effort into their cases, so by the end we can have an internal crew of designers who share aspirations and values.
We truly believe that Behance is the best platform for designers out there. Let’s break it down:
Behance is extremely easy to study and learn. By understanding the platform’s algorithms, you can easily grow your audience and start attracting from 15 to 20 active requests monthly almost instantly. It takes a company around a year to grow their Behance to a pretty successful level, but there is a twist — you must stay consistent.
Based on our research, the ultimate schedule would be to post twice a month at the very least. We believe in quality over quantity, so if you struggle to produce more worthy content, don’t compromise. Keep it stable but effective — you don’t want to post crappy cases every day. Rely on the worth your content brings, even if it is a rather rare occasion.
Behance is originally created for inquiries, so your chance of finding clients from the get-go is high if you follow all of the unspoken rules of the platform. We unravel them one by one in our guides The Pathway to Success. The guides we wrote are an exclusive information from top Behance creators with more than 5 years of experience on the platform. You may think it is easy, but everything comes down to the details, and we made sure you know how to maneuver them in your favor.
On Behance, everything truly depends on you and your approach. The way you present yourself and your work directly affects the retention and audience growth, so it is an amazing opportunity to establish a successful brand as a designer.
To be totally honest with you, Dribbble is not the best choice for a beginner. To reach a point of retention on Dribble, it is best to be a part of a group, a community or some sort of club that will allow you to share your work outside of the platform.
Dribbble used to be a closed community, and, unfortunately, this concept didn’t hold on for too long. There is still some fraction on the platform, and you certainly can receive around 10 to 15 inquiries monthly upon establishing your personal profile, but you must beware of false requests and a lot of, frankly, useless content posted on there that consists of low-quality designs and stolen work.
It will take you around a year to grow with consistent posting and outside sharing. A natural growth is a rare occurance on Dribbble for beginner creators, so it is best if you find an outlet to share your Dribbble shots on with others.
If you manage to carefully follow the platform’s guidelines and build a trustable profile, there is a lot of fruit you can harvest from Dribbble. Same as Behance — the key is in paying attention to what the platform itself suggests you to do.
We plan on creating a set of guides, similar to ones we wrote on Behance, that will help you understand Dribbble better. If that caught your attention, let us know and we will get to work, because there is a lot we can tell about this.
Don’t be fooled by the Ease of Entry rating. This is not a discouragement; this is a warning. A warning to put the effort in and not let loose.
Instagram is probably the most prosperous platform from the standpoint of retention and engagement. It is a complex platform that needs to be carefully studied — one wrong move and you blew it up.
Consider developing your personal style, constantly verifying your identity and building an image that can be trusted. It takes time to take your account to a decent level — about a year if you stay on top of trends and follow the strict platform’s guidelines; the retention will not come straight away. Working with Instagram consists of tests and trials that slightly lead you towards what your style should look like based on your audience’s preferences.
Avoid interactions with bots and carefully select and constantly review your audience. Instagram has to see that you are a real person. The cases you should post are not just any works — pick out the best cases and present them concisely, showing the most important parts of it. Engage with your audience — comment, talk, show interest — it will pay off with an active following that resonates with your content and up to 30 inquiries monthly.
If you’d like a more detailed dive into the secrets of Instagram, let us know — we would love to create a separate series of guides about the platform! We have collected the most useful information about developing your personal image and gaining your audience — a total 0 to 100 guide that will include everything you need to know to not mess up and establish yourself as a professional in the field.
Pinterest should be considered as a platform for extra retention. It is the “easiest” platform, so to speak, and by following the rules of the platform, a creator can start receiving inquiries from the very beginning — 2 to 5 in the first week only. It is definitely the fastest way for a designer to submerge themselves into the graphic design scene, but for better results we suggest doing two things: 1) growing multiple different platforms simultaneously, 2) be a part of a design collective, like Voogla.
Pinterest doesn’t require much — be consistent and post worthy content. However, with low effort comes relatively low feedback. It is totally worth it, but don’t expect much from it. We suggest looking at it from the perspective of an aesthetic rather than effectiveness and skill. It is great for inspiration, gathering ideas and building a community.
X is a community-based platform, designed for discussion and chat. It is highly complicated in terms of building a trusting image, since the platform, to be honest, has messed algorithms that don’t work in your favor. Beware of that and put the real work in. Your posts shouldn’t be “ghost” — small generic captions won’t do. Work for retention — use keywords, apply hashtags from relatable communities — integrity is key. If you are integrated well enough, the algorithm will push your work to the top.
It is a platform that allows creators to connect with their audiences, so you must use it to your benefit. Having been established, you may develop your account on X to strengthen user bonds and trust, which further establishes your brand. A good, trusting audience is the foundation to a successful brand that attracts more attention.
Reddit is another additional outlet that helps develop a community. In our practice, it is really hard to handle just by mapping it out blindly. Reddit takes a long time to grow and precision to not mess things up.
One of our partners shared a story of her unsuccessful attempt at building an account on the platform, and upon close inspection we noticed every single mistake was made. Reddit is definitely not intuitive — community guidelines are a priority and you must follow them (unless you want to get kicked out immediately).
It is not the best choice for beginner designers; however, upon creating a strong business, you can create a Reddit account to use to connect with other agencies/creators.
Initially, we did not want to include Upwork in this list, but as we chatted with some designers, they all seemed to have pointed out this platform, and always in the negative light.
This is your warning to not even step in there, truly.
Upwork is a freelance-based platform that is filled with scammers and ghost applications. It would be a living hell for a designer trying to find jobs to do there. We could only see this working out as a very last resort — for someone who has no luck in any of the platforms mentioned previously and needs at least some kind of experience and real cases in their portfolio.
But, honestly, even in this case, it is much better and will bring you more luck to propose yourself to companies manually — at least, it would be a real referral and a real person you are talking to. Or…share your work with others by being a part of closed design groups.
All and all, stay away from Upwork, we warned you.
This rating is just an introduction to the opinions and statistics that we have gathered over the time.
If asked, we would probably say that our top three winners would be Pinterest, with checks varying from $2,000 to $20,000, Instagram, with a similar revenue, and Behance, where the invoice may range from $5,000 to a whopping $150,000. These platforms give you the best results with the correct strategy and proper effort in building personal image, gathering information, creating your style based on your audience’s preferences and consistency.
We decided to keep it short’n’sweet for now, but in case of high interest, we will be more than pleased to share more of the insight on each of those and additional platforms individually and in great detail.
Comment to let us know if you need to clarify specific perks and tricks in regard to any of those social media and we will immediately be on it. We have a lot more information to present to you specifically on each and every platform that we mentioned in this article, so if any of those spark your interest more — just scribble a couple of words down below for us!
We at Voogla encourage prosperous minds, so we invite you to be a part of our design community. By stepping in, you will find inspiration from professionals in the field, while also helping yourself grow on certain platforms by sharing your work with others. We don’t compromise on quality, so our selection algorithms are strict. Just make sure to bring value to the table, and enjoy the connection our platform will bring you.
Join by the link below:
