It's been almost a full year since I joined Steemit, my cakeday will be in June, hurrah! Since joining I have been blessed to have been curated for my art posts by @curie, @ocd, @slothicorn and also some kind hearted "art whales". It is always a pleasure to see that my art and contributions to Steemit are appreciated and those generous curations have allowed me to pay it forward and continue doing my weekly art contest.

I now do a weekly art curation for @msp-curation and though I don't curate for Slothicorn I am an admin on the server and have a good understanding of what types of posts they look for. I often get asked how to get noticed, who to contact etc. and I always give a pretty standard response.

You don't find curators, they find you!

Now of course there are some things you can do to make it easier for them to find you, and also more likely to give you a vote. The advice I'll be dishing out here applies to all types of posts, not just art, but I'll keep my examples in the art realm as that's what I know best!

Human Verification

If you have already been a Steemit contributor active on the site and various chat communities like discord there's a good chance that people know who you are and you've become trusted! If you are relatively new though and you post some amazing art you might be under suspicion as a plagiarist.

I know it sounds terrible but don't take this personally, there have sadly been many cases of art fraud on Steemit so people have become cautious. Most curators will go to the trouble of reverse image searching and will use various sleuthing techniques to make sure you are the original artist.

What can you do?

Make it as easy as possible! If I am trying to curate someone and I have doubts or can't ascertain if they are presenting their own work I might just move on. Making an introduction post where you verify yourself with a photo holding a piece of paper signed and dated with your username is the easiest way to prove that you are a real person and not an imposter. Here's my intro post and proof:

OK, so now we know you are a real person, that's a nice start :)

Verifying your art

As an artist we may need to take the extra step though of showing that we are indeed the artist!

There are a few ways you can do this:

• This is obvious but state clearly that this is your art! I have come across posts where people don't straight up mention anywhere that they are the artist. I know it sounds odd but it happens fairly often! In some of these cases after investigating I see that it is indeed their work, but in others I have found that they have stolen the art and are kind of lying by omission. If you use someone else's image and don't source it properly most will assume it's your work. Be direct or add a disclaimer at the bottom of your posts stating that all the images were created by you.

• Process! Aside from making the post a richer experience and much more appealing for the reader showing your process images can give the curator more confidence that they are rewarding the correct person.

Make it interesting and personal

Now that we have the technical aspects out of the way we can dive into the more subjective side of curation.

Obviously we all have different tastes, in writing, music, art etc. but there is something in the beauty of the presentation that can make even an otherwise dull subject matter come to life.

We are content creators! We are communicating through mostly text and images so we should make the best of these tools, the more the reader is drawn in to the narrative of your post the better. One of the best ways to do this is to make it personal. When I am viewing even the most beautiful work of art I will usually skip curating if there is nothing more than an image and a few lines.

I want to know what you were thinking when you made the art, what does it mean to you? Yes it takes some extra time, I understand! Sometimes we want to just post that art we worked on all day or week and allow it to speak for itself. When you are showing your art you are showing a piece of yourself and it feels very personal. Some may struggle with articulating these abstract feelings, but I guarantee you, the reader will appreciate it immensely :)

In a sea of content this is what will make you stand out! This is something that only you can bring, your thoughts are unique, precious and illuminating, they add another dimension to your art, we want to hear them :)

If anyone wants to translate this information into another language I give full permission as long as you indicate that I was the original author of the post!