There’s a saying that the size of your network is not who you know, but who knows you. And that’s a major difference—you may be a connector at heart and vibe with a lot of people, but if they don’t know who you are and what you stand for, they might not take that critical step forward into your universe. As visual content creators, most of the time, we are what we create. We express ourselves through our photos, videos, films, graphics. And for the most part, we create for others’ enjoyment, not just our own. So it stands to reason that people knowing our art is akin to knowing us, and therefore becoming known turns into a life mission, whether we like it or not.

If you’re not new to Sony Alpha, you know our community is at the center of everything we do. And the vision for Alpha Universe has always been to fulfill the mission of a community-centered education, inspiration, and news hub. Thus, for the past year, we’ve been working on the kind of functionality that furthers this mission in a significant way. Drum roll please…

Today, in a new leap into our mission to serve our community, we’re excited to bring you Alpha Universe Public Profiles.

Public Profiles are meant to open our community members up to each other, and to the world. They’re meant to be a calling card for those who want more than a photo feed, an easy showcase for those who want others to know the essence of who they are, a modern resume for today’s visual content creator.

Members have the option to share their bios, link to their social accounts, associate themselves with specific genres, and showcase their absolute best work. Members can also like each other’s photos and overall profiles. Sony owners can show off the gear they create with, and have their work displayed in the Community Gallery, which our editorial team will also be watching to showcase interesting members of the Sony Alpha Universe in articles and special features.

You might wonder, did we really need another place to make a profile? Yes, and here’s why. The social networks we all know, love, and have integrated into our lives represent a great mass marketing channel. But due to their nature, they have become much more impersonal and less manageable than they were in the beginning. The sheer volume of work being shared on Instagram, for instance, is so massive that most users have only a small fraction of their followers see their work, let alone interact with it. This makes it hard to put out a well-crafted message, and not have your image fragmented or your work undiscovered because of the randomness of a complicated and overwhelmed (and overwhelming) algorithm. Alpha Universe Public Profiles are a refuge from the chaos of sharing yourself on social. They’re meant to highlight your best work, not all your work, and be a discovery tool for anyone who needs to hire a content creator in a specific vertical, be inspired by a creator who they aspire to become, or figure out what tools they need to make the same kind of art come to life. In other words, it’s a community tool.

And this is just the beginning. The roadmap for Public Profiles is full of exciting developments. Shortly, we’ll offer more member discovery tools, such as a search function dedicated to public profiles. And of course, we’re also planning to take care of our creators who deal exclusively in video. In the future, members will benefit from additional opportunities to interact with each other, have direct engagements with our Artisans of Imagery and Alpha Imaging Collective, earn rewards for their activity on the site, and earn prizes in our upcoming monthly drawings, just to name a few benefits. We also have a few more surprises planned that are sure to excite creators who want to make their art known to the world.

If you publish your profile between now and January 1st, 2020, you’ll receive a special “Founding Member” badge to display on your Alpha Universe profile in recognition for being here when it all started. Because the war of art is real, and we need to stick together to be victorious.

And if you happen to be in New York City this week, join us between October 23rd and 26th, because Sony Alpha is putting on a BIG show just for you at Creative Space NYC. (You’ll even get a special badge for your profile.)