Gaining subs without social media

[erma]

I don't really share my comic on social media, aside from a tumblr blog where I post character doodles and WIPs. In 2019 I deleted my twitter account. There's... a lot I have to say about twitter, but to keep things simple I felt worse every time I looked at it. I do have instagram and artstation, but I'm mainly posting stuff from my portfolio on there.

As far as promoting yourself without the main social media platforms goes, there's a few webcomic lists on tagpacker.com, and I also tend to share my work here on the forums if there's a topic that relates to something in my series. My comic ended up in the tapas daily snack a few years ago and I've seen a steady growth since then. Definitely participate in the forums if you see an interesting topic, the community on here is really nice!

[ble]

Uh for me it was the opposite, I have barely any social media presence (not an art youtube channel, less than 30 followers in Instagram, nothing on Facebook, and my Twitter is a desert), yet I somehow made over 1k subs in Webtoons.

[alexlcuri07]

I have an Instagram, but all but three of my subs are from the forums (and yes I consider being picked for the staff pick as a direct result of my presence on the forums.) I also still find social media promotions to be very frustrating and fruitless as someone who doesn't really use social media irl in general.

So in short- it is perfectly possible to promote yourself on the forums. It will not lead to rapid growth, but because mostly everyone here is a creator it usually leads to valuable, engaged subs.

Everyone grows at their own pace (especially depending on their genre and medium.) I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[PaleOcra]

Glad to know a fellow who dislikes social media. I recently got into it, just to post a couple, but I hope it doesn't suck my soul.
3 months 30subs is really good. You can try reddit forums, although it still ends up 'sucking the soul'.

It felt to me as if there is a tradeoff between our concentration of our energy creating our comics and a concentration of energy promoting it for people to see.

[CursedBeasts]

yeah i can relate to not knowing what to say to one-word comments haha. I usually just say "thank you" and move on.