How do you promote your Art/Comics/Videos/Animations?

[neyeghtcartoons]

I've been trying to make more of a presence on social networking, created a facebook and tumblr and twitter and all that stuff to reach out to more people with my art/comics, have any tips or advice on trying to reach out to new people without being intrusive?

[starsyscomics]

Our marketing strategy:

1) Post teaser images for every page update on all relevant social media sites.
2) Watch posts get little to no response.
3) Cry?

Honestly, I feel like we've gotten more interaction by just mirroring our stuff on Tapastic than any posts we've made on social media ever. So I'm definitely interested on hearing from the social media masters out there!

[AnnaLandin]

Self-promotion is a weird science that I don't think I have fully grasped yet, but here are the things I've noticed that work for me:

1.) Update people on what you're doing. Have you posted a new page? Let people know! I crop out a panel from the new page and use to to make the link to the page look more inviting on Twitter+Tumblr, and that works better than just posting the link.

2.) Don't be afraid to be excited about your comic on social media sites! Really like the page you're working on now? Tell people. Squeeing about how cute your characters are? Tell people - and post pictures. People are more likely to be interested in what you're doing if you're enthusiastic about it.

3.) Be positive about your work. Don't EVER post a picture and tell people "I know it's not great, but..." or some variation thereof. If you don't act like you like it, why should anyone else?

4.) Participate in community events/happenings. Twitter is a great place for webcomic-artists, I've found, and there are a bunch of weekly webcomic-events to participate in - #webcomicchat and #ComicTalk being the most popular, AFAIK.

5.) Be patient and keep at it. Building a presence and promoting your work is a marathon, not a sprint. There's no magic recipe for instant success, because "instant success" doesn't really exist. Most of those overnight sensations you hear about? They've been working on their thing for a long time, and the only reason it seems like an overnight success is because you're only just hearing about it.

[Warpedwenger]

A tip I've learned is that if you go and comment on someone's comic, they'll usually return the favor. Having a lot of comments on your pages looks impressive. So when people come to your comic and see that, they're more likely to take it seriously.

[lizm]

Other than what's already been mentioned, in some aspects self-promotion is less about what you're doing by yourself (like posting updates on social media websites), but more about involving other people. Interacting with other artists can be particularly helpful and rewarding while also being tons of fun. Collabs and crossover comic strips come to mind, art trades, contests and giveaways--those are all things that will engage people in your work and make them talk about it. A "RT to enter!"-type contest on Twitter, for example, is obviously a marketing strategy and some people might not be a fan of those (I don't typically RT those types of tweets either), but it still feels more genuine than "Here's what I did, please like/share/reblog/tell everyone ever about my existence!"

Keeping at it was mentioned already, and I don't think its importance can be stressed enough. With the incredible amount of free webcomics out there, it will take a lot of time and dedication to convince people yours is worth sticking with and talking about, especially since a large number of comics often stop updating out of nowhere.

[shazzbaa]

I'm gonna be honest, I don't do a whole lot of SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING. And I've found that for me personally, whenever I've engaged someone with ulterior motives of hoping that they'll check out my stuff, I've always been found myself disappointed -- whereas the coolest moments and shoutouts I've ever had always came from people I engaged genuinely because I just loved their work.

So the only advice I can give that I also follow is, don't be afraid to be a big fan! If you like someone's work, tell them. Share it with your readers. Draw fanart of it if you're into that kind of thing! If you are a big fan of a show or a game or a movie, don't feel like you have to keep that out of your professional space. The things you're really excited about are connections that you can make with people. Yell about it, talk about the parts you love, draw fanart!!

And as others have said, don't worry if it's slow going -- that's normal! I honestly believe that for the first, maybe, year or so of making your comic, it's not so helpful to focus on promotion. If you focus on making a good comic that you're excited about, and let your social media presence be more than just a marketing space, then I think you're on the right track. :>

[demthorshie]

• I post previews of my comics on social media sites (twitter, facebook etc.)

• Post works in progress or concept art for your comic, I find that posting really well made concept art gets a lot of traction and people tend to get interested in where it's from.

• Keep pumping out cool stuff! Getting an actual audience takes time!

[neyeghtcartoons]

Right on! that's really cool, I mean. Im deff not afraid to hide the things I'm into.
and I get what you mean about the genuine interaction, that's what i feel like people respond to the most which, is also what I like the most. I used to have a pretty decently sized youtube channel, and the best part about it was just talking to my subscribers like people.

[phen]

Yes! Taking genuine interest in someone else's work is crucial. Plus, I've found it really beneficial to my own work to pay attention to the little details and design behaviours of other artists. It's fun to talk about the craft! And for the potential non-creators, I love just talking about general interests. It helped me so much to get into fandoms where the majority of the audience is a consumer!

And promoting your art with art is always successful. Doing little illustrations for comics, comics for your illustrative work, diagrams and upbeat little Q&A's with your audience -- all of these are great ways to promote yourself without handing out the same old "flyer" again and again. Viewers love seeing new stuff! And I love boosting my productivity with extra content, hah^^

[shaylafarley5]

Is twitter really good? I've been trying to expose my work more but really don't know how and a don't want to spam. A few others have been doing that and most of the time it ends up bad. I have a tumblr and I'm just getting use to it, Facebook I only use with people I known in person, but most of them are about fashion, cars and what's trading in the world. Only a few of my friends follow my work the others just like it.

[AnnaLandin]

Is twitter really good? I've been trying to expose my work more but really don't know how and a don't want to spam.

I find Twitter a nice place to be as a webcomic-artist! There's a bunch of other webcomic people there, and the hashtags I mentioned are really good for making connections and having interesting discussions and making friends and stuff.

As for spamming... Unless you post links to your stuff 50+ times an hour, and do nothing BUT promote your webcomic, I think it's okay. I mean, most people follow a BUNCH of people on Twitter, which means your self-promo tweets get spaced out in their timeline, and don't feel overwhelming. Just... try to be genuine, and use it as a social media account (emphasis on "social") rather than as only a channel for self-promotion. People who follow me on Twitter get as many photos of my floofy cat and random babble about early Christian church-schisms as they do links to my comic. I tweet links to my comic when it updates, and links to my Patreon when I update that, but otherwise I just talk about stuff. Sometimes that stuff is comics, sometimes it isn't.

Make friends with and follow other artists on Twitter - not only will you find your timeline fills up with really pretty art+comics, and tweets from interesting people, it also means you'll be making friends with other creative people, which is always nice.

(to get you started, I'm on Twitter over here at @AnnaLandin)

[shaylafarley5]

Thanks ^u^, I'll get started on it when I get to my computer. I'm using my phone and it's not showing everything.

[shazzbaa]

Is twitter really good? I've been trying to expose my work more but really don't know how and a don't want to spam.

There's a pretty big webcomics community there! I always advise following other comics creators and watching how they use twitter to get the hang of it -- different people use it differently! (my twitter tends to be pretty casual) There's also a lot of info about the #webcomicchat hashtag and how to participate in that conversation over in this thread:

Twitter - how does it work?

[shaylafarley5]

Thanks,lol that's exactly what I was thinking too