I am at war with social media

You're not alone, I'm having the same issue. I'm especially bad at understanding how Twitter is supposed to work, because, like... if you use hashtags or links in your posts, you're going to get buried. But apparently, if you only post finished images to self-promote, it's considered "spammy" and won't get you many interactions either. Retweeting others is apparently not good, but you also have to be VERY careful when you're posting your own personal opinions, because it's very easy for things to blow up and turn into drama. Considering that you only get 280 characters at a time to "express your opinion", you can't expect a whole lot of depth in a single tweet to begin with, which I think is one of the main sources of misunderstanding on there.

Instagram and TikTok are just ridiculous with their demands. They basically expect you to be online 24/7 (yet, for some reason, once I started to post more often on TikTok after listening to suggestions, my engagement went dramatically down instead). If you don't post often, they "punish" you with less engagement. But if you post too often, you're considered a "spammer" and also censored. Basically, there's no way to win XD

Dunno, it feels a whole lot like gambling, at this point. You keep coming back because you're hoping for your post to "blow up" and get the engagement you want, but instead you end up wasting your time and ruining your mental health on these platforms. Which is one of the reasons why I decided to step a little back from it all lately and try to focus on just... getting art done.

That's almost exactly how I use both of those sites. ^^; I retweet constantly on Twitter, and although Tumblr is what I consider my 'main' site now, I only average one post every 10 days, more or less.

Anyway, I highly doubt you're the only person who doesn't 'get' social media...I think the vast majority of people who are super-popular on social media are either (a) lucky, or (b) have an established form of fame that draws followers in automatically: maybe they work for a famous organization, or they're part of a famous group, or they're literally a movie star. ^^;

Fortunately, (a) luck can come to anyone if they wait long enough, and they may not have to wait as long if their account is a pleasant place to be.
That's the one form of social media advice I would be confident giving to anyone: just make your account a pleasant place, especially for you. Fill it with things that are fun and things that make you happy, so that no matter how long you have to wait for your number to come up, at least you won't be miserable.

Now, if growth is important to you, I'd also advise you to make sure your original posts-- the things you want people to pay attention to-- stand out in some way, and are easily accessible.

For example, on Twitter, even though I retweet 95% of the time, the only image posts on my account are my art. If you visit my profile and look through my photo gallery (or whatever it's called) you will ONLY be seeing my drawings. No memes or screenshots, and very few actual photos. Just art.
And on Tumblr, I just limit my reblogs, of which there aren't many, to (mostly) text posts. So if you're scrolling through my blog and you see a cool drawing, the odds are extremely high that it is mine. ^^

Basically, make sure that if the average stranger is considering following you, it is as easy as possible for them to see what you have to offer and make that decision.

That's it...everything else is just various forms of 'the whims of the algorithm'. :T Stuff the site developers design for you to pointlessly and endlessly chase after, and are honestly just a waste of your time unless you're already famous.
If any site's suppression algorithm is so ruthless that you are basically invisible unless you actively play their game, I'd say just don't use that site. Although I think most sites are willing to give you a chance-- they recognize that the vast majority of their users don't even realize that there is a game, let alone intend to play it. ^^; So I don't think there's any harm in just hanging out and biding your time.

I have to admit this is why I basically quit social media.

It just feels like I have to work extra hard for no rewards. It also feels like the algorithms punish those that can't be on social media 24/7. I have a job. I work on my webcomic's pages whenever I can.

It actually gave me severe burnout and made me doubt my artistic abilities. I keep my social media up so that readers will know where to read my webcomic.

Understandable. With social media, it feels like you have to be "chronically online" to get anywhere which none of us are. We have lives and can't sit on the computer/phone all day. The people that have made it big with over 100K follows or even 1M have worked to get there for years and are almost always professional, top-quality level. That isn't to say the rest of us aren't good artists (we are) but there's a reason wlop is one of the internet's most-seen creators. Heck, there's ton of professional level artists that never get seen.

On top of that, social media can become a severe addiction. Why would I want all my best memories to be of me online? That isn't living. I just want to draw cool demons and aliens because I think it's awesome. I'm not here to perform. Those who have joined me, well - I'm wholly grateful for them! But what social media can do to artists (especially those who already have mental health issues)? It's evil! (These sites do their best to make you addicted, afterall.)

I just take it day-by-day and post whenever I feel like it.

I am an awkward mess of a person so I never really understood how to use social media to connect with other people.

On my Twitter, I don't really know what to do. I don't really RT anything. I post updates but I am not sure if they even do anything. My art gets zero traction. And I feel like I am left to just make random tweets of what is floating around in my headspace at the moment. I try to observe what other artists are doing, but it seems to build up a following, you have to have one niche and just mostly do that. Like if you are drawing fanart, you have to stick to mostly one fandom.

My art does a little better on Instagram but not by a lot. I am not really sure how people find my stuff on there. I am not happy with Instagram right now because they randomly deleted one of my posts and there is not really a clear reason why. They did not send me an email when it happened which seems like something that should be notified by email. They said the image was offensive even tho I also posted it to Tumblr and Twitter with no problem.

Honestly I just use my social media to share with people who already follow me, I've long given up on trying to attract new ones. Twitter is the best, although it's a completely pain because one wrong word can make the algorithm bots shadowban me, blocking my posts from even my followers, leading to me having to go through the convoluted help system to file a complaint. This really sucks because my work is mature and has uncomfortable themes, so it's only natural that I'll bring up a word Twitter doesn't like at some point, so I'm filing a complaint every few months or so. (It's funny because they always reply with "Whaaat?? We don't shadowban people, that's a conspiracy theory! You have it all wrong!", but then my posts suddenly get likes and retweets again right after.) What sucks is I have over 400 followers there, but the most likes/retweets I've ever gotten on a post is maybe 10-15, I guess that's just how things work though. Regardless I've contemplated nuking my account and starting over just to clear out the dead followers.

Before the mature content ban Tumblr was pretty good, but now it's the worst. For my comic profile I just post updates at this point because everything gets crickets. Every blue moon I'll get a new follower... somehow, and someone may like an update, but it's pretty dead. Not sure if the site bots decided to block/flag my account as spam or something. I've thought about just dumping it, but there always that "what if" in the back of my mind. I probably will just dump it because it's a waste of time.

Instagram is alright, but I keep forgetting it exists since it's not the best platform for sharing off-site updates, and I don't draw enough non-comic things to keep up with it. When I do post it's pretty alright though, I probably get more interaction than any other site during those times... which is sad. Lol

Yeah, social media is kinda crap. Other than my content being in this weird limbo between adult and mature, keeping me from appealing to either worlds, I don't post enough for the algorithm to like me. Or I say something the bots don't like and get my posts blocked. I've slowly started looking into Pillowfort1 and Mastodon1, I already have accounts that have been somewhat abandoned until now. Although I'm not social enough (Or well liked enough) for posting to really matter? Like, you gotta have friends/be charismatic to have a good start on new social media, and I don't have charisma or friends, there ain't enough time for that in this day and age. xP

I f'ing hate social media. HATE IT. I hate the premise, I hate how it influences culture (in all the bad ways - sure maybe you could argue that social media exposes people to other information and view-points, if it wasn't for the fact that it has been proven to actively bubble you in whatever the hell you want to see more of, thereby placing you in an echo chamber), I hate the kind of behaviour it promotes and glorifies and I HATE that people who achieve social media success try to frame it as the result of some kind of a thing they actively did instead of shooting shit at the wall and getting lucky. Like yes obviously the more shit you shoot at a wall, the more chance you have at getting some of that luck. But then that means you have to waste time doing social media research instead of a myriad of any other things that are infinitely more useful to society that you could be doing (including, but not limited to, actual content creation that contributes to our culture). (Not mention the success being predicated on having to be able-bodied and endowed with enough free time to produce content at the "optimal" rate for social media penetration)