So, you’ve done it: you’ve created a webcomic. It took hours and hours of planning, writing, illustrating. You’ve successfully published it on webtoon platforms, and it’s gaining traction. But should you stop there?
Thanks to the sheer number of comics on popular platforms like Webtoon and Tapas, publishing your comic sometimes feels like pouring a sippy cup into an ocean of content. But thankfully, webtoon sites aren’t the only places you can find readers. And by doing a bit of social media promotion for your webtoon, you’ll start to see those views ticking up and up and up.
In this guide, we’re gonna go over exactly how to promote your webtoon on social media, from general tips and tricks, to more specific guidance on how to get more webtoon readers from social media.
10 tips for promoting your webcomic on social media
1: Focus on what works for you
It’s ok to only do what you can. Producing a webcomic is hard work, and marketing that comic could be a full time job! The best tip I can offer is to focus on what works for you.
Do you love to produce beautiful artwork? Instagram is your jam. Are you already a member of the webtoon community and spent time interacting with fandom? Reddit or Tumblr. Do you love to network and talk to other creators? Twitter/X is probably best for you. Are you a meme video queen? TikTok, of course. (Scroll to the next section for more on the culture of each platform.)
Yes, it would be awesome to tackle all these platforms at once, but that’s a lot of work. Zero in on what you genuinely enjoy doing, and find the platform that fits. There’ll be time to add more later, if you want to expand!
2: Tease your story by tapping into what’s most appealing
While you could make content that just teases the premise of your comic, it might be more effective to tap into what readers will find most appealing. And for that, we just need to find what fans of each genre are looking for.
For the romance genre, shine a spotlight on your hot leading character and cute ships. A perfect example of this is ToastBunComics’ Instagram account. This creator promoted her fake-dating comic I’ll Keep Your Secret by focusing in on the hot male lead, Daehyun. This really paid off: ToastBunComics got 1000 subscribers on Webtoon just two months after publishing!
Are you writing a mystery webcomic? Get more readers by teasing plot twists and reveals, and drop hints to encourage theorising. If your comic is a comedy, don’t be afraid to share entire scenes from your webtoon: there’s no need to hide your punchlines! And if you’re not sure what readers of your genre want to see, just ask yourself what you find most interesting about that genre, and that’ll be a good place to start.
3: Post full illustrations
When it comes to drawing a webtoon you have to be economical about how you draw it — because you’re gonna be producing those episodes quickly. However, when it comes to growing a social media account, taking time to produce full illustrations will really pay off.
You can even do this in the run-up to your webtoon being published, using the illustrations as a way to get your followers interested in your characters. This is something that GhostBunny used to build anticipation for her vampire romance comic Scarlet Symphony.
By doing this, GhostBunny ensured that by the time her comic was published, she already had a bunch of readers from her following on Instagram. She already has over 3,500 subscribers, just four months after publishing on Webtoon.
4: Create mini-comics featuring your characters
They don’t have to be elaborate. But creating mini comics that feature your characters is a great way to promote your comic on social media. Pick a situation that would demonstrate your characters’ personalities, make the art as beautiful as possible (you can spend a little longer on this than you would an average webtoon episode), and voila! A perfect way to get people emotionally invested in your characters.
This is something that Marsoid, author of popular comic Long Exposure, did to build hype for their newest comic, Ride or Die. They did the same thing to promote Long Exposure before it was released… and it now has over four million views.
While this works well as a pre-release webtoon marketing strategy, you can also continue to do this after you’ve started publishing.
5: Make use of memes
You literally cannot go wrong with memes. Whether it’s a static image, text-based post, or video, tapping into trending memes is a great way to introduce your webcomic to new readers. Plus, you can also use this opportunity to show off your characters’ personalities, eccentricities, and sense of humour.
Lil Red Beany, author of School Bus Graveyard, makes their characters feel real by creating meme-worthy in-universe snapchats.
Plus because memes are social media trends, the algorithm loves them — and that’s a great way to get your comic on people’s feeds, even if they aren’t already following you.
6: Cultivate a community
Your readers aren’t just passive consumers of content, and social media is the best way to interact with them and build a sense of community. Ask them questions about your comic and share their replies. Do fun polls about plot beats or characters. If they draw fanart of your comic, share it!
Beyond engaging with your readers, you can also cultivate a sense of community by creating in-jokes. Curryuku — author of Webtoon Original Not So Shoujo Love Story — absolutely slays the Twitter game. One of her running jokes is that she is actually the actress Jenna Ortega.
Posts like this give her followers the opportunity to get in on the joke, treating it seriously — the top reply is “everyone say thankyou jenna ortega” — while those outside her fandom might fall for the prank. (If you google Not So Shoujo Love Story, one of the suggested searches is “written by Jenna Ortega?”)
In-jokes reinforce a sense of community for existing fans, and make potential readers want to get in on the joke by reading the comic.
7: Draw fanart from popular fandoms
A great way to hook in new readers for your webtoon is to draw fanart from popular fandoms. Has a new season of Stranger Things dropped? That hashtag is gonna blow up, so if you enjoy the show and have some spare time, drawing fanart could get you new followers — who could then become readers of your webcomic.
The best way to do this is to pick a fandom that has the same themes or genre as your comic. Once again, Curryuku knows how to tap into the zeitgeist:
Curryuku’s fanart of Marcille and Falin from Delicious in Dungeon implies that they are in love — which is smart considering that Curryuku’s comic is a romance between two female leads. By drawing fanart of the most popular girls’ love ship of the Delicious in Dungeon fandom, Curryuku ensures that anyone who follows her because of this fanart is in the target audience for Not So Shoujo Love Story. Plus, she’s also promoting her Patreon in the process.
8: Follow other creators
Becoming part of the webtoon creator community is one of the best things you can do to boost readership. After all, creators are readers too! Not only that, but they’re super readers: they comment on episodes, share updates, and stay loyal to comics created by people they know.
This means that by engaging with the creator community you’re actually reaching potential readers too, because every time a fellow creator shares your comic, their readers will see it and be incentivised to read your comic too. While it’s a good idea to follow all kinds of creators, finding those who create comics similar to yours will definitely help you reach more readers, as their readers will be your target audience.
As well as following other creators on social media platforms, it’s a good idea to also join sites like Reddit and jump into any webtoon Discords you get invited to!
Join the Taddy Ink Creator Discord — do art challenges, connect with creators, get feedback, attend events, and more!
9: Develop an author persona
It can be hard to stand out from the crowd on social media — but it helps to remember that social media isn’t just a way for you to market your webtoon. People are on these platforms because they enjoy them, and they’re gonna follow people who they find intriguing and entertaining. When you’re trying to use social media for promotion, it can be hard to come up with captions for images and interesting post ideas. But there’s a simple solution for this: use your voice.
On social media, a “brand voice” is essentially a personality that you cultivate. And the best/most successful ones are always genuine. Once again, I return to the altar of Curryuku’s Twitter (I told you she slayed the game)...
This tweet doesn’t even have an image attached or a link to her comic. Not everything you post needs to be promotion — some stuff can just be fun. Use your sense of humour. Be silly. Post your opinions. Share things you love. Ultimately, just be yourself, and be loud about it!
10: Be your own fan
People can spot promotion a mile away — but they love sharing the things they love with each other. For this reason, posts that talk about comics from the perspective of a fan tend to do really well. It can be hard to do this as the comic creator, but it’s certainly not impossible, and it’s a tactic that many creators have employed to great effect.
It can be hard to pull off without coming off as misleading, so you can balance enthusiasm for your characters with little comments that make it clear that you’re the author.
What works for each social media platform
Every social platform is different, and, it helps to understand the culture of each platform so you can get the best out of it. This will also help you find the best home for you and your comic, if you only have time to focus on one or two platforms instead of all of them.
How to promote your webcomic on Twitter/X
Twitter is good for engaging with and building community. If you’re a words person and especially if you have a great sense of humour, Twitter will help you.
Tips for Twitter:
- Engage with your fellow creators — follow them and reply to their posts.
- Follow comic accounts that do free promotion threads.
- Participate in art challenges.
- Start conversations with your readers and fellow creators.
- Create interactive posts like polls.
- Share your favourite comics to boost your fellow creators.
- Post using the trending hashtags.
- Start conversations.
How to promote your webcomic on Instagram
Instagram is good for posting full illustrations and meme-worthy videos. Instagram is predominantly a visual medium, and beautiful art will get you followers.
Tips for Instagram
- Use any hashtag that might be relevant to your genre (eg: #vampire #sapphic #queer as well as webcomic-related tags).
- Post bonus illustrations and mini-comics.
- Illustrations based on memes.
- Use stories and reels to show your art process and tease upcoming episodes.
- Create reels that act as tutorials for anyone interested in art.
- Participate in “add yours” template memes on stories.
- If you have time, do full-blown animations!
How to promote your webcomic on TikTok
Good for gaining readers from viral videos, and engaging with the hottest memes and trends.
Tips for TikTok:
- Utilise gen Z slang — but don’t go overboard! A few terms here and there is enough.
- Turn scenes from your comic into videos.
- Use memes to react to twists or big moments in your comic.
- Like with Instagram, animated videos do really well on Tiktok.
- Art process videos and tutorials are also super popular.
- Then and now videos demonstrate how much your art style has developed.
- Create videos with popular soundbytes and song memes.
You can also use videos to give your characters a voice, as one creator pointed out in this Tapas forum post.
“My most popular TikToks tend to be comic-style videos, where characters talk to each other in speech bubbles or voiceovers.”
How to promote your webcomic on Reddit
Good for connecting with the community, getting feedback, and getting readers early on.
Not all the general tips above will work here. So, I’m gonna dive into how Reddit works in greater depth. Reddit can be daunting, as it’s not really a social media platform: it comes from an older era of the internet. However, Reddit can be the most powerful tool in your comic promotion arsenal... but only if you don't treat it as promotion.
Redditors can spot self-promotion a mile away, and (generally speaking), they don’t respond well to it. However, Redditors do love giving feedback, voicing their opinion, and being part of something. Using Reddit as a resource when you’re starting out can pay back big time when you finally publish. The indie comic creators that tend to do well on subreddits like r/webtoons are the ones who are actually part of the community: they interact with other people’s posts, and ask for advice while creating their comic.
That way, when you finally publish, the Redditors are super incentivised to read and subscribe. They've given you feedback. They've watched you grow. They've been part of this process. Plus, they recognise you as part of their community because of your activity outside posts about your own comic. That makes Redditors some of the most loyal and rewarding readers out there, and they’ll follow you from Reddit to whatever platform you publish on.
Tips for Reddit:
- Post in niche subreddits for your genre — eg: for fantasy comics, post in r/DnD or r/fantasy, not just r/webtoons.
- Give Redditors the opportunity to give feedback on your work.
- Make posts about popular webtoons that start a conversation.
- Make posts about the webtoon industry as a whole, starting a discussion.
- Post a hot take you have about webtoons, starting a debate (Redditors love a debate!)
- Ask for advice (or give tips) on webtoon resources, eg: which image editing software is best, where to get backgrounds, etc.
- Bring your own comic into the discussion with topics like: “My comic is influenced by X - what are your influences?”
How to promote your comic on Tumblr
Good for building an independent audience that will follow you to different platforms.
Like Reddit, Tumblr isn’t exactly a social media site… and it’s had its ups and downs. Ten years ago, artists ruled Tumblr, and webcomics were huge there. You could post your webcomic on Tumblr, gain a following, then build a webcomic business off the back of that: start a website, publish print volumes, go to conventions… essentially, make it big in the webcomics world.
Nowadays, it is admittedly more difficult to gain traction on Tumblr. Its usership has dropped, for one thing. And like with Reddit, you really need to engage with the community — actually using Tumblr recreationally yourself — to build up a following.
Tips for Tumblr:
- Interact with the community.
- Follow people you’re interested in.
- Post literally anything you want to post.
- Create fanart of popular fandoms and tag accordingly.
- Draw Tumblr-specific memes (eg: the skeleton war! It never truly dies.)
- Join in on Tumblr crazes like Goncharov.
- Reblog any and all posts you find interesting — your blog doesn’t need a theme!
- Post long scenes from your comic, or even entire episodes — Tumblr users like to stay on the platform.
These efforts will pay off. One of the more recent webcomics that originated on Tumblr is The Little Trashmaid. It has 249 million views on Webtoon and the author has even started publishing print comics. And this comic began as a Tumblr post back in 2019! Specifically, the artist created the character of the little trashmaid for Mermay.
Another artist that got their start on Tumblr, is Secondlina, creator of Crow Time. Secondlina has been on Tumblr since 2013, slowly gaining a following as their art developed. By the time they published Crow Time, they were already known for beautiful art and fun comic strips, so it was easy for people to jump across to Webtoon and start reading their comic.
The best way to promote your webtoon on social media…
…is to just start posting. You can utilise all these tips, you can tap into the culture of each platform, and you can hustle with the best of them. But ultimately, the best thing is to just start posting whatever you want. You’ll find out what works along the way! Don’t sweat it, have fun, and be yourself. And soon you’ll get plenty more readers for your webcomic.
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