Artists - How to get an audience without social media?

[PALEOKNIGHT]

 Hello there! After commenting on another thread, it’s got me thinking… How can I build an audience without having social media?

 I recently got in college, and I don’t want to rely just on my parents money anymore. Problem is, I can’t get a job because my classes are full time! The only thing I could do at this moment would be setting up drawing commissions, but there is the OTHER problem: I haven’t found anywhere to promote my work.
 I do have a personal website, but it’s pretty barebones, and pretty much the only people who have accessed it are my friends. I don’t want to live off my art or earn big bucks, I just need to find somebody who’s willing to spare $15 for a doodle 


 So, there’s my question. I know a lot of people in this forum have no social media, so I want to know if any of you have words of wisdom, for me and any other beginners on selling their art.

 
 
[edited for clarification]

[Yoylecake420]

You could try making a poster for art commissions and advertise it across the college. As for contact, try using your email.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

I recently got in college, and I don’t want to rely just on my parents money anymore. Problem is, I can’t get a job because my classes are full time! The only thing I could do at this moment would be setting up drawing commissions, but there is the OTHER problem: I haven’t found anywhere to promote my work.
...
 So, there’s my question. I know a lot of people in this forum have no social media, so I want to know if any of you have words of wisdom, for me and any other beginners on selling their art.

Making any money with your art is difficult, even if you have a semi-professional skill and a rather good reach. A friend of mine had - at the time I talked to him about this - a PHD in media design, a number of followers on Twitter in the low thousands, and did digital art as his main occupation beneath work. Back then, he'd made 200€ with it, over the course of - I think - 3 years. So: If you want to make some money, and you aren't next-to-wondrously skilled, getting a job on the weekends will probably be less frustrating.

Also, I believe that most of the people active here do not make a living from their art - the majority of the users here consists of hobbyists, who - maybe - get some dime now and then through their creative work. Most people who try to get commissions are present at other social media sites (Instagram/Twitter/Thumblr/Bluesky).

We quit on all of the centralized/commercial SM sites; most of our traffic comes now from Mastodon, some from Itch (I do reviews on my blog put links to them under the reviewed games - that seems to bring back some attention to my site, and thus to our games), some from the Interactive-Fiction archives, and - a rather good part - from this forum and the adjacent sites. All of this brings me somewhat of an audience (~3500 unique views on our site atm, ~10 views and ~3 DLs on Itch, all roughly on average this year - which I consider good. We made ~300€ with all our projects the course of over 4 years, and had expenses of ~190€ (Steam and hosting), which comes down to roughly 25€ per year, just to give people who think about trying to make money with hobbyist art an idea - note that I'm not saying that it can't work out better for you). That being said: I think I never received a payment from somebody coming from Twitter/Reddit, even back when we used them. Most of our "donators" (for most of our stuff is pay-what-you-want) come from small, specialized communities (open source games or dungeon synth communities).