Why many artists suck at marketing

You have to fave their journal, for the mere sake of raising the number of faves and raising the journal to the front page of DeviantArt. You have to write about that shit on your own page, so all of your watchers will be notified about what action you join as well. And then you'll finally get featured. If you want to compare anything with being a whore...
It's similar to those "like and win" actions on facebook. And let's be honest... everybody hates people who do those all the time, and mess up your timeline with all kind of shit you aren't interested in -- not even to mention that there are no formal rules about those giveaways. They don't even have to give away their price. So the chances of winning that kind of stuff are smaller than having an airplane crash on your head. It's just another cheap marketing trick.

Taking all that into consideration, donating just 10 point without the whole watching-faving-promoting-whatever-thing all of a sudden seems very clean and transparent. You don't have to perform all kind of monkey tricks. You don't have to spam your watchers about shit you do halfheartedly, just to gain something. It's just donating a few points, that's all.

Maybe it's because I've worked in (web)advertising for years that I lost my innocent view on how people would think. But I'm well aware of how social media marketing works nowadays. I've seen big company's doing social media from the inside. With paid social media experts and everything. And I can tell you that even if a company appears to be nice and 'genuine', behind the mask it's all about phrasing words on social media in such a way that more people would like the company. So people will buy stuff they don't need, or accept sky-high prices just because "that brand is so good". No matter what you think, it's all about profit.

I can understand the whole artist's view on things. Many people around here are willing to be popular for their talent, and their talent alone. To gain recognition of other people for what they do. Not how well they market their selves. I can honestly imagine most fun comes from people discovering your page by itself and following you, because they like your art. But what wrong would it do to get yourself known? Would anyone know Pokemon if it was never advertised? It's true that most buzz was created when the missingno-thing went viral. But even that was anticipated. Would anyone know that famous writer if his books were never mentioned in the media? People are paid to review books, you know! Would anyone know that famous anime artist if he/she never showed up at a local convention or art workshop?

If you want people to know you, you can't just sit down and expect people to come to you. There are 12 million members on DeviantArt alone. You can't expect people to just magically find you in that maze of user profiles. Not in 2013, when the internet is social media, and every single site is filled with people screaming for attention or recognition. No, they would most likely find your work in a friend's favorites, a group, or a feature. They'll find you, because your work is at a place they could see. And they somehow watched you, because they saw your stuff somewhere, liked it, and clicked the link to discover you had a lot more in your gallery that they liked.

I see most artists having the idea that that marketing is bad. The idealistic thought the attention for their work should be 'genuine', and that marketing makes it less genuine. Although I wouldn't know why marketing would make your work less genuine. If people didn't like your work, they wouldn't watch you, even if you expose them to it. People nowadays are critical about where they spend their time on.

As a marketeer, I can say that many artists possess poor marketing skills. They've always been that way. That's the reason many artists never got the fame they deserved, until they died and somebody else promoted their work. That's the reason they devaluate their work to a mere $0.12 commission. The sole reason why the prices for art are so low. They allow people to see it as a 'fun job', and not take into account the many years of practice that went prior to that. Please don't fall into the same trap. The modern internet era makes it possible for everyone to get their selves out there. To do your own campaign. Yes, it might cost you a bit. Either in time, or money (Or both. Time = money). But the costs are nothing compared to what it was years ago, before the internet era, when you still had to hire an advertisement company and pay for printed media.

Web 2.0. is all about the users. 

You not only allowed to join; you're expected to!

So don't sell yourself short because of some stupid ideals.