Webtoon is steadily but surely overtaking popular manga apps like Shonen Jump and the key to the platform’s success actually lies in its genius marketing. While popular apps like Manga Plus have recently revolutionized their services with new subscription plans, Korean-owned platforms like Webtoon continue to dominate the market greatly due to their unique marketing strategies and social media presence.

Webtoon’s genius marketing is best encapsulated by this reel recently on the platform’s official English Instagram account, promoting one of their newest romance manhwa called Iseop’s Romance. Besides being funny and relatable, the reel also makes it abundantly clear what trope the series centers around, directly targeting fans of enemies to lovers manhwa.

As such, Webtoon’s method of marketing makes it easy for fans to discover new titles while also letting them know exactly what to expect from a series. The platform also makes sure to heavily promote its most popular series as well as its new rising stars like Iseop’s Romance in unique, engaging ways that keep their social media presence alive, which is the life’s blood of any business in the present day and age.

Webtoon’s Marketing Proves Why The App is So Successful

Webtoon, Tapas, and Tappytoon Draw Readers to Their Titles Through Engaging Marketing

According to data published by Sensor Tower, Piccoma, Line Manga, and Webtoon were the highest-grossing manga apps in 2023 across the world. Of these, Webtoon was the most popular app in the United States, with Tapas and Tappytoon coming in at second and third place. While the success of these apps is also indicative of the ever-rising popularity of manhwa, a look at these platforms’ social media handles reveals a stark difference from that of popular Japanese manga apps.

Webtoon usually promotes its titles in unconventional ways, using memes, and even compressed summary videos that usually achieve the same effect of drawing new readers to a new series by advertising certain tropes. Meanwhile, other popular manhwa apps like Tapas and Tappytoon almost regularly deliver gorgeous animated trailers and visuals that are not only visually appealing but informative in terms of the plot and characters of the series in question. In the case of their most popular titles, these platforms often release new animated trailers for every new season.

However, Shonen Jump and other manga platforms like Kodansha and Shueisha don’t market themselves or their titles nearly as well. Other than a significantly smaller social media following, these manga platforms do not post nearly as regularly nor do their posts particularly stand out as engaging or particularly shareable.

Shonen Jump’s one saving grace is the trailers shared on the platform’s YouTube channel. However, beyond the colorful visuals and catchy music, these videos usually aren’t very informative about what the series itself is about, nor are they shared across different social media platforms. Moreover, Shonen Jump’s videos are primarily in Japanese, limiting their appeal to Western audiences.

Manga Apps Can Learn From Webtoon’s Success

Overall, despite its large catalog of titles to choose from, Webtoon’s smart marketing gives even its lesser-known titles a chance to stand up to the platform’s most well-loved series like Omniscient Reader and True Beauty. Webtoon constantly encourages readers to try new series, thereby retaining users beyond its most popular titles.

Japanese manga apps definitely have just as many amazing stories waiting to be explored, and perhaps these series may have a better fighting chance if manga apps took a page out of Webtoon‘s approach and began marketing them better to Western audiences. While manga is already fairly popular outside of Japan, apps like Manga Plus may need to adapt to the changing times if they’d like to compete with manhwa’s ever-increasing global popularity.