Anyone Else Feel Like Social Media is a Waste of Time? (As a Content Creator)

[69Michi]

In my personal opinion, I use social media (mainly Twitter) as a way to connect with other creators and my readers, rather than to promote my content. I post silly tweet, meme, unrelated personal art, from time to time my comic stuffs but not always. Although you probably see me talking with other creators more than posting, trying to promote my comic to some invisible audience out there. I think it's another way to boost your online presence. Try to reach out to other peers in your field and talk to them, make your posts interesting. Nobody likes a deserted social media that just mindlessly post the same thing about some personal project.

Social media is in a way, your personal playground after all. If people find you as a creator to be interesting to follow, they ought to take interest in whatever comic or story you are working on too.

[joe_galindez]

There's no advantage to social media marketing if everybody's doing it. You're just one voice out of many and everyone knows that your only inputs are effort and time. I do enjoy connecting with my readers. However, I can't rely on them to spread the word. I'd much rather pay for advertising.

(EDIT: When it comes to this sort of shouting match, money talks louder.)

That said, I'm not sure how to go about promoting my serial. It's not a webcomic so I can't market it through the usual channels. It's not a print book so I can't buy ad space on Amazon. It's a gory, testosterone-laden fantasy adventure on a website full of romance novels. What am I to do?

[moodyfd]

I honestly think it depends on how you use social media. I'm on Tumblr and have been for awhile. I think only a handful have followed me from story to story but many have followed me do to shared interest. Mainly reblogging and sharing art, gifs, and stories. Again maybe not the best way to gain readers but a good way to make friends within a community. It feels a little more genuine than simply promoting my stories.

[Croik]

Twitter is kind of a mystery to me, but I've found Tumblr to be a fun way of meeting and interacting with fans. Our comic has gotten a few big boosts thanks to shoutouts from popular blogs, too. Though it also helps that both me and my artist had tumblr followings before hand, thanks to participating in fandom and her doing commissions.

[Cera_OMalley]

Thanks for the post Aspie. I've had the same exact frustrations.

Since you have 3x the number of subscribers and 6x the number of page views it really puts things in perspective.

[joe_galindez]

What's this? Some kind of furry?

EDIT: Hidden? Reported? Well some people failed a spot check. FYI, my profile pic is that of an anthropomorphic cat.

[moodyfd]

There's a bit of a collaborative effort on Tumblr in general. So many authors and artists come together to make fabulous stuff. I've met some of my best friends through Tumblr fandoms. Every so often my fanfictions will get shout outs which definitely helps readership. I agree though. Twitter is still a mystery to me too lol. I'm not sure how you really get followers or use it effectively.

[audeshattuck]

It really depends on what you want. I don't get much from Tumblr, and thus, Tumblr doesn't respond much to me. I mostly use it to regurgitate my Instagram.
However, Insta and Twitter are places I genuinely enjoy the content posted there and I have the greatest amount of engagement.
I think that there is a certain amount or reciprocal engagement needed, too. You can post and hashtag until the cows come home, but if you want comments, likes, and such- you have to give it.
I've made some cool online friends by just going to the new posts on any given hashtags that I enjoy seeing, and liking and commenting the crap out of stuff I find cool.

[moodyfd]

^^^ I can agree with this.

[Daknight]

I use social media and though promoting is me mostly posting some art and message my comic is up, it hasn't brought much engagement. But in all honesty posting in your own page about stuff isn't going to do much, commenting in other peoples work, and being active is what will make people visit your social media page and in turn read your comic. BUT it can indeed be a time hog that might not bring in results, but it is a free tool for advertisement in the end (outside of course consuming time). Some people might get a use of it, other might not and still gain a following.

[Rayenae]

It's sounding to me, after reading this thread, that Social Media is a lot like art. Whether or not you like the project your working on, ultimately shows in the final product. So what I'm taking away from this is that I should rework my social media plan in a way that I can really have fun and enjoy it.

[insomniascrawl]

I feel like the more I promote on social media, the more I see a difference in my views. The more I push it and the more I try and stay relevant, the better feedback I get. When I don't work as hard at social media, I for sure see the dip in views. I think it's a good long term investment if you're trying to build a name as a creator.

[sarrowsmith10]

I'd say you have to measure your cost verses benefit, with the primary cost being your time.

Honestly, had you not been here on the forums, I would not have found your comic. But I've never seen you on twitter or facebook and I don't follow tumblr or instagram, so I don't know about those. I'd say if you aren't seeing a return on your investment (again, your time) on a particular platform, abandon it. Try a different platform. I think there was a really good post about the cost/benefits of each platform and how long it takes to get a following on each, but I can't find it right now...

Personally, each platform brings a different crowd for me. On facebook, my immediate friends and family who don't have twitter or tapas accounts, this is how they keep up with the comic and my other work. On twitter I connected to alot of other creators on #comicbookhour and got a huge surge of followers that way. Now I use twitter for status updates, since the whole "post on your board here on tapas" is completely bogus and I think it annoys most of my followers honestly.

So, do just what works for you.

[Cera_OMalley]

As far as Tapas is concerned I'm seeing the most growth after being active on the forum here the last two weeks.

The only time it was higher was in April when I was able to post the old backlog of comics on an almost daily basis.

I love the community tools they have here over webtoons so I wish we were more of a success. Now if we could just figure out a way to get the audience to 'share' stuff more

[Shanny8]

I think social media has helped garner my comic a lot of views...but I'm not singularly focused with that aspect to the point of not making social media enjoyable for me across the board. Before I used social media to bolster my comic, I was on social media making friends and being my quirky self.

Now the one area where I do draw the line at is IG- I'm not the type of person to take 6 million pics all day about stuff or make videos; I would love to see if I could tap into that potential, but I leave it alone because I'm just not that into taking pics/videos every other minute- as where with Facebook or Twitter I dont have to do that all day. I can step away for hours and come back to see how posting there has reflected in a spike in numbers on my comic.

[joe_galindez]

"I'm a content creator, Jim, not a human weather vane!"

The things we end up becoming.

[Griffian]

I think I'm going to have to disagree with you here. While producing good and consistent content is definitely more important than having a social presence, I think a social presence is still important.

Especially when your content is online, people want to know about who you are and what you're like if they're going to follow your stuff with dedication. If I'm going to recommend a webcomic to a friend, I want to make sure the creator isn't a jerk first. Book publishers now actively examine author's online presence to determine if there's a market for their books, and I don't think that's too unreasonable.

Even if I were able to get a large following without using any social media, I don't think I'd really care for it. There might be an audience, sure, but they wouldn't be my audience.

That said, I'm not really a popular creator or anything at the moment, so take this as you will.

[joe_galindez]

I get that. People won't read your work if they don't even know it exists. I just don't want the social presence to feel like another job. I'd much rather buy ad space.

[anitacomics]

To me it was the exact opposite. Not that I have much subs nor followers, but I indeed have a bigger growth when I was super active on Twitter. Now that I'm not (because it's tiring for me as much as for you), the growth of DAWN OF THE DAD stopped. It's been a month without a sub, yet the comic keeps posting one page a week as always.

But really, this whole promotion thing is damn difficult for me. I really don't get it, don't enjoy it and doesn't give me satisfaction ._.

[Daknight]

I actually began checking out other peoples work and commenting under my comic handle and gotten back some views and likes that way. Again engaging with other creators and people will bring in more results than posting in facebook and using the ad feature. I am not saying it'll work 100 percent of the time, but I tend to check out work from other 10 people, comment (not just a 'this is nice!' but a bit more lengthy describing what I like and so on) and it works. It can indeed be time consuming though.