How can I get my audience to participate in my comic?

[PixyByte]

Hi! My comic is called Pixy Byte! It is about a Pixy, and her life and random adventures with her friends, Penguin, Flippers, and Poot! I update every Friday, but I decided what would be fun is if I had a day where I let people comment on what they want to see/want me to draw in my comic. I just don't know what kind of suggestion I could put out there. I like my regular comic strip, I just thought maybe I could have a "Fan Suggestion" day sort of thing.
Could you please look through my comics and see what you think?
And if a "Fan Suggestion" day would be doable? I keep thinking I need more of a following to do it.
I have a Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram account, so I could also use those to help get weekly fan suggestions from there.
Ideas would be MAJORLY helpful and appreciated.
Thank you so much!

[Ringarune]

Well there's a couple things you could do. Art raffles are pretty popular, you could do something like that monthly or when you reach certain subscriber milestones. You could also hold q and a's which are pretty interactive. Maybe livestreaming might also be an idea

I keep thinking I need more of a following to do it.

In my experience this has probably been the biggest roadblock in doing interactive things, especially in regards to livestreams. Art raffles and q and a's seem to be something that a good amount of people participate in though.

[PixyByte]

Art raffles and q and a's are really good ideas, thanks! Although from what I've seen, they do well with quite a large following. I'm not there yet, I don't have many followers, I was brainstorming ideas on how to make a suggestion day as a sort of way to get people interested in my work more. Something I can do to gain an audience, instead of using an already large audience.

[shazzbaa]

I gotta agree with you that it's hard to do this kinda thing without a larger following, unless your comic revolves around it! I've seen some comics set up as a kinda choose-your-own-adventure type deal, and those can get engagement, but they kinda have a different set-up from the get-go.

I waited to do any Q&A/audience feedback things until the point that people were asking me stuff on their own, without me prompting it. If you try to get audience participation, and people don't already have stuff they wanna see or ask, you might get a couple people who try to think of something to suggest, just to participate, but in my experience it's hard to sustain that!

I was brainstorming ideas on how to make a suggestion day as a sort of way to get people interested in my work more. Something I can do to gain an audience, instead of using an already large audience.

To be totally honest, this would have the opposite effect on me! When I see artists start to do "hey guys tell me what to draw!" type strips, it makes me wonder if maybe they're running out of ideas. When I follow a funny comic, it's because I like the cartoonist's sense of humour and the ideas that they have make me laugh. Some random other guy's suggestion of what would be funny is probably a lot less interesting to me.

[PixyByte]

You make a lot of great points.

To be totally honest, this would have the opposite effect on me! When I see artists start to do "hey guys tell me what to draw!" type strips, it makes me wonder if maybe they're running out of ideas.

I didn't really think of that to be honest, but it does seem more likely that people would take that thought. I would, as a reader.

I gotta agree with you that it's hard to do this kinda thing without a larger following, unless your comic revolves around it!

That is why I kind of wanted to figure out how to tie it into my comic strip series. Perhaps a "guest appearance" from someone else's comic, but then I'd have to get someone willing to collaborate, and with small audience numbers, it won't be easy.

Thanks for your input very helpful btw