How Much Do You Use Social Media to Grow Your Subs?

JRHoch 2019-04-24 21:45:47 UTC #1

I'm of the age where using social media means going down to the corner bar. Boy, have things changed.

So how much does social media factor into getting your webcomic out there? Certainly, I've seen people with 1 or 2 posts who have 1,500 subs. That don't happen by accident! What do you recommend newbies do?

QueenofBabyLoon 2019-04-24 22:10:54 UTC #2

I have all the difficulty to go through a movie without jittering about. I wouldn't last one day on Instagram. Plus, what would I post on there?! You are at an age where socializing means the corner bar. I am at an age and a brain construct where socializing means writing a story. That is all the human contact I have. Funny shit, my characters ain't human.

However, we must understand that we live in a world of instant gratification and that our attention span has become lower than that of a goldfish (this is actually a scientific conclusion, you can google it! Humans have a shorter attention span than goldfish, people!). Social media is ensuring that novelty keeps on playing tam tam on our substantia nigra so that we produce that yummy, yummy dopamine!

Back in the days, there were journals with short stories and comics, people waited for them to come out every week/month/whatever. Nowadays, why would you wait when you just have to hang around Instagram, spy on the lives of your acquaintances (or Kim Kardashian, your choice) and wait for a comic to pop up on your feed (I bet I am doing this all wrong since I don't even have Instagram).

Kelheor 2019-04-24 22:11:57 UTC #3

Well, I am here for some tips too I suppose, because I am bad with social media. It is really tiresome to publish to that many accounts and I don't really know how do people find anything in this hellish amount of information

I've read that consistency is the key, and even that it's better for your page to have the same colour scheme. Of course, don't forget all the 548 hashtags!
Also hashtags seems of good use on Instagram, but not on Twitter? People just come and go, come and go, it feels useless to even look at the amount of subscribers. And I feel like it's quite useless for comic, I think maybe 1-3 subscribers actually came to Tapas through social media. I don't even know whether the subs on Instagram are actually there for reading a comic or just waiting for me to give them a sub too.

Kittosaurus 2019-04-24 23:04:28 UTC #4

@JRHoch you might find this post helpful:

I am still figuring out myself lol. I'm a big lurker which is counter-intuitive on a lot of these sites/ apps. I really have to force myself to try and comment/ interact.

ericsalinas149 2019-04-24 23:15:28 UTC #5

I make a simple four-panel, gag-a-day comic strip. Not a long web series divided in chapters. Going on social media is easier for me as I can post the whole comic up on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. Whereas creators of web series can only post promos or WIP. I might be wrong in this.

Anyways, I post links and promo pages so people on Instagram can find my Tapastic and LINE Webtoon page. I haven't grown my subscription numbers much by this approach, but every little thing helps.

ble 2019-04-25 00:43:44 UTC #6

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Klaustasya 2019-04-25 01:09:22 UTC #7

I actually don't have a comic to promote on my socials but when i used to, i found out that not all socials are meant for promoting webcomics.
The best one is twitter, but even there people are too lazy nowadays to even click on a link and see what you posted, unless you have a very art-catchy picture. Forget about instagram for promoting your comic, that platform is more for illustrators unfortunately and not very comics-friendly (unless you're like ana.godis with her "still life").
One thing that i also noticed that...promoting on social is kinda "reversed": you won't get many readers by advertising on your socials (only if you have an already strong fanbase) but you will surely get more subs on the website your posting your comic and then people who will come and look for your socials (?) at least for me it worked this way.

galacticquasimi 2019-04-25 01:39:18 UTC #8

I have a similar experience in regards to more people subing to your work then from there going to your social media.
I can see that being the case because people probably like looking/ glancing at artwork on social media and moving on.
Since realizing this, my plan is to use my instagram to post extra artwork FOR my subscribers.

Nerdicon 2019-04-25 12:26:43 UTC #9

I think in all respect that the best you can do is find a group or site that you feel likes what you make and where you can get an outreach. I share my stuff around all over the forums, Tumblr, Reddit even FB but something I strongly advise is not to obsess over growing.

You'd end up burning out because of frustration that you're putting all your effort in without yielding a result you expect. Believe me I know.

In all honesty it really boils down to timing and luck for whenever a growth strikes and accepting that it can take an uncertain amount of time for it to happen.

Best I can say is don't stop sharing your work and don't stop loving the ones who acknowledge it over the ones who don't no matter how many that may be.

fattackycats 2019-04-25 14:57:17 UTC #10

I make a long form comic on webtoon, so to promote it outside of that I mostly post on instagram and twitter (used to post on tumblr but it died). I'm looking into other platforms like Minds and Reddit. I also stream working on comics so that helps.

But for Instagram, since my comic isn't in short bites, i can only post character sketches, comic panels, and wip panels. I also use the insta-story a lot for showing wip stuff. Also, TAGS TAGS TAGS. If you put a bunch of relevant tags on your posts people will definitely find you. (examples: #comics #webcomics #comix #comicpanel #webtoon #wip) just whatever you can think of that fits.

For twitter, pretty much same but I don't rely on it like I do instagram. I also rarely use tags because of limited characters. Twitter is more for my thoughts lol.

SeraphicMayin 2019-04-25 15:26:38 UTC #11

I'm going to go in the opposite direction of a lot of these posts. I think newbies need to love the process of mastering their chosen craft and then aggressively sharing that with other human beings on Social.

I think, as freelance creators that most of us are, it falls to us to not only make comics well but also get them out there. If no one can find our comics, then they may as well not exist outside of our own awareness and maybe our closest circle of people.

I don't know how effective my social media outreach is, because I am still in the early years of my career. But my current goal has been to post at least one or two decent pieces of content every day on Insta (which is cross-posted to my comics and illustration page on Facebook) and Twitter. Honestly I think it's better than just posting the comic regularly and hoping people spot it on fresh, or hope it gets trending with current subscribers interacting with it.

Because there is a natural decay of new readers coming in for many long form comics (which I work on rather than a gag-a-day), I think it becomes all the more important to take advantage of these FREE platforms where so many eyeballs are directed every single moment of every single day.

I am self aware enough to know that I can't post as aggressively as I want on Social right now cause I'm still in the midst of producing my main comic. But I know there is enough work in progress content and already posted episodes from which I can put together and share snippets daily. At most it takes a half hour and that's time I'm willing to invest.

In today's day and age, I've got a theory that the creators that stand out will work on having a more holistic connection to the people who enjoy their work. I personally want my readers to always remember that there is a human being producing these stories. That there's a human being spending 6-8 hours a day drawing, 5 days a week. It's not enough I think to just put forward the work when we are in an environment that allows us to so intimately and instantly reply to our audience. That didn't even EXIST on the scale it does now 10 - 20 years ago. The landscape is changing and I think we have to adapt to take advantage of it.

And the only way to do that is persistently and consistently reminding people that you and your work exist BY providing content that is needed and useful. Stories, I think, are needed and useful. Especially as the market gets saturated with everyone creating now that the Internet has allowed anyone with WiFi to post their work.

Is it gonna be hard? Of course it is. Any kind of stand-out success means Working your face off for it. The question is how badly, truly, honestly do you want to succeed. It won't hurt to take 90days as an experiment in aggressively sharing your content on Social. If you do all the right things and tag properly and all that and STILL no one notices....then the problem is in the quality of your content cause the market has spoken. But you won't know if you're up to snuff if you don't do a fierce sort of experiment like this and choose to fail 100 times before you decide to give up.

And a part of it is trusting that people will resonate with good content. And that has freed me up to focusing on mastering my craft and just sharing every part of my process to connect with people.