Tips for Twitter?

[pilot-obvious]

Somehow my Twitter is more successful than any other platform. I can't necessarily say this list is a guarantee for success, but here's what I do on there:

• Start conversations about webcomics (i.e. "Hey webcomic creators, what is your process for _______") It encourages other creators to reply, which in turn boosts your tweet and helps it be seen by others. Likewise, respond to other people who post conversations! Art shares can also be good too, but those seemed to create better engagement a couple years ago.

• When I write tweets, I don't use hashtags, but I do include buzzwords relevant to what I do! I try to include the word webcomic in all of my tweets (i.e. "My webcomic Future Agents updates today," "I love webcomics because ______.") If anybody searches for webcomics on Twitter and they choose the latest tab, then my tweets will pop up. (I use this to find webcomic artists on Twitter!)

• Support others by commenting and retweeting their posts (But be genuine!)

• Experiment with the time you post and then try to post consistently around the time that draws you more engagement. I tend to get more interaction in the evening (6:00PM CST - 9:00PM CST for me) It takes a lot of experimentation to see what works for you.

• It's okay to repost your artwork because new people will always see it. Quote tweet old art posts, bump them with comments, retweet them, etc. Tweets seem to have a limited shelf life and self-boosting can help extend it! When I post at night, I usually bump my Tweet the next morning by leaving a comment under the original Tweet. It always seems to get more people to see it.

• If you have mutuals who interact with you regularly, hold onto them for dear life. The webcomic community is pretty friendly on Twitter and we love to support one another!

Twitter can be fairly exhausting, so I try to limit how much I scroll through. I make lists of my favorite artists that I can go to so I make sure I don't miss any of their art. I tend to turn off retweets from anybody who shares non-art related things so my feed doesn't get clogged up. And I don't explore trending topics because they almost always derail into a toxic environment. Blocking is your best friend! I block all sorts of ads and unsavory profiles.

[frgmnt]

My biggest advice right now is to find an extension to block things like Twitter Trends, Topics to Follow, and the like.

Damn I wish there was an extension like this for Firefox Even tho I mostly use tweetdeck, occasionally I have to use the main site and these always hurt my brain.
I set my trends location to Japan (and I'm not good at reading Japanese lmao) just so they don't distract me as much, but it doesn't work on both my accounts and occasionally returns to my default location, for some reason...

I also find that a lot of people enjoy WIPs. Posing process gifs, sketches, and the like, along with questions or your thought process, can really get people engaged with your work.

But what if your WIPs get more engagement than the actual art I stopped posting WIPs on main because of this. (Though I guess, some way around this is to post the WIP/process gif after the actual work, in a start-to-finish fashion.)

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

Seems to me that twitter is mostly only toxic only if you start following toxic people or getting involved in potentially toxic topics. There are nice folks there as there are everywhere.

[LadyLily]

I would hardly call flower growers, comic art, and NASA toxic, but okay LOL. Just because one doesn't engage in the toxicity, it's still all around. And yes, the professionals in these fields like ours are often toxic, themselves.

[LadyLily]

Yep! The scammers and hackers there are getting bolder and more skillful now, too.

[CommanderMarty]

I mean, the scammers are rather easy to avoid, you just got to have a brain, which most twitter users don't, hackers are a different problem but I was more referring to the fact that twitter is basically just stereotypical tumblr now