Growing Your Audience
on August 30, 2011 at 5:00 amHow do You Grow Your Audience?
How do you get readers and subscribers to your web comic?
Simple. Make content that people can’t resist sharing.
That’s a tall order though. Especially on the Internet when you are competing with sex, shock value, get-rich-quick, controversy and cheap quick humor. My most shared article is a controversial one I wrote on Comic-Sans and I wasn’t even trying to be controversial. Well… until I wrote the second one. But it worked and got over 10,000 unique visitors in one day. But it hardly mattered because the people who like controversy were on to the next article before I could blink.
So assuming you are making REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD AMAZING content, lets move on to ways you can attract like minded people who aren’t just looking for a quick fix. Remember that we are trying to build a fan base of TRUE FANS not just flaky ones. Before you can convert an average viewer into a fan you need to build trust with your viewers. That’s why building an archive of good content is important and also making it consistently good.
In my last article I promised I’d put together a list of the things I’ve found helpful for building an audience for your artistic blog or comic. After rewriting the list a few times I noticed that it was too hard to just list things without talking about when they are most useful. So I built a little chart. It’s all based on how much traffic, content and money you currently have. It’s really simple so bear with me.
So to break it down, the left chart column will list things you can do even if you are broke. This is the side I spend most of my time focusing on still.
On the right of the chart are things you can spend money on to quickly get new traffic. But even if you can afford to pay for things you still need to do the things on the left of the list. At least some of them. The best situation is if you have the money to afford the things on the right but still choose to participate in the left column.
The top of the chart is stuff to do if you have less than 500 unique visitors a day OR if you’ve been around for less than 6 months and have little content in your archive. The bottom side is for additional things you can do once you have more than 500 unique visitors a day OR more than 6 months of content in your archive. 500 visitors a day and 6 months is just a general ballpark number and it will be different for everyone. But this is what I have determined to be a good pivotal point for myself.
So why should you wait to do some things until you get more traffic? Well, you can do whatever you want but I noticed a few things while throwing caution to the wind. If you have a small audience or very little in your archive then you can burn bridges that you might only get one opportunity to take advantage of. If that doesn’t make send then bare with me.
If you have less than 500 visitors a day and no money:
(Over the next few posts I’ll be filling in this chart as I add to it)
Keep to a schedule:
I have mixed feelings about this in general when it comes to popular bloggers and web-comics because I’ve seen it work both ways. But when you are just starting out you NEED to be consistent and make your schedule known to everyone. Remember that you need to prove yourself to everyone. For the first year I was posting comic pages and blog posts every Monday and articles on Thursdays. I’ve relaxed a bit while in between books but once I start posting new pages for reMIND Volume 2, it will be every Monday again. Once you get a big following then you might be able to post whenever you want but I still believe there is power in a consistent schedule if you can do it.
RSS Subscribe Button:
Make sure to tell everyone the best way to get your updates is by using an RSS feed. I like using FeedBurner because it can make your RSS feed work on any device. Check it out here: http://feedburner.com Make sure you have a big and clear SUBSCRIBE button to grab everyone’s attention. And make that subscribe button link to your Feedburner feed. I read tons of blogs every week and I subscribe to all of them. If someone doesn’t have a RSS feed with their new webcomic or blog then I almost always forget to go back and check it out again. If they have a clear RSS or SUBSCRIBE button then I always get notified when they post something new. If they keep posting stuff regularly that I enjoy then I get hooked.
See my Subscribe button is right up in the top right corner of my site along side Twitter and Facebook. This is very important because it helps keep your readers.
Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook fan page:
Obviously social networks are a big deal so join the popular ones and start posting if you haven’t yet. If you hate social networks then go ahead and hate them but still use them for your business. I honestly think they are unsocial networks because they make you sit by yourself on a computer but that’s another story. Anyway, even though I mostly dislike social networks I’ve decided to use them to market myself. This is free marketing and publicity. There are plenty of articles about how to use Twitter online so do some Google searches if you are clueless. Below are a few articles I found.
10 Ways to Get Twitter Followers.
How to Get More Twitter Followers Without Using a Mass-Following Tool.
I like having a Facebook Fan Page for reMIND so I can keep it completely about business. Every time I post something on my blog I post a link to it on my Facebook page and Tweet it too. My Twitter account is all business too. If I didn’t have a blog and comic to promote then I doubt I’d touch any of it. I know I’m totally contradicting myself in a hypocritical oxymoron sort of way.
I have to admit that neither of these really brought in much traffic at the start but consistently using them built up a good sized group of followers that are interested in what I’m doing. I mainly use Facebook to remind people that I’m still here.
Twitter is a completely differant game. I admit that I’m just now getting into it because I just got a iPhone and it makes it easier to tweet now. I also bought a program that helps me market myself on Twitter but I’ll talk about that one on the right side of the column because it costs a little money.
Google+ seems to be a good place for artists even though it’s brand new and questionable if it will take off or not. So far it generates really good new traffic back to my blog when I post articles like this one there.
One other thing…when you have multiple conduits to promote yourself, it’s a good idea to use the same screen name and avatar on all of them so you are instantly recognizable.
Oh Yeah. Reduce Your Clutter:
Figure out the most important thing you want your new viewer to do and make it easy to do. This means 1,2 or 3 things MAX! For instance, do you want a new visitor to see a bunch of random social buttons for every obscure site out there? No. Do you want to confuse your new visitors with weird button names that only you know? No. Don’t make your menu confusing. Don’t waste your space above the fold.
Above the fold is a reference to the traditional newspaper. When a newspaper had something above the fold it was in the best visible spot available, on the front cover above where the newspaper folded over. Websites are the same but above the fold means on the front page before you have to scroll down. In fact, it’s probably smaller than that because most of the world looks at computers on small screens which only leaves you space for your banner and a few choice headlines and buttons at the very top. Use it wisely.
For me, I want new visitors to Subscribe somehow. Getting new visitors to come back is hard so if I can get them to subscribe to my RSS or Facebook then I know they are going to see me again. Because this is my main goal I put my Subscribe options above the fold in the most visible spot.
Sometimes it’s good to focus on one big button at a time too. When I wanted everyone to focus on seeing my RSS subscribe button I made it at the top and bigger than anything else on my site. Another time I wanted everyone to subscribe to my Facebook page and so I removed my Twitter and DeviantArt button so that there wasn’t even a choice. You might notice that I don’t have a Google+, Myspace, StubleUpon, Reddit, Digg or DeviantArt button up there to clutter the clarity.
Pick what you want people to focus on right now. You can always change it later.
Join 3 Forums to Participate in:
I talked about this one a long time ago when I was just starting out. In fact, I think the best fans and contributors to my blog are the people I met a long time ago when I was frequenting forums. In fact, Mr. Average was the first person to ever respond to a thread that I started in a forum. We still communicate regularly. This one takes time to do but it’s invaluable when you are just starting out. If you only have 0-50 people coming to your site a day then do this! Keep doing it if you enjoy it too.
Here is an article I wrote about Forums
Here is a good list of Art and Comic Forums
While you’re at it, check out my forum devoted to making comics
Go comment on other artist blogs and webcomics:
When someone comments on your blog or comic do you click through to see who they are? I do.
So basically, this is a strategy that many bloggers use to get people back to their blog. It really does work. But it can also come across as super fake and you will totally get ignored if you just post vague comments like: “Great work!” “You are neat!” “Wow there!” “RAD!”
Another strategy is to be the first to comment on a really good article with something that contributes to the conversation. If you can be the first one or two people to comment on a super popular article that gets thousands of hits a day then a fraction of that traffic will read your comment too and maybe even go to your site if you had something intelligent to say.
So, don’t do this JUST to get followers or your ruse will go unnoticed. There’s nothing like wasting a bunch of time writing hollow comments that nobody cares about. Just like forums, you want to comment if you actually have something to add to the conversation. Be helpful and real and try to make friends and in turn you will also attract people to you and your site.
This was a major tool for me when I was just starting out. But I admit, I’ve written my share of pointless comments too. “Amazing!”
Respond to every comment or email:
For the first year I made it my personal mission to reply to every comment no matter how short or long, positive or negative. I had so few people coming to my blog that I wanted to make sure people knew I was listening if they took the time to comment. This encourages others to comment too when they notice that you are having a conversation with people. Plus it doubles the numbers of comments on your posts which makes it look more popular to the first time observer even though half of those comments are by you.
In time you will get tons of comments and not have the time to reply to each one and people will be more likely to forgive you for not responding. Until then make an effort to respond to EVERYONE!
Even more important, I make an effort to respond to EVERY EMAIL!(that isn’t spam). Emails are special because someone is really going out of there way to talk to you. Now days I get a massive amount of email and I still try to respond to everyone. It might take a few days but I still make the effort. The only times I don’t respond is if someone is obviously trying to get me to look at their stuff or sell me something.
I’m sure in time I won’t have the ability to reply to everyone anymore but as long as I can I will. I’d suggest doing the same if you are starting out too.
Submit your comic to the biggest top list sites:
Pretty old advice here but it still helps when getting started. I wrote an article about this subject a while back and I still think it holds up pretty well. TopWebComics.com is the biggest one as far as I know and it might benefit you to use there voting incentive option to help get votes. It worked for me when I was doing it. When I was making voting incentives my comic was ranking in the top 30 regularly.
Since then I’ve decided to wait to use voting incentives until after my audience grows a bit more because it takes time to make an incentive each week to get votes.
Here’s my article on a bunch of Top List Sites: http://www.remindblog.com/2010/02/25/webcomic-lists-promoting-paretos-80-20/
The article talks about advertising but for now just focus on submitting your comic to the top 3 to 5. You can submit it to all of them if you want but some of these sites get less traffic than you do.
Link to Comics you like:
No link exchanges? No. Why not? Everyone else says it’s what you should do! Well, I’m not like everyone else.
Okay, obviously everyone says to ask for link exchanges because it works if you can get them. If the president wanted to do a link exchange with you then you would no doubt be very popular. But you won’t get the president to give you a link exchange by emailing him and asking for one. Instead, you would need to find 10 trillion dollars and donate it to the national debt or something. I bet he’d do a link exchange with you then.
In other words, people don’t just hand out favors. A link to your site is a stamp of approval and you need to do something special to get a stamp of approval. Make the most amazing art you can and you might get a stamp of approval. You might get 100. Write a compelling story and you might get more. Make a informative blog and you might get more.
So, you don’t want to request a link exchange with anyone just yet. Just make a links page or something and link to your favorite web-comics. Period. Especially if you only have 10 pages online and you started a month ago. Don’t ask for a link exchange. Don’t email all the other web-comics yet. Don’t act like you’re doing someone a favor by linking to them.
Just link to people who’s work you love and admire or people you are actually friends with already. You can even link to people you want to be friends with. But please don’t ask them to link back to you because you linked to them.
If this web-comic that you are linking to is legit then they will have something like Google Analytics. If someone comes to their site from yours then they will check you out to see why. There. You’ve done your part for now. They know you exist and if they LOVE what you are doing they might mention it… maybe. But if you put them in a weird situation by asking for a favor in return (which they don’t owe you) then they may never link to you in the future when you get more established because they remember you as a the weird guy to asked for a link exchange.
My only exception for asking for a link exchange is if you are both starting out around the same time and want to link to each other to help each other out. But wait to email the established webcomics. There is a time for that but it’s not right now. Don’t worry, I’ll talk about it in a later section.
I know what your thinking:
You finished reading this first article and feel like you’ve heard this all before right? Well, it just goes to show that there’s no real secret sauce. The fact is, it’s more of a mindset. A decision to start taking all the simple steps that you can do right now. Don’t worry about what I haven’t talked about yet. There’s plenty to do right now!
________________
In the next installment I’ll finish off the “Broke with <500″ section of the chart. If this has been helpful please reTweet!
Another great article Jason! I’ve been following along for awhile now and you’re site is full of helpful hints. This is a great summary of a lot of what you’ve posted so far. I think the thing that I’ve found the most difficult to do is to make time to do it all – and then still do some art for my story. What’s the best way to make time and how do you prioritize?
I’m glad to see you’re getting into Twitter too. I’ve found it to be a really good tool to post quick updates about the stuff I’m working on and the iPhone has been super helpful in making that as easy as possible.
Finding the time is really the hardest part for me. And I admit that some times I get so stressed out with my to-do list that I just lock up in a cold panic. But honestly, you just have to choose what things your are going to focus on one at a time. I could never do all these things at once and that’s mostly why I wrote the article on Growing a Tree because it’s just a matter of continuing to take the baby steps that all add up to the big picture.
Also, everyone is in a different place in life. I happen to be in a situation where I can mentally focus on this stuff and put in the time to do it. There were times in life that I would never have been able to put in the time to do any of this though because I had different priorities.
But to answer your question as to how I’m doing it right now, I get up at 4:50 each weekday and focus for an hour and a half on my art before everyone else gets up in my house. This forces me to get something artistic done each morning. Then I go to work. At work I do things like comment and respond to emails and sometimes I write articles why I’m on break. It may take me a week to finish an article like this but that’s how I do it some of the time. Sometimes at night I get inspired to write articles after dinner and sometimes I just scan my drawings or work on packing books. It’s a constant juggling but I want it bad enough that I am willing to do all the juggling to make it work.
I do admit that it’s a challenge though.
Remember where you were 3 years ago, and look at where you are now. I recall those early days when you were overwhelmed with the prospect of promoting yourself, and now here you are teaching everyone else how to do it. Awesome.
Looking forward to Chapter 2!
Thanks Drezz! You were a huge help in pointing me int he right direction too. It really is cool how things have progressed.
Saw your article on twitter, so you know that’s working. :) Lots of good advice here, especially about being available and consistently available to your audience at that. How long did it take you to figure these out and apply them? Or did you glean this from other advice columns? What kind of voting incentives did you offer?
Thanks J. This is a combination of tons of books and blogs and advice I’ve gotten from others doing it. I can’t really take credit for coming up with anything new, just that I put the pieces together to make it work for my own stuff.
My voting incentives were mixed. And if you’re unfamiliar, on TopWebComics.com you can have incentives that display only after someone votes for your comic. Sometimes I’d show a panel from the next weeks page, sometime I had a series of words on each incentive that when assembled people could email me the sentence and be entered into a drawing to win some original art. Sometimes it was just a sketch or progression of the page.
Oh yeah I learned that from other webcomics. ;)
Looks like I’ll be dusting off that Twitter account and finally doing something useful with it.
Good article, man. Thanks!
Yeah give it a try again. It might take a few years to get comfortable with if you’re anything like me. At least right now I’m enjoying it. We will see how long this lasts though. haha
Wow, great article. So much information to take in. I love it!
This encourages me to step up the website as well as the marketing aspects.
I wasn’t going to comment because I did yesterday but this is fantastic. I really like the idea of only using one type of subscription method at a time based on your goals. So simple and logical.
You are making it much easier for the newbies. Thank you!
Plus it makes it more manageable to focus on one thing at a time. Glad this was helpful.
Pretty good article, Jason. You’re right that many of these things seem basic, but you need to do them. But I think the most important thing you mentioned is that you have to have compelling, amazing content. Honestly, if you don’t, it doesn’t matter what you do at all. You’ll just never take off, and that can be a hard pill to swallow.
I know this personally because I look around and see artists who are much better than I am not succeeding at my level. (Not that I’m huge, it’s just for comparison). I wonder why, then I read the comic and I know why.
On the flip side, I see comics that I feel like I could compete with that maybe even fall short of me artistically, but have much larger audiences. Why? Something about their comic is more compelling than mine. Their content at it’s heart is just better.
I’m at that 500+ unique user mark with 300 comics in the archive and 3+ years going. I agree that the schedule is uber important at the beginning, but you can ease off later, especially when your true fans are subscribed. They come back when you post. But early on, you have to make it matter.
I have to say that I have not had great luck with forums at all. A dribble of readers, at most. The problem with forums is that it can really take up a lot of your time – time you can be creating. That’s the problem with a lot of these things, you need to find a balance. I found that the time I was spending posting and reading in forums simply was not paying off in readership, so I stopped.
With regard to Twitter, I can say that getting followers is a long, slow process. You don’t want just any followers (like auto follows will get you) because they will drop off or not pay attention to you. Try to cultivate followers who are really interested in what you have to say. That means you aren’t Tweeting about brushing your teeth or your lunch menu. Make each Tweet matter.
And don’t just post the URL to your comic every tweet and leave it. Be interesting. Post links to things that you find compelling, and say why. Prop up other artists you like, and they will often do the same for you.
Above all, be a good guy. Help people out (like Jason does here) and you will find that people will want to help you too.
Looking forward to the next part!
Great comment Tom!
You are totally right about making sure you are delivering the goods. Most internet people just want quick success and do all the marketing tricks but forget that it might take 20 years to really become good at your art or storytelling. On the other hand, the internet makes it easy for beginner artists to put there work out there and at least try it.
Forums, in my opinion, only work for really good artists. I have trouble getting LOTS of feedback from them but I’ve seen amazing artists build massive followings through patiently hanging out in forums for a few years and blowing peoples minds.
Wow. This sounds like a lot of work, but the fact that that just makes me more excited is a good sign, right?
I am so ignorant about RSS feeds; I really need to buckle down and figure it out.
Great article Jason. I have two young daughters who take up most of my time so I understand how priorities will get in the way of you doing certain things that you want (artwork, graphic novels, sleep, etc…) but it’s good to read stuff like this and keep it in the back of my head for when I get enough content of my own.
I always stop into James Gurney’s blog http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
as well as yours. He just posted on Sunday the 28th some interesting video clips that I thought you and your viewers might enjoy. One is of Scott McCloud talking about comics. Pretty sweet.
James has a great blog! Thanks for the link.
As said above, this definitely worked! A lot of the suggestions were ones I’d found in different places, but not all tied together like this. I fully agree with all of it. I also think that unless you has the equivalent of the MegaTokyo early comics that you’re not going to hit mega-huge subscribers right away.
The forums are a really good idea, and I’ve been looking for some to subscribe to. I’d seen the TopWebcomics before, but I’ve always been really wary about those. Chalk it up to bad fandom experiences, or maybe my Alabama roots, but I feel a bit odd asking readers to vote there. It’s kind of like begging for reviews, etc.
I hear what you’re saying about TWC. Most of that stuff is just bad! But I’ve had lots of new readers from advertising there. I’ll talk about that when I get to the right side of the chart.
But asking people vote really seems to work if you can get into the top 50 or so because lots of people go there looking for new webcomics. That world changes fast though so it might be loosing steam.
great article. I’m taking notes here. =)
i really never liked twitter, even though i see how important it is. It seems the entire comic book industry lives on Twitter, so really its a great tool.
I am 3 months in on a webcomic (or are they cartoons?) and just stumbled into this site for the first time. I am absolutely amazed at the amount of information that is on here and I sincerely thank you for your help.
You are very welcome! More to come very soon.
The keep-a-schedule one is very important since it drives the RSS, Twitter, etc
People will stop checking if they’re not emotionally attached to the comic. The thing I tell everyone is that hiatus (and extensive filler) results in people to stop checking. A very short one (less than 2 weeks) won’t result in substantial loss of readership as long as you update them with a “I’m coming back on (DATE.)”
But most unscheduled Hiatus lose half their readership once 10 or so updates have been missed, the more frequent the comic used to update, the faster this drop off is. So if you have a daily comic and you just stop updating for a week, they’ll check back less often, but after two weeks it just gets unsubscribed, and people forget about it. There’s always another comic that updates more often that may take your place.
Yeah, my traffic is almost down to half the amount when I was posting reMIND Volume 1. The RSS feed is really important in situations like this.
But I think people forget about a webcomic if it’s forgettable. Like most of the stuff out there I’m just not impressed with but I can wait for years to get a new Hellboy when it comes out because it has had a lasting impression on me.
Also part of the reason I really tried to brand my book as a graphic novel instead of a webcomic is because I really don’t like the pressure that the general webcomic audience gives their creators. But since that’s the world we are in, I gotta take it into consideration.
Thanks for adding this depth to the conversation!
I agree completely about the RSS feed. I don’t even bother to read webcomics or other sites that don’t have a feed.
However, one common error to avoid is breaking your feed (e.g. changing the URL) without announcing it on your old feed. Those of us who count on the feed to prompt us to read your webcomic may miss five months worth of updates before we notice that your comic hasn’t been showing up lately. That’s a great way to drive away readers.
So, two best practices for RSS: 1. Periodically check the feed to make sure it’s not broken. 2. If you change the URL make an announcement about the change ON YOUR OLD FEED.
If anything else changes about your feed (e.g. provider, technology, etc.) assume it may break and check it frequently for a few updates.
Great point! Thanks for adding this!
Best quote I’ve ever heard about “making it big” was from Steve Martin: Be so good they can’t ignore you.
Which fits perfectly with you “So assuming you are making REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD AMAZING content” comment. :-)
Personally, I’m not at that level yet, and have to constantly discipline myself not to get caught up in these sorts of tips, because that would be putting the cart before the horse in the worst way. Spending time researching this stuff now is time I should be spending improving my art and honing my story.
Having said that, I’m really glad this article will still be here when I am ready for it, probably with updates. :-)
Thanks again for paying it forward.
– Bill
Haha! Steve Martin’s quote sounds sOOOOOoooo much better than mine. :)
Very good article, but I have a stupid, stupid newbie question.
Do you need to ask creators’ permission to link to their webcomics? Not a link exchange, just a regular link?
I thought that might be the polite way to go about it, but now I’m petrified that people might have misinterpreted my request to simply link as a request for a link-exchange.
I think you did the right thing especially since you didn’t know the answer. Usually everyone WANTS links back to them because it’s one of the best ways to get new eyes. Getting a link to your site is what you want so unless the webcomic is members only or something (which I’ve never heard of) then people will be extremely happy to be getting links from you and anyone else.
this is good stuff man thanks for the tips.
Jason, this has been an amazing series of articles you’ve written. Very few people have given such detailed, practical information on how to make progress in this area. I’ve started following your advice, and already my readership has doubled. I’m working on my mailing list now, which I put off until you told me about MailChimp, which is perfect for our one-update-per-week virtual reality/immigrant community/19th century inventors long form webcomic.
Only just started digging around in the goldmine you have here – So far it’s great! Thanks for sharing you thoughts and your art. I saw you at SDCC I think, but missed the opportunity to talk to you. Will you be at NYCC by any chance?
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. And follow your “Go comment..” advice :-) Keep up the good work!
Great info. For some like me, who is just starting out in webcomics