The most significant problem with Twitter is that despite its use of several real world rules of interpersonal engagement, presently it is populated largely by bots and people more interested in plying their wares than in making friends. The thing about Twitter is that for the most part, making friends is essential to successfully plying your wares. Finding an audience for your webcomic or blog content can be difficult unless you are both socialable and employ strategies that include these three proven gems:

Use hash tags: A hash tag or the “#” symbol is a great way to categorize your tweet so that it is more easily searchable. Webcomic artists tend to use hashtags such as #webcomic, #comic, #humour and #funny at the end of their tweets for this purpose.

Build up real base of Followers: As mentioned, interacting on Twitter is very much like interacting in the Real World, many of the same rules apply. While many people simply open accounts and send out general tweets that hang in the ‘Twitterverse’ for any and all to see, these tweets garner much, much fewer views than those sent out by people with an active follow base. An active follow base comprises of persons actually interested in what the tweeter has to say. It takes time to build such a follow base, and there is no magic way to do so since it wholly depends on other people’s level of interest in you. Some suggestions for building an active base is to seek out like-minded tweeters, and engage them in meaningful conversations that foster relationships that turn them into your audience and you into theirs.

Re-Tweeting: One very effective way of showing you are friendly on Twitter is to practice re issuing the posts of people you would like to be friends with. This action is called ‘Re-Tweeting’ or ‘RT’. Retweeting is a means of sharing the attention of your followers with other people and it’s recommended that you add the name of the person whose post you are retweeting so that they will know you’ve done the good deed. (A name is always written preceeded by the ‘@’ (eg: @dirtyjobcomics) When tweeting about your own content, it is also recommended that you ask other people to RT it if they like it. In this way, they can share their followers with you too.

There you have it. 3 great ways to help you optimize your promotion drive on Twitter. Please use Twitter generously and happy hunting.

As you know, audience participation is a big part of engendering relationships with your fan base when you’re a webcomic creator. This is the reason why so many creators maintain devices (live videos, weblogs, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc) to stay in touch with their readers and be accessible to them.

These devices also serve another purpose if you’re a webcomic creator. They are great ways to network with peers and to learn new techniques from them. I learned a lot about Photoshop brush effects from Tom during that particular stream and as a bonus for just being there while he entertained us as he drew, we had the pleasure of hearing him speak candidly about his relationship with his wife, his ideas on her pregnancy, Christmas lights and about his making only $30 at a just past comic convention!

Which brings me to the subject of this blog post; if you’re a webcomic creator interested in attending a convention or exposition for the first time then Ben Gordon’s recent interview of War of Winds creator Karen Howard is a must read for you.

It’s one of the most comprehensive pieces about the subject matter that I’ve read in a long time, answering questions you probably have (or should be asking) yourself. You have got to read this article so click here now.

Today’s post is for the user who complained that he was “finding too many webcomic artists, and frankly people on Twitter, not as friendly as they initially seemed.” To you Sir, I say, “You’re right”. Your observation is unfortunately true and very disappointing. But before you hit ‘unfollow’ or quit Twitter all together, there are a few reasons why your favourite tweeter may not be responding to you:

For one thing, the more popular a tweeter is, the harder it is for them to respond to 50 tweets or more zinging in all at once. For another thing, too many of the tweets a tweeter may get are either troll attacks (YOU SUCK!), shameless plugs (CHECKOUT MY WEBSITE! / MAKE $$$ NOW / VIAGRA 50% OFF!) or incoherent fan-mail (OILUVUILUVUOMGURGR8ILUVUX) that you yourself probably wouldn’t prioritize on your list of tweets to answer either. And sometimes the cold hard fact is that maybe your favourite Tweeter is quite simply a ‘douchebag’. My regrets if that is the case.

If this is the situation you think you have found yourself in please take heart. There ARE great tweeters out there who DO respond to tweets, do follow back and are actually interested in interacting with the people who follow them. The simple fact is, if your “Following” list makes you unhappy then by all means unfollow the people who make you miserable and keep following the ones who fill you with joy.

Life is too complicated to be grieved by Twitter.

Conversely, if you find yourself being unfollowed, please don’t let that bother or dishearten you. It’s cliché but true to say that the person who unfollowed you was probably wasn’t a REAL follower, friend or fan to begin with. Thus if they feel that you are not worth following then you are allowed to perceive them as not worth worrying about.

Now is a great opportunity for you to be introspective about your Twitter experience. Are you being adequately congenial to your followers? Are you prioritizing mazimum number of followers over quality, and if so, why?

In short, Twitter is alot like the real world with its cliches and attitudes and its self-absorbed and sensitive people. Yep, just like the real world except when it gets too complicated for you, you can log off.

Keep twittering, uncomplicatedly.

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