But getting back to business, and in the same vein as my past webcomic networking articles, let’s talk about Twitter. First, if you don’t use it,  I want you to forget everything you’ve heard about it, or have read about it in the newspaper (or worse, in newspaper COMICS.) What is Twitter? Twitter is like a giant IM message board without the pressure of carrying on an extended conversation. It’s a forum where there is no such thing as tl;dr (too long; didn’t read, for the uninitiated) because each message must be 140 characters long or less. As you have most likely heard, Twitter is ALSO an instant newsfeed. From the latest messages from the revolution in Iran, to spacewalk updates from NASA, to status updates from your favorite comic creators, you can follow people, ask questions, or simply keep up with what the hell is going on in the world.

There are a bunch of affiliated sites and applications you use to expand the Twitter experience as well. Twitpic and Yfrog use your Twitter login to give you an instant photogallery (with comments) attached to your account. Apps like Tweetdeck and Twhirl let you “Tweet” from your desktop instead of the online interface. There are of course, many more applications, but I’m not going to list any more. It’s not too important.

Twitter also lets you send private messages (direct messages) as well as public directed messages to a specific person in the form of @username.  Profiles can be private or public. Topics can be marked with a hashtag in the form of #topic for easy searching. For example, a tweet may read, “my #webcomic just updated! http://warofwinds.com.”  A friend might then “retweet” my message, “RT @kezhound my #webcomic just updated! http://warofwinds.com.” (kezhound is my username there.) Other friends may also retweet. When a message is retweeted, not only does everyone who follows you see YOUR message, but everyone who follows the person who retweets you ALSO sees the message. Get it?

That, in a nutshell, is Twitter. Forget the fancy-schmancy “microblogging” bullshit. It can be as boring or as funny or as interesting as you want it.

Anyways, for the past couple months, ever since I caved to my buddy Canterrain’s repeated attempts to get me ON there (I was a doubter for damn sure), I’ve been on Twitter, using Twitter, and networking on Twitter to help get word about my webcomic out there. Here are my referring stats since I’ve started (click to enlarge):

Yes, there is an obvious trend. A very good trend. Twitter has surpassed DeviantART in my top 10 referrer list.

How to Network with Twitter:

I’m going to use the “d” word: diversify. Webcomic readers are still such a small audience compared to every other blasted thing on the internet that you CAN’T just cater to them and expect any kind of real result or new readers. I encourage people to use Twitter to introduce an entirely new audience to your work. You can do this by finding and “following” people with similar interests to you, and making friends. For example, I’m heavy into the martial arts, and there are tons of martial artists on Twitter. I follow a bunch of them. I don’t wave my comic in their face and ask them to retweet that. That’s small, petty, and will be ignored. Rather, I try to create a raport, and move on from there.

How do you find people with common interests? You can try a trending topic. In the search bar after you make an account, plug in a search term. For example, I might try “martial arts” or “#martialarts.” Another place to look is TwitR, a Twitter directory. You list yourself using the hastag method described above with 3 different descriptors. For example, #webcomics #martialarts #kayaker. This way, people can find you, and using their directory, you can also find others.

Since you are a comic creator though (at least, most likely you are, since you are reading this), you SHOULD definitely be posting about your work. For example, “Working on Monday’s comic. It’s a doozy! Here’s a preview!” Every time you update, post a link to your site. Every time a friend on Twitter updates, try to RT (retweet) them, because they will most likely RT you back.

Since Twitter allows only short messages, if you need to post a URL, use a URL shortening service like TinyURL. You plug in something long, and they give you something short that redirects to the original URL.

Twitter has a lot of spam/bot accounts, and they WILL follow you. This is nothing to be afraid of. For example, if I post something about…Ford Trucks…I WILL get Ford truck bots following me. If I don’t follow them back, I don’t see any messages they send. Twitter is working very hard to lessen the number of bots, and recently last week purged thousands.  Just try not to be annoyed or frighted of “all these strangers” following you. Sometimes people you DON’T know will follow you. You DO have the option to block them. Bottom line, like any social networking site, don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your boss or mother to see.

Don’t tweet stupid, inane stuff. “Putting in a load of laundry. Almost out of detergent. There are 3 pairs of socks in my hamper. Life is boring.” Accounts full of this stuff give Twitter the horrible reputation it has.  Status updates are one thing, “Going to the beach with the dog and fam! Back in a few hours!”, but lists or trivial/boring-ass statements do not help you, especially if you are trying to introduce your comic to a new audience. The goal is to find people to follow you, who thereby see your messages when you post your links. No one follows boring people. They “unfollow” them. Be interesting. Be funny. Be snarky. Be friendly.  Be a character.

It’s not a contest. Put the rulers away, we’re not measuring here. Yes, people who have more followers have more people who follow their links back to their sites. Yes, people with tons of followers aren’t likely to follow some smallfry back. But remember, you’re there to spread the word about YOUR work.  Don’t comare yourself to other people, just keep pushing to get your work out there.It’s not about numbers.  It’s a free way to introduce more people to your comic.

Involve yourself. #Followfriday happens on Fridays. You’re supposed to post the profiles of people you think other people should follow. For example, I could tweet, “#followfriday @xyliatales @canterrain @Senshuu @godspack #webcomics.” #Webcomicwednesday is something I THINK I started a couple months back. I’m not too sure. Someone may have thought of it before me and it just didn’t catch on. Anyways, on Wednesdays, you could post, “#webcomicwednesday follow @xyliatales for latest updates from http://xyliatales.com.” See how I did that? An @ and a URL.  If you passively sit by on Twitter, tweeting just about yourself and never TRYING to ACTIVELY network, you won’t network. Networking is active. It requires legwork. It requires you making friends FIRST and taking the first step to help advertise someone else. They in turn may advertise you back. This goes for people outside of the webcomic community on Twitter as well. Remember that whole “diversify” thing?

Personalize your profile page. For the love of cacti, INCLUDE YOUR URL IN YOUR PROFILE AND MAKE A SHORT BIO.  This not only lets people click your name to find your site, but ALSO proves you are not just another spam account. You can even create a personal background image on the profile. Here’s mine (best viewed in 1280px-wide resolution, or wider).

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That’s about it from me! Please feel free to post your Twitter profile in the comments here. Use it to network. There are also threads in various forums specifically for passing around Twitter accounts.

A mirror site should never have as much content as your main site, period. A mirror site is a fallback point in event of the worst, NOT a separate, independent site that is an exact duplicate of your main site. WHY is this important? Because if you don’t differentiate between main site and mirror site, all you’re doing is SPLITTING up your audience into little clumps.  The object is to get readers from multiple other places and BRING them to one place.  If you split up your audience, it only makes more work for you (constantly keeping multiple sites up to date) with less total outcome. By centralizing your audience, it’s like the Power Rangers’ many Zords become a MegaZord; it’s more powerful. You increase your total reputation. Everyone links to the same site. Your Alexa rank goes up, your adspace becomes more valuable, and your site grows faster than it would with all the audience split up.

Let us consider Comic Q, self-hosted at www.comicq.com.  Comic Q also has mirror sites on DrunkDuck, WebcomicsNation and ComicSpace. All of those mirror sites are kept up to date with Comic Q’s most recent page, so readers at all those mirror sites see no reason to leave there and migrate to the main address. The MAIN site ends up with less pageviews than any of the mirror sites, for the simple reason that all of the mirror sites are part of a larger webcomic community (a somewhat instant audience).  Why would Comic Q even continue having a main site if it gets less traffic than the so-called mirror sites?

Now, let’s take Comic X, self-hosted at www.comicx.com. Comic X also has mirror sites on DrunkDuck, WebcomicsNation and ComicSpace, but all of these mirror sites are WEEKS behind the main site.  So the audience that finds these comics on the mirror sites sees that there is MORE content on your home site, and goes there. In this case, the mirror sites function not only as duplicate archive, but also as a means of free advertising. People like what they see, and then want more! If more is available, why would they stay on the mirror sites?   They won’t! The creator of Comic X also knows the importance of NOT merely using mirror sites as only free advertising, because he/she knows that shamelessly whoring one’s comic in other comic communities is very impolite, and therefore makes an effort not to be completely overt in driving visitors to the main site.  (Warning, don’t go to anywhere and say, “this here is the first 10 pages of my comic. If you want more, go to my site.”  That is not a mirror site, that is a whore site. There is a big difference.)

In conclusion, people who have mirror sites need to decide what their goals are. First and foremost, mirror sites should be there in the event your main site is unreachable.  Another goal should definitely be to branch out to attract new readers, but whether you want to split your audience or centralize it will change how you go about updating/maintaining this mirror site. I will always recommend keeping all mirror sites weeks behind the main site (not just one update), and having little of the extra content of your main site. Be aware that extra web content alone will not be enough to drive visitors from mirror sites to the main site, it will require COMIC content.

One last note: mirror sites don’t make up for not backing up your work. Always remember to have backups of your site and your archives on disk or on an external harddrive.  You’ll never forgive yourself if your HD crashes and you lose all your layered, high-res files. You can always retreive web-quality archives from these sites, but nothing of higher quality.

For those webcomickers out there interested in learning more about networking their comic on this holiday, I advise you to check out Bengo’s resource page on his Psychedelic Treehouse (webcomic resource) site:

http://psychedelictreehouse.com/networking-contents.php

Direct links to good articles, tools, and how-to’s! A treasure trove of information HOW to get word about your comic out there.

To all Americans: eat your hearts out, and give thanks while doing so. Somewhere else in the world, children are starving to death. Doesn’t mean you can’t and shouldn’t enjoy what you have, however.