Today’s topic is about how stats, analytics, and other metrics can affect the creative process.

Before we get started, here’s a quick rundown of the different kinds of numbers you might run into while you’re making or reading webcomics!

Follower Counts

What is this?

How many people are signed up to see your content automatically

Where do you see it?

Webtoons, Tapas, all the social medias (Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, TikTok)

How can this metric be helpful?

It’s a talking point I guess, you can have little contests when you get to a cool number or if you’re close to a cool number

How can this metric be flawed?

On any platform where your content is not locked, you don’t HAVE to be a follower to see someone’s content, in fact almost all social media by default will throw people’s posts around that you DON’T know about, so there CAN be a lot more people looking at your stuff than just your follower count.

On the flip side followers don’t always give you comments, money, or loyalty; sometimes they’re not even there! Followers can be fake/bots/people following you for a contest/inactive accounts following you. So I think it’s important if you’re slipping into a mindset that follower count equals how many people “care” about your content that that is not the case. It’s really more reflective of what tactics you OR (more likely) the platform are using to sign people up to be your follower.

If you find yourself wanting a higher follower count, just try and think of the reason you want this. What kinds of problems do you see it solving, how do you think it’ll change your experience to get more followers? Because I guarantee you there is some different thing you want to be paying attention to, driving follows in and of itself does nothing and can actually hurt if you’re a company who’s incentivizing people to follow too many people all at once and they get overwhelmed by all that content.

Views/Traffic

What is this?

How many people have viewed your content or clicked on any links you put in that content

Where do you see it?

Webtoon, Tapas, Google Analytics if you have your own site, you can also see it if you click the little bar icon on a Tweet

How can this metric be helpful?

It shows you how many browsers have loaded your content

How can this metric be flawed?

They’re better than Follower Count for sure, but still not 100% indicative of your quality. You might be making a kind of story where it really reads better to visit every few months and catch up, which will show as fewer views. Temporary features can bloat view numbers. Views can come from negative sources/trolls who are dunking on you/the ol’ ratio. Views are also not an indication of who’s PASSIONATE about your work or who would spend MONEY on your work. I know a lot of people who really don’t get many views but they make a lot of money because the few people that ARE reading their work really love it, and I know a lot of people who get tons of views and really don’t have a bead on monetizing it.

If you find yourself wanting more views, you probably need to be looking at personally appealing to your circles, getting involved in new ones. One thing my buddy Star does is fanart for things that are thematically similar to her comic Castoff, and if they take off, just including a “I do more stuff like this on my comic which you can read here!”. DON’T DM people or put them on your mailing list without their consent, listen as much as you talk, but yeah, probably need to be dropping your link in APPROPRIATE spaces a little more.

Comments

What is this?

How many people are writing out their thoughts in the spaces you’re providing them

Where do you see it?

Bottom of comic updates, responses on social media

How can this metric be helpful?

I love comments, it’s really a nice way for people to express what they’re enjoying about your comic, they can be so uplifting and make you feel very appreciated

How can this metric be flawed?

Comments really do need to have good moderation tools and be closely moderated because a lot of us nerds on the internet are NOT social butterflies and might say awkward or incendiary things, and when that happens the comment section becomes not a very fun party to hang out in. You also might have an interface that isn’t easy to SEE where the comments are. Comment culture is very different on personal sites versus Webtoon and they can be kind of rude if the reader is younger or doesn’t know the author reads the comments, OR MY PROBLEM RIGHT NOW, you might use Disqus and be CONSTANTLY PLAGUED BY PORNBOTS.

If you find yourself wanting more comments, again, asking people to leave comments every so often, posing a question in your author notes, and again, reminding people that if they like your stuff you want to hear from them can go a long way! Showcasing the comments you’ve gotten that you like and want of is also nice! And saving screenshots in a folder or in a special place on your Discord server is a fun time too. I started doing sort of a yearbook treatment that includes all my favorite comments at the end of the year and it’s really a nice way to preserve that uplifting feeling.

Ratings/Votes

What is this?

Star ratings on a 1-5 scale, supposedly reflective of opinions of your comic

Where do you see it?

Webtoon, Tapas, Goodreads, TopWebComics, storefronts sometimes like Amazon

How can this metric be helpful?

Presumably helps a reader decide if a comic is popular and if they should buy or read it, boosts you in the algorithm a LOT

How can this metric be flawed?

Some systems penalize you if it’s not the right KIND of comment (Instagram it needs to be like 5 words long I think?) People don’t remember to rank things, even when they like them! It can really mislead you into thinking your comic is bad when it’s probably not. Negative ratings can be based on totally random or subjective things like if the person is allergic to your font choice, if the system isn’t working for them, if they misread your description and thought you were trying to do something you weren’t, votes can be trolls, and on Webtoon/Tapas, there’s no way to tell “okay out of 6000 people who gave this 5 stars, one is saying it’s bad”. It’s very unqualified data and it’s not gonna help you FIX anything if there IS something that’s less effective about your comic. And we’re storytellers, so we’re naturally problem solvers, and that can be a really dangerous train when that ONE guy out of 6000 says there’s a problem, because part of your brain is going to go “PROBLEM TO FIX MUST FIX PROBLEM” or “I DID A PROBLEM?? NOOO I AM AN AWFUL PERSON” or both.

If you find yourself wanting more positive ratings, I think asking for 5-star reviews is something you hear about a lot, and I do think if the platform you’re using ranks things numerically, that’s worth doing every so often. Don’t get pushy or demanding with it, just let people know that it does actually tangibly help you and it’s a free thing they can do if they’re enjoying your stuff! A lot of times people just need reminders! For TopWebComics, I made a quick URL at sombulus.com/vote that’ll take you right to my voting portal, I upload new incentives there every week, and I have announcements scheduled out on Twitter every week and at the start of the month when the votes reset to remind people that it helps boost my comic in the rankings.

Likes/Shares

What is this?

Someone clicking the thumbs or the upvotes or the hearts or the Toots to say they enjoyed a thing, and someone clicking a different thing to share that post with someone else

Where do you see it?

Webtoon/Tapas, social media

How can this metric be helpful?

Boosts you in the algorithm a little, gets your stuff spread to other peoples’ followers

How can this metric be flawed?

Ratios can actually mean people are taking it out of context, very rarely results in clickthroughs or sales unless you reach a viral critical mass, very non-commital support, you could be posting at a weird time of day or flooded out by worldwide news current events/drama, of which there is so much these days. You can also feel like posting frequently takes a lot of work and time that you don’t have and it’s just exhausting.

If you find yourself wanting more likes/shares, try scheduling things so far in advance that you forget you even put them there. I love this because if a post DOESN’T get any attention, I forget I even made it, and if it DOES, then it’s a pleasant surprise. You can also ask sometimes if you have something urgent, just say a little “share this with your friends!” line on the tweet. Don’t abuse this but it can definitely work out. Also in social media, reshare old content after a while! Nobody cares!

Some people use Likes as kind of either a read receipt or a bookmark, which can sometimes artificially mess with the numbers on this particular metric.

Revenue

What is this?

MONEY! Money that you make from ad revenue, sales, Patreon or Ko-Fi subscripts, tipping in Tapas, etc.

Where do you see it?

You typically gotta set up a shop or campaign somewhere or seek out a publisher (I think we’re gonna have a whole other episode on allll the ways you can do that)

How can this metric be helpful?

Money can be exchanged for goods and services, both of which I enjoy a lot

How can this metric be flawed

Money is only a metric of if you’ve made a product that is sellable and you’ve successfully convinced people to buy it, which is an extremely different skill than making a good comic. Just making a comic and printing a book is going to lead to a lot of books in your closet gathering dust. Online comic sales for me have been exceedingly hard, I don’t make a lot of side comics or other projects, there’s just a lot of distracting things online so I really depend on things like limited time crowdfunds to move my books online. I’ve also seen this one a million times where people will ask their followers on twitter “which of these things would you buy”, their followers vote, but then they put it in their store and those people suddenly have no money.

If you find yourself wanting more money, don’t we all? But also you really do have to experiment a lot sometimes to find products that are sellable, and how to present them. You need clear compelling pictures, you need to make a regular habit of mentioning that you have stuff for sale, also helps if you have NEW products to appeal to the people who want to give you MORE money but they already have all the stuff you sell. The number of people who are willing and able to give you money is probably small, but the good news is that repeat customers are very much a thing, so look for ways to encourage repetition from the same people as well as reaching new ones.

and now our hosts will share their personal experience in the Numbers Game. Here's the time stamps. You know what to do!

5:00 What role have numbers and statistics played in your webcomics journey? Has it changed over time?

13:09 How do you use the statistics you have access to in productive ways while working on or marketing your comic, without letting them have too much influence?

28:16 Now the numbers game can drive even the most hardened webcomic veterans absolutely batty. Do you have any more advice on survival to share with other creators to navigate the emotional landscape of stats and numbers?

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Episode Release Date: September 14, 2022

Episode Credits:

Renie Jesanis (@renieplayerone) - she/they, kateblast.com

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Ally Rom Colthoff (@varethane) - she/they, chirault.sevensmith.net wychwoodcomic.com

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The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.