Tag: Twitter

  • I Hate Social Media Cartoon (Caption Contest)

    I Hate Social Media Cartoon

    Cartoon Caption Contest time.  You need to help me complete the words that best go into the third panel.  While I posed this as a cartoonist I think we can all relate to posting things online only for them to get ignored while other crap gets a bunch of attention.   Here are some options I came up with:

    • Oh look (fill in name of any Celebrity on the same social media site) found my cartoon and uploaded it to his stream.
    • I am just going to post how much I hate social media
    • Wow look at that cartoon.  Looks like he spent about 5 seconds on it.
    • Before I go, I’ll post this picture of my cat licking himself.

    All of my choices have actually happened to me.  Like one of these or got something better.  Post it in the comments.  I’ll put the finished one up either Wed or next Sunday.

  • Social Media Love

    How Google Plus Followers compare to Twitter and Facebook.

    I am sure my regulars are tired of my love fest with Google Plus, but here is the proof in my eyes. As a brand, Facebook is so hard to drive new followers. I even paid money one month to advertise my page and got clicks but they didn’t convert. And honestly besides my regular readers who will post comments here, the only others who are following are friends and family who don’t comment. So I post on Facebook and get little traffic from it and fewer comments.

    On twitter I have had greater success as you can follow and engage with people whether they care to follow you back so you have a more robust conversation, sharing and I get more traffic from twitter than I do facebook.

    As of today, I am at 3750 people and it has grown organically. I know some people who will put as many people in their twitter/google plus circles hoping to get 10% to follow them back and thus have a bunch of followers. I don’t engage in that practice. I prefer to have a nice balance between who is in my circles and who has me in theirs.

    When I started, I circled about 200 people (mostly bloggers I already knew, cartoonists or training professionals). From there I engaged in what they were saying, others found it and started following me and it has grown. For any given cartoon I post, I get more traffic here and more interaction than either of the other two.

    If people are interested, I can post some other time on some of the things I did that built it but if you don’t see me much anymore on FB and Twitter, you know why.

  • Why Google Plus is better than….

    Why Google Plus is better than Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Digg

    So it is no secret that I have been somewhat neglecting my friends on facebook, twitter, etc because my time on social media has been taken up by Google Plus.  While it of course has some limitations I wish they would work out sooner rather than later, the above cartoon pretty much sums up why it is better IMO than other social media.

    As always let me know if you need an invite.  And for people who have recently joined who are lost, ahem Bo Lumpkin, a fellow cartoonist Debbie Ohi has created a nice page with links to help get you started.  You can find it here.

  • Charity Challenge Week One Results

    Bearman Cartoons Charity Challenge

    Week one is complete and we started out thing with a bang.

    First though, let me thank the folks at the Webcomic Alliance for letting me hijack their site today and blog about the challenge.  If you are a cartoonist or interested in cartooning as a business, they offer a wealth of information, so check them out.  In addition, since several of their members are behind the Webcomics: What’s Cooking Book which is also raising money for hunger,  I promised to pay an additional $5 for every book they sold this month.  I’ll update at the end of the month on that tally.

    Here is the week one breakdown:

    $2 each for 11 new followers me on Facebook

    $2 each for valerie_smith, drawntobewild, CincyCasino, DigitalAdhesive, ChewyHuman, Beefstu409, Wombie, CincyLiveMusic, manchesternova, InfctiusCharity, Foreman_8157 for following me on Twitter.

    $10 each for including me in their cartoon:

    $5 each for those adding a link or banner to Beartoons on their site:

    $10 each to those who blogged about the challenge:

    Please let me know if I missed anyone!!!

    Which gives us a week 1 total of ………$204

    Let me know if I missed anyone. If you want to find out how to get involved just click the image above to go to the post that explains it all.

  • 1000th Twitter Follower

    So I hit my 1000th Twitter Follower a few weeks back.  In twitter terms that really means I probably hit 200 legitimate followers once you dump out the pornbots and the “social media experts.”

    As I noticed I was getting near, I decided to make a contest where I promised a caricature to the 1000th Twitter follower.  Oh you aren’t following me on Twitter yet and missed out.  Now whose fault is that?  Follow me.

    Anyway, I was happy to report that number 1000 is an actual person.  And like 1/2 my readership outside the United States, resides in the UK.  So congratulations Robin, you were number 1000.

    Robin Miller

    Not only is Robin a real person but he is also somewhat of a philanthropist.  He spends many waking hours involved in walks, marathons, and ebay auctions all to raise money for the  Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.  Great Ormond is famous for being given the rights to the play Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.  So check out Robin on Twitter and one his website, Twelveby12 and tell him I said hi.

    Oh…and his caricature.

    Robin Miller Caricature

  • Editorial Cartoon: Bieber Fever

    Editorial Cartoon - Justin Bieber Fan

    So it seems a few Belieber’s (Justin Bieber fans) are running amok because their demigod did not win the Best New Artist award at the Grammys (see here for the story and here for 10 of the vilest tweets against Esperanza I could ever read).

    Now maybe there is a legitimate gripe that she shouldn’t have even been considered in the category.  However, how long and at what level does an artist have to be on the scene to no longer be considered new.  If new to the previous year, then Justin himself wouldn’t have been eligible since his first album hit in 2009.  And there has been a precedent set anyway.  Back in 1999, Lauryn Hill won after going solo but was already established as part of the Fugees (and Sister Act II).

    This isn’t American Idol.  It is not a popularity contest. 

    You aren’t in seeking reform in the Middle East.  This decision doesn’t truly affect your life in any meaningful way.

    Justin isn’t going to marry you.  So please have some decorum.

    And while you are disappointed with his loss as a fan, do you really need to threaten someone who had nothing to do with any of the decisions in the first place?  Why don’t you take a lesson from your idol and be gracious in your loss?

  • Twaggies

    *** UPDATE: CHECK OUT MY GUEST TWAGGIE HERE (and make sure to leave a comment there)***

    Lately I have been enjoying a newly found site called Twaggies.com.  “What is a Twaggie?”, you might ask.  Well to put it simply, it is a Visual Tweet.  The owners of the site scour twitter for interesting quotes by celebs and non that might strike a chord if it had a cartoon image to go with it.

    I put together a guest Twaggie for them and sent it off.  Rather than using it, they challenged me with a different tweet.  I submitted that cartoon and it should be updating tonight or tomorrow (I’ll post a link when it does).   In the meantime, I present you with the original submission and it’s tweet that follows:

    Twaggies Leather vs Fur

    @BlackBook_Media  “People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it’s safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.” –Unknown

  • Maximizing Twitter and StumbleUpon

    Last month I wrote an article for Webcomic Planet, so to ease back in from my much deserved and needed break, I thought I would repost it here.

    Raise your hand if you use Twitter to announce when you have posted a new comic/cartoon.  Raise you hand if you also like to submit your new post to sites such as Reddit, Digg, or StumbleUpon.
     
    If you are a user of Twitter and a registered user of StumbleUpon there is a great but little known tool at your disposal that you can submit a link to both sites at the same time.  When posting your comic’s URL to twitter you either have to use a URL shortener like bit.ly or allow Twitter to shorten it for you.  Instead, I recommend using http://su.pr to shorten your URLs. 
     
    Make sure you are signed into both Twitter and StumbleUpon.  Once you have posted your latest cartoon, go to su.pr and type in your tweet along with the full URL of the post.   Then hit submit.  Your post will be submitted to both sites. 
     
    Here is what really makes it impactful.  Now when someone clicks on your link in twitter they will go to your post on StumbleUpon where they can not only view your cartoon but also give it a “Thumbs Up”.  The more “Thumbs Up” you get, drives potentially more visitors. 
     
    Even better is that Su.pr has analytics of who retweeted your post.  If you are like me it can be difficult to determine if someone retweeted your post especially if they don’t use your twitter name.  With Su.pr, anytime they use the shortened URL in a tweet, it will show up on su.pr analytics who sent out the message.
     
    Hopefully this is a tool that is useful to you and please if you see the SU header in a post and you like it, take the second and give it a thumbs up.  Your fellow cartoonists will appreciate it.  And as always you can find me on twitter at @bearmancartoons.

  • The Power of StumbleUpon and Twitter

    George this one is for you. I wrote an article for WebcomicPlanet on using StumbleUpon and Twitter and being able to post to both using one tool – Su.pr. Check it out here.

  • Guest Editorial Cartoon: Agent_X

    So just this week I announce that I am looking for webcomics creators to draw what their characters will look like at age 100 and already I have entries from George and Byron (be careful when going to their sites as these guys tend to like to draw protruding nipples).  Remember those interested get to me by August 15.

    I also put out an ongoing call to anyone who wanted to submit an editorial/pop culture cartoon and I got my first submission from Agent-X Comics.  This site is full of single panel  gag cartoons that tend to poke fun at social media sites (facebook, twitter, etc) and their users. He is probably most known for this hilarious toon:

    So without further ado along the lines of what he is known for with an editorial bent, I give you the first guest editorial cartoon.

    Agent_X Guest Cartoon 7 24 09

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