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.
I never engaged much with Facebook. Don’t have much to add there. I will say that Twitter has been a good thing. I’m pretty selective on who I follow and who follows me, so I think I’ve got a strong base there. It takes time to cultivate but it is also a fun process to interact with people. Nice breakdown, Bearman, very interesting!
Thanks Mark. I loved Twitter for all the reasons you say. I think G+ takes it up a step as it allows you to see reactions to comments in the same spot so it is easier to follow the conversation.
Interesting graphics. I am on all 3 but not trying hard enough. I will say that since you added me to Google+ I’ve been added to a number of other’s circles, clearly because of you. How can I tell? They mostly have cartoon photos! Pretty cool.
That’s what I did. I followed some people I knew and then looked to see who they were following. Grew from there.
I don’t care about any of the social media out there and Facebook drove me nuts. I deactivated it long ago. I’ve not even bothered with Google+. If you love it then go for it. It’s all about what makes you happy.
Have a terrific day Bearman. 🙂
I think I enjoy it more because I have a brand to promote. I hardly ever post things to my personal FB account though I will comment on my friends posts.
Looks like G+ has definitely brought in more results. I removed myself from it again as I simply don’t have the time to use it. Those type of sites just really don’t interest me. Glad it’s working well for you though.
Yes…it can definitely pull you away and suck you in.
Google+ is working for Madhatters too – though got way to go yet before get anywhere near your figures, bearman
MadHatters posts are automatically posted in Facebook but generate little FB traffic to our site if stats are to be believed. In the few weeks we’ve had a presence on Google+ though we’ve seen our daily traffic more or less double, with much of that coming from Google.
And that’s without putting much effort into Google+ yet !
Duncan, I think Madhatters content (and Loons) is on example that is fit for G+ because they are sharp, short funny posts. Glad I am not the only one.
I’m a member but don’t do anything with it. Same with Facebook. but I managed to avoid Twitter
It’s nice if you are trying to find people who post things you are interested in. Try doing a search of medical history for example and I am sure you will start to find an audience for some of the same things you post.
I like it. I plan to use it more when I can get more active again. (Hopefully in the near future.)
I’ll be waiting.
I’ve found that my main traffic comes from:
1) Subscribers
2) StumbleUpon (su.pr)
3) Facebook
4) BadWebComics (yeah, for some reason, the traffic flows through, although I haven’t had any complaints or nagging whining from that crew since 2009.)
5) Google searches about Matt Dillon from “There’s Something About Mary”.
I’m gonna get serious with G+ this week and see where that goes. You’ve been a success story with it, but you’re also a guy that gets around a lot. My travels have been limited lately and I realize this is very much a “you scratch my back, yadda yadda….” field. I will give it a go though and let you now what happens. 🙂
Stumbleupon still is my best traffic source and then followed at times (rarely) by Reddit.
They never put me on BadWebComics. Maybe I should ask.
But for commenters and engagement the best sources have been G+ by far, then Twitter.
How do you get on Bad Webcomics??? I’m curious now. Although by the name of it it (Extra points for double word score!!!) doesn’t sound like the kind of site I’d really wanna be listed on.
I think they gave george a bunch of crap about his cartoon but hey in this field any publicity is good publicity.
You’re on Facebook and Twitter?
Yes loon
Awkward 🙄
You are following me on both idiot.
I deactivated myself from Facebook due to all the “improvements” and privacy concerns that weren’t being addressed and never did Twitter, simply because if I decided to talk about what really bugs the crap out of me at work, presto! no more job.
Don’t do Google+ simply because I’m completely fed up with the all the “improvements” that Blogger, Gmail and even YouTube has done in the past six months.
I can say that for as big of a fan as I am of G+, I have never been a fan of Blogger. If you didn’t have a google account, it always was like fort knox to leave a commment.
Some three and a half years later, I’m definitely not a fan of Blogger. Used to be, but now, it’s like being a part of the fictional town Sluggovile we me playing the part of Mr. Bill and Blogger playing the part of Mr. Hand.
I’m too tired to make an attempt at transfering my feed to WordPress, so I just gut it out to the best of my ability.
I don’t know if it is hard or easy to transfer from one to the other. I am sure there are some tools that will do it fairly easy.
That’s why I use Disqus with my Blogger site. I have pondered WP.com but fear a Jihad would be declared on me if I changed URL again…
That ship has already left port Tony
If I was to I would change the DNS records with Go Daddy & keep the same URL
Sure sure Tony…If nothing else you are becoming a web genius.
Maybe Google + is worth the effort to invest because I havne’t had much luck with the other two. I am betting that once a ton of people go to Google + it is going to be a lot harder to do what you did.
Possibly. I was late to the game myself so part of it is engaging with heavy engagers (not just people with a bunch of people following them) and having them take notice of you.
Haha! Well done! I only in 206 circles 🙁
How does that compare though?
About 10 times my circles!
Lousy Pawn!
Peter, I was afraid to post my cartoons in full for fear that people wouldn’t go to my site. It was unfounded but you may want to post some older stuff and link to your site. It can’t hurt.
That’s probably a good idea. I really should spend some time there and get involved.
If nothing else, it could be a high quality link back to your site.
Hmmm…
*rubbing chin in deep thought (but probably still won’t find the energy to figure out this Googlish contraption)*
🙂
Be careful. It could suck you in
Holy shnizzles! (In case you couldn’t tell, I just made that word up on the fly.) For some reason I can’t figure out Google+. Maybe it’s because my brain can only handle so many social networks at a time…?
I find it easier just to blame my mother.
ps. You really need a hair cut.
That is because you are a die hard facebook fan.
Why is my back hair too long?
Holy moly! This google plus thing is really blowing up! Just shows you how effective of a social media tool its become.
Hurry hurry..they are only just starting on the second floor.
Wow, you’ve got 241 likes on Facebook?! Bastard.
Google Plus should hire you as a spokesperson. Think of how many people would start using it with the happy green-top Bearman smiling them on!
If that means I can retire, I would gladly sell out.
Facebook can be pretty annoying if you have a friend or two that posts too much.
I think I enjoy Twitter more because it can be more conversational and spontaneous. That said, according to my stats, I seem to get more hits from Facebook (but for some reason, people aren’t hitting the “like” button on my comic’s facebook page. I guess they’re sending me a message!) than I do from Twitter. I’ll have to take a look at Google plus if it can generate more hits.
haha. Every once in a while I’ll get a “like” hit on FB. Personally they can save the like if they comment here. Let me know. I also have a comprehensive list of web cartoonists that I am keeping track up.
1. i’m back.
2. i missed you
3. you and this google plus. grrrrrrr. i just can’t give up my facebook, although i don’t use that for BD anyway. but it’s just like ughhhhhhhhhh another thing to keep up with. i dunno. you’ve halfway convinced me.
4. hope you had a good thanksgiving bear. 🙂
About frickin time.
I think for personal stuff, 90% of friends and family are on FB so I wouldn’t switch, but for branding ala BD, I think G+ might be a better way to go.
Very interesting. I have been ignoring G+ and all the rest for that matter. I need to get back into the conversation a little bit and make this a bigger part of my work.
Sadly as good as you are Frank, it seems to take alot of work outside of drawing cool stuff to get attention.
I’m so out of touch. I’ve finally figured out Twitter…sort of. I find Facebook vomit worthy 90% of the time. And, G+ is the equivalent of learning a foreign language right now. But, I really like your cartoon.
I think YAW would pull in a great following by reposting some things on G+
don’t worry man internet subsribers are like fishing tales annyway you’ll never know if its true, atleast you know who comes here when they comment :p
True…but I can still measure engagement on the other sites.
FB, no likes and no comments
Twitter, 3 people RT’d it
G+, 41 likes, 7 shared it, and 35 comments (including my responses)
So, I’ve been without a computer all week – so I’m way behind with reading Bear-stuff.
But I’ll admit it – I’m one to ‘add’ tons of people in hope of them following back. Being new to Google +, I thought that would be a good way to kick it off. Now, I’m going to try and engage more with people – until I’m without a computer again.
I have a hard time getting into Google+. I’m trying though because Google has brought a ton of people to my website.
First make sure your profile is complete.
Second make sure you have a couple public posts (if people don’t think you posted anything, they won’t follow you)
Third, do a search of topics you are interested in and people will pop up. If you are interested in them, circle them. Many follow back.
I use to use Facebook and hated it, so it’s deactivated. I have Google + and Twitter, but forget to use them. But wow, look at the results you got at Google +!… Its a good piece of info to know.
It’s almost like I have 2 sources of profiling my work (kinda like some people use their website and tumblr.