I have a lot of ideas about how to design the new site, but I’m designing for an audience, not myself. So it behooves me to ask them what they want. After putting up a “coming soon page” (covered in a previous article), I ran two surveys past my readers, soliciting them through my livejournal, DeviantArt, Twitter and Facebook. I’m sharing the results here for the benefit of the comicking and design communities.

Today let’s investigate my first survey, where I asked readers themsleves, their online habits, and their relationship with my comic. (We’ll look at the second survey tomorrow.)

Who is reading my comics?

Most respondents fell into one of three categories:

1. First wave female fans. These young women are about my age and they found me through gURL.com back in the day. They are usually in college or starting their first job. Very tech savvy, mature, and devoted.
2. Second wave female fans. There are fewer second-wavers than first-wavers. These young women found my comics after I went on hiatus by poking around the gURL.com archives or by stumbling over my work by accident. They tend to be tweens and teens, usually smart, subculture-y types, manga and anime fans, who prize individualism.
3. Male fans. This is the smallest group of readers I have, but they are some of my most dedicated readers. They usually find my comics either by meeting me in person at a convention or through their female relations, be it a girlfriend or a sister. Most have tech-based jobs and are hard core geeks, and of all the groups, they have the most money to spend, as first-wavers are paying off student loans or making major life purchases like cars and second-wavers don’t have credit cards yet.

Most respondents have been reading for 5-8 years. That’s a long retention time for a comic that’s been on hiatus 3 years!

What sites are they using?

Facebook took the lion’s share with a whopping 86% of respondents claiming to use it on a regular basis. Next came DeviantArt (60%) and Twitter (33%). Myspace came in last with only two people vouching for it. However, if I had solicited responses on my MySpace page, the numbers would be skewed in that site’s favor.

Why do they like my comics?

It was clear that readers love Tuna, the smart-alecking black cat character. (I can never write Tuna out of the comic now.) But aside from the talking kitty, readers repeatedly cited the snarky female lead, gothic sensibilities, and tightly woven plots as what made them fall in love with the series. Many people repeated that Rachel the Great only looks like a girly-girl manga.

I was surprised at how often the same words kept turning up. So many people used the same phrases over and over again that I had to take note of them: Can relate to, funny, intelligent, refreshing, true-to-yourself, feminist, not too girly girl, original, issues, emotions, fun, relatable, humorous, witty.

How and when do they want comics updates?

44% of respondents said they would pop by the same day every week with no prompting so long as I updated on the same day each week. 26% said they’d just visit randomly and catch up. As for actually receiving updates, 32% requested email alerts, 28% requested Twitter, and only 16% would use RSS (although they were very adamant that there be RSS). For the 19% who responded “other”, they mentioned livejournal and Facebook as avenues for updates.

People either didn’t care what day new comics get posted, or if they did care, they preferred Wednesday because it’s “Hump Day.”

These findings suggest that:

1. I need to update on a regular schedule and
2. that I need to ensure users can subscribe to get email alerts when new comics go live, something I can do quite easily with Feedburner.

What features are most important to them?

I gave participants a list of different features I thought they might like on the site in addition to weekly comics. I had an idea of what I wanted, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of time building something if my readers didn’t want it.

I’ve decided to hold off on building a gallery because so many readers also have DeviantArt accounts. It would be much easier to prominently link to that community, and I’m more likely to upload art there for the external validation that community offers then be too tired to do it all over again via WordPress. I’ve added a “recommended reading” blogroll to my comic pages’ sidebars, and the blog is coming built-in. I haven’t started attending conventions again, so I don’t need to worry about that one just yet, but it’s nice to see so many people excited about that prospect. My take-away from this is that after the site launches, I need to start extending my theme to include a merchandise shop.

Mobile device use

I asked, “Do you havea mobile device, like a phone or PSP that you use to read comics? If so, what device?” Of the 57 participants, 6 reported owning an iphone, 1 reported owning a Droid, and 1 reported a Nintendo DS. 6 iphones may not seem like a lot now, but it’s worth keeping in mind for th future.

Things I will do differently next time

I wish I had asked where people read web comics. Are they in a quiet dorm? Sneaking a peek at work or school? Behind a firewall that blocks sites that use bad words? Are they rushed or relaxing? I don’t know what my readers’ context is, and knowing that would help me design a web comic experience that facilitates their situation. For instance, if the majority of my readers are sneaking a peek while their boss isn’t looking, I don’t want the site to have a bright pink background, or I risk getting them in trouble if their boss glances in that direction.

Why you should run surveys, too.

You should run surveys, too, because it will help you better understand your visitors. We often think we know who we are writing for and what they want, but as one of my fans once told me, “Assumptions make an ASS out of yoU and ME.” It’s easy to go to far and overlook something important to your readers. There could be problems you didn’t even know existed. Communication is key. Love your readers. Serve your readers.

Tune next week for the results of the second survey, where we’ll learn how to design a web comics site for the ultimate reader experience!

I kept running into articles about “how to get the most out of Twitter,” articles from people who promised that with Twitter, you could “build a publicity powerhouse” and “harness the power of the masses.” This is of course, a very tall order for the microblogging site to fulfill. This contrasts nicely with the opinion of a coworker of mine, who stated that, “Twitter is a waste of time.” And they’re not the only person who thinks so!

I agree with neither of these sentiments. Twitter is useful, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all of marketing or promotion. It’s best to think of Twitter as a supplementary item, like a MySpace page or Facebook presence. It can be useful on both a professional and a personal level. In this article, I’ll try to dispel some Twitter myths and provide some insight to how you can get the most out of your Twitter account.

There are 3 things to do on Twitter.

1. Listen
2. Broadcast
3. Respond

It is said that there are two kinds of Twitter users, Listeners and Broadcasters. Listeners range from the doting sycophants of celebrities to information hounds, licking crumbs of knowledge off the plates of Broadcasters. Broadcasters simply post a lot. About everything. To the point of sometimes annoying their Listeners

Of course this is a gross generalization. I find that most people listen and broadcast. Some people are just more enthusiastic about posting!

There are 3 ways to use Twitter.

1. To learn from your peers (web designers, embroidery enthusiasts).
2. To let other people know what you’re doing (to promote something, to let your friends know where you are drinking).
3. To keep in touch with other people (peers, family, customers).

These correspond roughly to the three aforementioned actions.

I used to use LiveJournal to let my friends and other comic illustrators know what I was doing. After all, the comics community was stronger on LiveJournal than anywhere else, so I would get lots of feedback from and chances to communicate with other professionals in my field. But then I got a job working in-house for a large marketing company doing graphic and web design. I just didn’t have the time to write long-winded blog posts about comicky things anymore. I found that Twitter’s microblogging format allowed me to make several short posts over the period of one day, which helped me keep in touch with those friends of mine that had Twitter. Additionally, the web design community is stronger on Twitter than LiveJournal, so I get to learn from and socialize with a set of people who help me improve my craft. I also post links to useful web desgn resources and articles. Sometimes I even promote new articles I’ve written or things I’ve worked on!

So I do all three things: I promote, keep track, and learn.

Twettiquette.

In almost all of those “promote your brand on Twitter and become a GOD!!!” articles, they go on quite a bit about getting followers. Here’s the secret: Some followers are more valuable than others. There are a lot of people promoting their agendas online. And they aren’t really interested in hearing about your agenda. If you follow a real Broadcaster, someone who is just on Twitter to sell themselves or their brand, they may follow you back out of politeness. But if you’re trying to sell to someone who is trying to sell to you… even if they do retweet a few of your tweets, who are they retweeting them to? A large pool of Broadcasters who are more interested in twittering about themselves and growing their number of followers than listening. And trust me, when you get thousands of followers, their twitterings become a wash of background noise that you must either filter or ignore. So don’t just go following people willy nilly because they have large numbers of followers in hopes that they’ll read your tweets–they probably won’t, even if they follow you.

So start small. Follow your friends and coworkers, people you know and/or trust. When they post something of value, retweet it. That flatters the author and hopefully provides someting useful for your followers or introduces them to someone they would like to follow.  Don’t only post about yourself and your agenda. People don’t like the person who can’t shut up about themselves at parties, and they don’t like them online, either. (Unless you happen to be a celebrity of one sort or another, in which case, people will fawn all over you, but rest assured that someone, somewhere finds you boring and wishes you would just shut up.) Do respond to other tweets. It is okay for Twitter to be used, moderately at least, as a glorified IM client. Don’t be afraid to answer questions if you have answers, and likewise, don’t be afraid to query the Twitterverse if you need answers yourself.

Twitter Myths Revealed!

1. Twitter Myth #1: Twitter is a Waste of Time

   Only if you aren’t using it right! Truth is, you can use Twitter to stalk your rivals, learn from your peers, and keep abreast of trends in your line of work, and in general stay more on top of your game than if you sat in the ladies room reading trade journals all day. My Twitter is stuffed to the gills with industry top dogs, and I’m not ashamed to have it running on my desktop all day. And if my mother’s quiche recipe pops up under a link to a fantastic Photoshop tutorial, so much the better.

2. Twitter Myth #2: You can become an overnight sensation! Just use Twitter!

   No. No. No. You can no more become an overnight sensation on Twitter than you can on Facebook, MySpace, or any other social media platform. The whole, “If you tweet it, they will come,” mantra is misguided. Twitter is a supplement to a good publicity machine, not a replacement.

3. Twitter Myth #3: Twitter will help you make money! Somehow.

   Not really. People are very cagey about being sold to. Twitter will, however, let you better serve and reach customers. Case study, the CEO of Zappos has a Twitter account. When I first joined Twitter, I immediately started following him, thinking he would twitter about one of my favorite subject, shoes. However, most of his tweets were “blah blah I am on a plane-this,” and “blah blah I shook hands with so-and-so-that.” Not only boring, but frequent! Most likely Zappos employees gained more from following him than I would, so I stopped following him. But when I noticed that my searches for size 12 women’s shoes at Zappos.com were returning apparel listings as well as footwear (a fluke of their search system), I sent him a tweet to let him know, and he responded.

   Another case in point, whenever I work with a client who uses GoDaddy as a host, I inevitably end up twittering about how frustrating GoDaddy’s backend is for me. And GoDaddy’s personnel, ever vigilant on Twitter, immediately starts twittering back at me to ask how they can help. (Snark Attack: Funny, it’s faster for me to get help from them on Twitter than it is for me to find help in their client area!)

   So Twitter makes people accessible. That’s it. It doesn’t magically make people like you or bring them in great flocks to your site.

Twitter Resources

Here are the links I found useful on my Twitter Background Quest:

• DIY site Express Blog’s Brand Recognition: Creating a Custom Twitter Background
• Viget’s Pimp Your Twitter Background
• FreeTwitterDesigner.com is an online application that lets the Photoshop-less make their own Twitter backgrounds.