There’s a belief out there that with any creative endeavor – be it a webcomic, a graphic novel, a television series, a band and so on – that you don’t need a massive audience of millions. You just need 1,000 true fans.
Brad Guigar over on Webcomics.com elaborated on this viewpoint in a recent article. Here’s a snippet:
Let’s assume a social-media following of 1,000 fans who are — overall — highly invested in a webcartoonist. When that webcartoonist makes a post, let’s say that 200 of them engage in that post in some manner. That’s a 20% response. Not bad at all! The algorithm picks up on this as evident of a post that even more of the followers might be interested in, and distributes the post to even more followers. If the engagement continues, the post continues to be distributed. If that engagement includes shares/retweets, the potential for engagement starts to expand. And of course, at some point, this wave of interest runs it course, engagement drops, and the post gets distributed to fewer and fewer people until it stops getting distributed entirely.
Now lets’ take that same post. But this time, let’s assume 10,000 followers. However, unlike the preceding example, these followers aren’t as emotionally invested in the webcartoonist they’re following. Those 1,000 true fans are still there, mind you, but they’re mixed into a larger group. Once the post is made, we’ll assume the same amount of engagement — 200 instances. However, 200 out of 10,000 is only 2%! The algorithm judges this post to be much less relevant than a 20% engagement and distributes it very little past the opening salvo. Even if it accounts for the bigger audience — even it if “grades on a curve” — that engagement is never going to rise much beyond two percent. As a result, that post dies an early death.
You can read the article in its entirety here but Mr. Guigar brings up a good point.
The original theory was put forth by Kevin Kelly of how you only need 1,000 true fans. This is one that is quite solid as Kelly makes the same points that Guigar did; a smaller fanbase would be more dedicated that millions of fans plus you could have more of a direct relationship with them in that you sell your work directly to them (this is the logic behind crowdfunding sites like Kicsktarter and Indiegogo).
That is something I aim to do with Poison Ivy Gulch and ultimately my other comics. I want to cultivate fans who are more dedicated to my work as opposed to having mass appeal.
