"Sites Our Followers Are On" Survey Results

In which we talk about the results of our survey, and what we're doing with that data (hint: it's leaving sites.)

🦊Howdy! Recently, we posted a survey asking our followers where they're at. The goal was to find out where we should concentrate our time and effort, and where we can leave. We're on way too many sites, and it's just way too time consuming to keep up with all of them. Well, we got enough data to make some decisions, so read on to hear about that.

The Sites

Before we begin, you may wanna take a look at our carrd. We've updated it to remove sites we're not gonna post to anymore, so if the site you're following us on isn't there, I encourage you to check out one of the remaining ones!

The Highlights

chrome_2024-06-29_10-29-13

Here's a summary of the results we got. You can view the spreadsheet in its entirety here. Thank you everyone who filled out the survey, first of all! It was very informative and we're glad that you participated in it.

I'll be going into why we're leaving (or staying) on certain sites below, but here's some highlights from the data we thought were interesting:

Too Many Sites

Yea, if you weren't aware, we post on all those sites. It's wild! But the problem is that, then you gotta keep up on all those sites, checking them out, seeing if people replied, posting content there, etc etc. It's a lot, even with PostyBirb. There's also the problem where, we have a lot of follower overlap. We greatly appreciate people wanting to follow us on multiple sites, but the problem is that most likely they're only going to like or share the art on the first site they see it on. This overall weakens our ability to get our stuff out there. Also, because we're trying to keep up with all these sites, it's hard to come up with things to post to them. So, we just end up not posting. This further reduces our overall visibility.

Sites Not On The Survey

Before I talk about the sites that were on the survey, let's talk about the sites which were not on the survey. I'll be putting a ✅ by sites we're staying on, and a ❌ on sites we're abandoning.

✅ Steam, Itch

Steam and Itch were not on the survey because like, we are primarily game developers. We are going to continue posting game content to these sites, so nothing will change on this front. We are constantly working on new stuff, so please give us a follow on Itch or Steam (yes, you can follow on Steam!) to keep up with when we put a new thing out there.

❌ Picarto, Tiktok

Let's be real: We're millennials. We're not too interested in posting little short form vertical videos to Tiktok, so it's like, whatever. Also, Twitch is doing just fine for streaming art, so we don't really want or need to stream to Picarto. We mainly did that whenever we were doing mature artwork, but we don't draw that much anymore, so don't keep an eye out for it there.

✅ Twitch

Now, we did a few streams a couple weeks ago and haven't streamed since. We've been working on something really neat behind the scenes, but we'll get back to streaming soon (not only because it's fun, but also because we have commissions to do.) So, please keep an eye out for that.

(What got us thinking about all this, besides how hard it is to post a bunch of art everywhere, was posting when we were gonna stream like. All of these sites? By then all the stream viewers have left because they got impatient waiting for us to Post lmao)

✅ Our Website Gallery

Yea, we're gonna keep that up to date. Sites are coming and going all the time, so it's nice to have a part of the web that's just for us. Our RSS feed on there is still broken, unfortunately, but the site is invaluable for taking commissions and providing examples. Also, there's been quite a few times where commissioners will be like "I want something like this," and they post a link to something on our site. So, the value is strong and we'll keep posting on it (and hopefully fix that RSS finally.)

Sites on the Survey

Right, let's get to the main event: The sites which were on the survey! I'll talk about them in the order they appeared on the survey.

✅ Mastodon

John Mastodon really likes our stuff, huh. Despite having to move instances several times, we've managed to keep all the followers by using the "Transfer Followers" feature of Mastodon. So, it hasn't been hard to keep up with us. Since we've had our account on there the longest (been on Mastodon for like 8-9 years now) and we've gotten all those followers, it's no surprise that Mastodon is number 1. Mastodon is also the site we like, so it'll be nice to hang out there again.

❌ Bluesky

Bluesky has honestly been the worst site for us when it comes to posting. Our art doesn't get many likes or shares, and even Mika's shitpost about invisible walls didn't do well. We've talked about this before, and people said "you're posting wrong. You have to get on these lists and use hashtags." Well, we did. We're on a few furry lists, as well as a couple of gamedev ones. We use tags, we talk to people, pretty much everything that everyone said. Still, we are largely ignored on that site. Also, we don't really like the site much anyways. We had to be strongly convinced to even get on there, and yea. We have gotten a couple of commissions through the site, but we've gotten many more commissions through other sites, so it wont be that big of a loss.

Of all the sites, we'd be willing to try this one again, but I don't see us doing it in the immediate future. We're not deleting any of these accounts though, so we can always pick up where we left off later.

❌ (formerly Twitter)

To nobody's surprise, Twitter ranked really low on this survey. Not the lowest, of course, but yea it's pretty bad. This is despite the fact that we (allegedly) have the most followers there. Everyone's left Twitter behind for other sites, and it's time for us to join them. Besides, we don't want weird Nazis and Crypto Bros looking at our content anyways.

(also I hope you appreciate the joke I made with the header of this section.)

✅ Cohost

It's no secret that we have problems with Cohost, and even left it for a bit at one point. However, nothing can change the fact that we have a lot of followers on there. Also, the vibes are just overall a lot better than Tumblr. Here's hoping that Cohost doesn't run out of money, so we can continue to post our silly stuff for you to see.

❌ Tumblr

A trans woman on Tumblr? Surprised we haven't been banned already lol

Ok but on the real, Tumblr sucks. Every time we open that site, it's just miserable posts that make you feel bad. It's also a huge pain to use, but at least since they changed the design, it doesn't become completely unusable on our internet if there's a single video on the page. Speaking of video, trying to post that is like playing the super lotto, and often times, we lose. Our art overall gets way less notes than on any other sites, and we just don't think it's worth it trying to post there anymore.

❌ YouTube*

Something we weren't able to specify in the format of the survey, since we tried to make it as straightforward as possible, was that when we said "YouTube," we really just meant "posting art in the community tab." When we got access to the community tab, it was like, hey maybe we can post our art here. We do get some likes here and there, but overall not a lot of people engage with it. We'll continue posting videos here and there, as well as Twitch VODs, but don't look for us on the community tab anymore.

*So yea just to be clear, we'll still post to YouTube, just not art to the community tab.

✅ FurAffinity

FurAffinity came in with a nice 69% on our survey. I'll say it: Nobody really likes FurAffinity, and it has a million problems. Despite that, it's still around, and people still use it, so we'll continue to use it too. Also, most the artists we follow are on there, so it's convenient for us.

❌ Weasyl

Now, don't get me wrong: We like Weasyl, it's nice, and somehow it's still around today. However, it came in really low in our results, and also, most people who are on there are also on a site we're staying on. So, hopefully you guys won't be missing out on our stuff.

Someone suggested we use PostyBirb to post to the site, and honestly, yea that's the main reason we've been posting there because we already do. Weasyl is essentially free to post to with PostyBirb, but then you gotta go and make sure it posted, and then check the site to see who replied or favorited (which isn't often.) Also, we don't follow many artists on Weasyl, so we don't have much of a reason to go there anymore.

❌ deviantART

To nobody's surprise, deviantART scored the lowest on this survey. deviantART is a dead site, just a ghost of its former self, chasing after the dream of AI generated art (more like a nightmare.) Often times, when we see an artist on there we haven't seen before, it turns out the art is AI generated. So, while we do follow some artists there who don't post to other sites but like, Twitter, we'll be missing out on them.

As for favorites of our art, it happens sometimes, but not often. We miss the old days of deviantART, when it was a strong standard for what an art site should be. But, those days are over a decade past now, and the dream is over.

✅ Patreon

I'll admit it, this was a fake option. While we have lost some patrons lately due to the economy, we still have a lot of supports on there, and we really appreciate that! We've added more rewards lately, and we're hoping the time freed up by leaving these other sites allows us to do more too. But yea, we'd be big fools if we left Patreon and left all that money on the table.

✅ Kofi

Kofi ended up scoring pretty low on the survey, but that's not a surprise - people generally go there to support us finanicially, not to look at our art. We'll continue to post our stuff there, just so people giving us money can see what they're giving us money for. Thank you for that support, by the way - you guys and people on Patreon is what pays our bills, and we're not rolling in dough here, but we couldn't even scrape by as we are without you guys, so thank you.

❌ Telegram

Ok, so this is a weird one. 36 people said they're on Telegram, which is 72% of our 50 subscribers there. So, the people who ARE on there are engaged, and we appreciate that! We've considered staying in there just for you guys, but there's something else to it: Posting to a Telegram announcement channel is very one-way, and it's very weird. Nobody can reply to what we post, and it's almost like posting into a void. Also, just about everyone who's in there is on another site, so we'll be better served posting there, and people are able to reply to us there. If there was a way to talk to people, it'd be cool, but the only way to do that is to create a chatroom based around the channel. None of us are interested in maintaining another chatroom, so that's out.

✅ Discord

To nobody's surprise, our Discord scored second highest on this list. Again, that's the power of @everyone. What's funny is like, we didn't even want to create a Discord? In 2018 people were creating Discord chats for their Patrons, but we didn't want to just have a "Patreon Money Chat." We kinda felt that it'd be super awkward, being around just people who are giving us money like, what if they're also weirded out and then decide to not give us money? But, when we did the first build of Shield Cat in 2019, we wanted live feedback, so we created the chat just for that. It turns out, it wasn't awkward at all, and it was actually pretty cool! We gradually started opening it up more (especially when SAGE 2020 happened) and now it's pretty popular. There's a lot of cool nerds there, and overall the vibe is really great. We're proud of what we've made there, and we plan to continue making sure it's a cool place.

✅ Our Forum

When Twitter started getting really bad, and everyone was on different sites, we were like "fuck this we're making our own site" and opened a forum. People liked it, but haven't been posting as much on there lately. We were actually considering closing it, but according to the survey, more people check in there than on Telegram, Weasyl, Kofi, or even Twitter. We've been thinking that people have been checking in, but just haven't been sure what to post. Now that we know this is the case, and we'll have more time to focus to individual sites, we'll start doing more there. (Yes, I said this already above, but I wanted to say it again.)

Conclusion

Doing this survey made us find out that we have a lot of the same followers on many sites. Unfortunately, this isn't the case for all sites, and we're gonna be leaving behind about 5% of people by reducing the amount of sites we're on. We greatly apologize for this, and hope that maybe there's some site we're still on that you are also on, but just missed? If not, hopefully you at least have Itch or Steam, so you can follow us there and see when we put out new game stuff. If not, our RSS on this blog does work, so you can follow that, if you like.

Once again, I want to thank everyone for participating in the survey, and it's gonna be a lot less pressure on us to try to keep all these sites up to date. Who knows, maybe we'll start enjoying posting online again, instead of viewing it like a massive chore. There's definitely a lot to be said about spreading yourself too thin, even with PostyBirb, and we've been getting tired of it for a while (especially Ashe.)

Thank you for reading all this if indeed you did, and we'll see you around (hopefully.)