Did all those reels help?

It's pretty common knowledge that Instagram isn't for us anymore. It doesn't work like it once did back in the good ol' days. Yet, Instagram insists on being good for you, high in fiber, low in fat, and an integral part of a balanced diet. Well, I did the thing IG tells you to do-make a bunch of reels-and am here to report my findings. To quickly set this up, I just ended a month long Kickstarter campaign where I posted 13 reels in 31 days-a little under one every other day-and posted to my IG feed on the off days. The sum total was 26 posts in 31 days-that's only 5 days out of the month of August that I didn't post anything.

First off I can confirm that reels do indeed have more views/plays more than anything. Below I'll breakdown Reach vs. Engagement. Reach meaning how many accounts saw my posts at all (using IG's metrics) versus Engagement which is hearts/likes.

Single/Carousel posts on the feed: Avg Reach-200 versus Avg Engagement-30

For stories and reels, let's just look at views for our metric.

Stories received an average of 40 views give or take. Reels on the other hand averaged out to around 350 views/plays. The highest view was 825. And again, according to IG's metrics, they did a good job of showing my reels to followers and non-followers.

So, after all of that, how many followers did I gain during that month long campaign?

Zero.

In fact, here's a screen shot of my account overview from a month of posting, showing up in stories, making and posting reels, etc.

Oof. Not good.

This also begs the question, what does Instagram count as "reaching"? It looks like I reached +55% more accounts but less were engaged.

But I can't say it was all for naught. There were definitely instances where I would see a friend of mine share a reel or post I had made, immediately resulting in an additional Kickstarter pledge because they had been able to reach their audience where I could not.

My biggest take away from all of this? Instagram did work for me during the campaign but only insomuch that my friends and fans were spreading the word on my behalf. I give that credit to people and not to an algorithm. As far as that follower count? That clenches it. There's no more growth on Instagram-at least not for me. No matter how much content I post, how engaging that content was, or what I posted about-zero new followers.

This means I won't be putting much more energy into my IG account, it's not worth it. Instead, find me here, where you're already reading.

It's been so long since we've seen Spencer and Reggie back in action, so I thought I'd share a new strip with you guys that will go in book 2. Even though it's not new-new, it is a never before seen strip that fits nicely into one of the pages from the new book. It also follows a more traditional set-up/punchline sort of delivery. What I'm trying to say is I miss drawing these characters so much and can't wait to get back to the current storyline. Until then, please enjoy this bonus content from Book Two!

There's also this: an extra panel of Gerald that I drew for one of the Christmas scenes.

And I've also got a new autobio comic for you guys this week!

New Comic Review

I finally wrote a review for the last graphic novel I read, In Limbo by Deb J.J. Lee. Read it on Substack for free here.

What's Making Me Happy This Week

• A few things are making the Happy list this week. First up is Rhea and I saw Beetlejuice Beetlejuice this week. We both loved it! I'm reading a lot of reviews that mention that it's weighted down by too many characters but I thought everything was great. I never got lost in who was doing what or why. I thought it captured a lot of the imagination and spooky/gross charm of the original. Michael Keaton looked like he was having a blast putting the stripes back on and the entire cast was great. Fun! If you liked the original, you won't be disappointed.

• None of you can really capitalize on this except to help celebrate my win, but someone in my neighborhood had curbed a wooden magazine/book rack. It's perfect for tabling at shows and comic cons and you bet I stopped and scooped it up. Free book display rack-score!

• We started putting up our Halloween decorations this month! We started on Sept. 1st and are still putting things up piece by piece. Excited to get the house spooky looking and started to set the mood for Spooky Season and Fall.

I'd say that about wraps things up for this week's newsletter. Seeing more comics in the comics section makes me happy, I'm hoping there'll be more of that in the future. As always, thanks for being here and for reading. See you all next week.

~b

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