How to Get More Views: Results from my little Joke Survey.

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Sabrina @Sabtastic

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University of Alberta

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

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How to Get More Views: Results from my little Joke Survey.

Posted by Sabtastic - July 21st, 2013

Alright so about two weeks ago, I posted six very misleading thumbnails to my art gallery for a kind of half-assed survey. The prank was by no means a serious survey, but it was made to narrow down what kind of female artwork the NG art portal appreciates more. In total there was a thumbnail of: 1. naked boobs, 2. a panty shot, 3. a suggestive mouth, 4. a bikini bottom shot, 5. a colourful eye, and 6. a woman's face. None of the artwork involved male subjects, so unfortunately I'm only going to be focusing on pinup art involving women. The whole thing was also meant to shed a little bit of light on how to get the most views possible without necessarily being the best artist ever. After two weeks, I stopped recording stats, so that's what the image below will reflect.

All in all, I'm really happy with the results LegolaSS and I gathered from this survey. Big thanks to him by the way, he volunteered to track views and scores for two weeks straight! The artwork created this HUGE dialogue between myself and the people who found it, and a lot of you offered your opinions and perspectives that I hadn't considered before, so thanks a lot for taking part and giving me the chance to get to know you all better! ...

ALSO I'M REALLY SORRY if I just pissed you off by tricking you over and over. 3:>
I PROMISE that the next pieces of art I post will be real! haha

_________________________

TIPS, TRICKS, AND OBSERVATIONS:

+ Most of you probably already know how to crop your artwork strategically, but anything that looks like nudity, cleavage, a camel-toe, or a butt is guaranteed a few extra clicks.
Apparently on Newgrounds, according to this study; boobs are preferred.

+ An 'A' for Adult rating doesn't hurt your chances for getting more views, either.
The 'A' rated art submissions got at least 2-5 THOUSAND more views than the 'E' and 'M' rated thumbnails in this series.

+ In general, fan art that involves popular characters from games, movies, or tv shows will attract people from outside your webpage via keyword searches. Try creating content based on a fandom you enjoy.
In this case, Princess Zelda and Sailor Moon were the top contenders. They earned an average of 4.5 THOUSAND more views than the no-name characters.

+ Put a lot of effort into making your thumbnail look visually appealing and don't make it too vague. It's one of the key things that draw in your viewer (on Newgrounds, at least). Think ahead about where and what exactly you want to put in your thumbnail, and spend a little more time fine-tuning it.

- As predicted, the two thumbnails that only featured a face or an eye did the worst in terms of views (compared to the more adult ones).

- The two thumbnails that did the worst were also no-name, made-up characters. The popular characters from tv shows and games did much better.

_________________________

Sooooo... That's pretty much it! Hopefully all of this wasn't just completely obvious and useless to you. The picture below should be the most helpful.

WHY THESE RESULTS ARE SKEWED:
Certain thumbnails got featured/front-paged and some did not
Followers / Fans who have me favourited could have viewed the images without seeing the thumbnails at all.
The images were not all given the same maturity rating.
Some viewers may have looked for the rest of the fake thumbnails on purpose or viewed / voted multiple times.
Results could have been less skewed if I posted from a fake / new account.

DISCLAIMER:
Lemme just say that views aren't everything. Quality artwork will find its way to the top regardless of content, and you really shouldn't just pander to a specific audience because all you want is page views. Focus on your interests and talents, and cultivate the things you're really passionate about. If that happens to involve boobs and butts, then power to you! This was all just for fun and just a satirical, sociological observation, so I don't wanna hear about anybody's panties getting in a bunch because I'm subliminally calling certain types of art unpopular.

How to Get More Views: Results from my little Joke Survey.

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OdellAtkinson 2013-07-21 02:17:25

Wish I could say I'm shocked. :/
Time to draw some Princess Bubblegum porn for viewership then. Be back in an hour.

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 02:17:25

Haha yeaah...

It seems especially surprising that so many of the viewers for adult content come from outside Newgrounds.

SimplyRobot 2013-07-21 02:36:36

This has been relevant for a long time.

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 02:36:36

Haha yeah. Since the portal opened in '09!

VicariousE 2013-07-21 02:38:38

As a fan/follower, I really don't use the 'previous-up-next' buttons, which would bypass the thumbnail view. Quickest course, is to click everything in the favorites listing, starting from a few pages back (so I don't miss anything)... which does involve going back to that listing. It's pretty rare, but sometimes I'll open the link in a new tab, so I can navigate around a bit, or look at it later. So... that's my take on the 'results skewed by' column of this post.

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 02:38:38

That's usually what I tend to check out first, too. :P
I only just noticed that the 'Back' 'Up' 'Next' buttons even existed! lol

ZJ 2013-07-21 03:41:31

So, we're getting actual porn pictures now, right?

Right?

Sab?

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 03:41:31

NYO! D:

TheMAM 2013-07-21 06:28:35

I wonder how much views a thumbnail of male genitalia would get. XD

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 06:28:35

GUESS THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT, EH?

Labraxadores 2013-07-21 07:27:04

Now...now this is surprising. I didn't expect that people liked tits more than butts. I mean...ah, nevermind. Anyway, I personally had no problems with the humorous tone of the survey. Well, not like it was completely necessary, but I suppose it still was fun for the viewers and the artist.

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 07:27:04

Well, it's not necessarily true. Maybe I just didn't draw a pretty enough butt! If it was a completely naked butt, I might have gotten a few more views for it. :B

All in all, thanks for humoring me haha. xD

LazarheaD 2013-07-21 09:29:44

Okay, we're perverts, we get it!

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 09:29:44 (Updated 2013-07-21 12:53:19)

SORRY LOL
By that logic I'm like a big perverted ringleader because I supply this stuff. :V

Nicknclank 2013-07-21 12:21:52

I didn't even looked at the thumbnails. I just pressed the "Next" button at the art portal and came upon them ._.

Hey, at least we got drawings of Sab in the process :P

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 12:21:52

Hah, funny, because I didn't even know there was a 'next' button until like two weeks ago! xD

Doomroar 2013-07-21 16:34:38

well it was somehow obvious... and by somehow i mean a lot XD.
so... what will you be uploading next anyway? the Anglerfish Ovary was damn good, unlike giant homoerotic wrestlers that destroy cities... so more Anglerfishes body parts would be a nice thing to have, strange animals FTW!!

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 16:34:38

Haha aaaaaaggggh I know. I shouldn't have even done this stupid thing. lmao
I'm procrastinating from doing ACTUAL art for the upcoming artist alleys I'm doing... with more USELESS art. lmao

I have a couple things cooking, but right now I'm knocking out a couple new 1st and 2nd gen pokemon team commissions. C:

SimplyRobot 2013-07-21 16:50:45

More like since the internet itself was founded in 1992.

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 16:50:45

HEH
no joke! :V

Spedmallet 2013-07-21 17:46:12

I pointed out the obvious and I'm a pretty girl everyone pay attention to me!!

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 17:46:12 (Updated 2013-07-21 18:13:30)

<:c

well thanks for saying i'm pretty i guess... :U

ReignOfHell 2013-07-21 23:06:39

I guess the only thing that wasn't tested/accounted for was something slightly more specific. Like My Little Pony or something of that sort.

Almost sure that'd have quite a few guaranteed hits, still though, amusing experiment with "What you'd expect" results.

KEEP ON INOVATIN' GURL.

Sabtastic 2013-07-21 23:06:39 (Updated 2013-07-23 02:40:42)

LOL THANKS MAYN. :V
...I wonder what people would DO if I drew MLP... Would people start calling me a... "pegasister"...?

Even the thought makes me kind of shudder, I'm not gonna lie. lol I enjoy the show, but it doesn't really inspire me on an artistic level at all.

YoutubeIsawesome 2013-07-22 01:59:51

That's how the internet works in general

Sabtastic 2013-07-22 01:59:51

*lol SURVEY RENDERED USELESS*

Kantoken 2013-07-22 03:37:41

Did you really needed this survey to point out the obvious? It looks like you had fun doing it, but I think you could have spend all that time and energy drawing real stuff, because, you know, "Quality artwork will find its way to the top regardless of content". Unfortunately, this isn't true. Most NG users are adolescent boys, and true to nature, are interested in anything female. Meaning that artwork containing this, will be more popular on NG. You will gather the more hard core audience who do go for quality over cheap hits, but they will always remain a smaller group. Meaning that if you want views and popularity, draw boobs. Human nature, hurray.

Sabtastic 2013-07-22 03:37:41

Haha yyeah... ^^;
You're totally right.
Now that it's all said and done, I'm like 'who the hell is going to think this is news?' lol

Truer words couldn't have been said regarding the whole male demographic thing, though. It's so evident here. With that said, I can't say I don't like the 'smaller group' that have ended up as good friends of mine, though!

Love the community here. c:

ancientsurvivor 2013-07-22 07:04:14

Clicked all, rated none, reviewed none.

The coal scetches on the other hand were interessting. It's surprising you had that different viewcounts however after it was kinda obvious that there/which were fake.
Missing out on - male subjects in, how did feminists call it again "objectifying" poses - is so so I guess. It would have given an ineressting contrapoint (for what my exüerience is worth, females are more "kinky").

That aside, couldn't you have made a graph? Text based result presentation is so tedious for the reviewer. Put the pictures on the abscissa and the view/score/reviews as colour RGB (or whatever) on the ordinate. Additional notes in flowtext ("retweet").
Yeah I know it ain't a scientific work but I had to read that "result image" thrice to compare results.

Sabtastic 2013-07-22 07:04:14

Thanks for your comment! (since you didn't review/rate the other stuff)

I really should have made a graph... I opened up an online generator for one, but I couldn't be arsed to type in every single score and view count for two weeks, multiplied by 6 images.. haha For the most part the views slowed significantly when nothing was front-paged or featured anywhere.

Also sorry the image thing wasn't more intuitive to read. I'm no stats major.. xD

Psynopsis 2013-07-22 10:05:01

I know it was only a brief, informal survey, but I think you're drawing too many conclusions off of the "data". For example, your highest two submissions were both "fanart", adult rated, and had adult thumbnails. I can't say whether the "fanart" aspect , the adult rating, or thumbnail itself increased views since each of the 3 "awesome" factors is there. It would be much more interesting if you uploaded the art 4 times, each with a different rating, for example, since that would isolate one factor.

That said, I'm not surprised about the first and third place. Both have really appealing thumbnails and I would have clicked on them.

Sabtastic 2013-07-22 10:05:01

You're totally right.
lol Everything about this survey is subject to so many things that are out of my control, so it's really not all that reliable. I should'a teamed up with somebody before-hand to think out my approach a bit better.

Also thanks!! :B

Doomroar 2013-07-23 03:25:03

"I can normally tell what'll be more popular on which site before I post it. Boobs and nudity are popular here, Fandoms and meme humor are popular on Tumblr... and weird fetish art is popular on DeviantART...!" - Sabtastic 2013

so Fucking damn true! but i will add to it, that animu gurls are just popular everywhere and that connects the 3 places.

oh? artist alleys? and is an on the net event or a physical one? regardless of it, what have you planed? i may not be a big fan of fan-art in general or portraits/still life, but your other stuff, like the penguins and the aforementioned deep sea fish reproductive orgasm are quite good.

Sabtastic 2013-07-23 03:25:03

That's also too true. Animu gurls are EVERYWHAR. :V

And the Artist Alley thing is real...! c: It's going to be in about 2 more weeks and I'll be selling stickers, prints, buttons, hand drawn request/commissions! C:

LegolaSS 2013-07-23 05:22:26

if you want hits, GO ADULT regardless of named characters or not.
if people want to find this sort of stuff they will most likely turn off all the filters apart from adult... remember people have to turn the ADULT feature on to see it in the first place. (unless the check your user-page while its in your most recent uploads)

i am not surprised with the viewing order, i correctly guessed what order it would be on day 1.

if your going as far to get Mature, you might as well push your art to Adult unless your stuff is artistic

it all comes down to personal users taste in what they want to upload.

Side note - Adult and mature never get "popular / best of" because of its rating. (this is automatic based on view)

Sabtastic 2013-07-23 05:22:26

Ahhh! I didn't know that last little tidbit about the art portal...! That's really good to know! o:

Also grats on guessing everything correctly on Day 1!! xD

megas86 2013-07-23 16:14:23

on what you did in all was clever, sneaky, devious and down right funny.... brilliant cropping and i enjoyed each of the art you did.. it was like two arts into one photo... oh and the w=one that you had your middle finger up.... pure hysterical LOL i enjoy your work and always keep it up and waiting to see what is next

Sabtastic 2013-07-23 16:14:23

Haha thanks. Sorry for putting you through it. xD

Cheers for putting up with all my bullshit! :D

BrenthEMan 2013-07-26 11:08:11

I missed this until now. I laughed at your evil, devious look in the images after you click the thumbs. And the name "Operation Thumbnail - Perv Survey" ha. Like so many others, I am not surprised by your results. :)

I went through the top 20 pages on the site one day just out of curiosity and most of them were adult oriented!

Sabtastic 2013-07-26 11:08:11

Haha thanks Bren!
Too bad I didn't catch ya earler while I was still taking notes! B:

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