arcady opened this issue on Sep 30, 2006 · 22 posts
linkdink posted Sun, 01 October 2006 at 5:08 AM
Arcady, very interesting questions. I say that not just as someone interested in maximizing their exposure (up to a point; I won't change what I create in order to get hits), but also because I'm interested in the psychology of what attracts people, and what people comment on. Renderosity is certainly a large enough sample to study.
I used to think that posting around 10:00 AM Eastern (my zone), Tues - Thurs was the best, at least for my kind of stuff (pinups, more on that below). My theory is that there are a lot of people surfing during work hours, sort of a captive audience, trapped at their desk, looking for something to do other than work. Mon/Fri are not so good, as they might be busier, deadline days. Weekends, people might be out, or creative people might be working on their own stuff rather than browsing and commenting. These are just theories, but based on tracking my own hits, and by observing the "artists online" number in the gallery as it fluctuates.
When I started here, I though I was doing poor if I got less than a 1000 views, now I find a great view count to be around 300 <<
I've seen something similiar. In the 2 years I have been posting, the hits I get in the first 24 hours (ie, before your pic is completely buried) have decreased, even though my quality has gone up, as have my comments. I have no way of knowing if the total number of pics posted has increased; perhaps Renderosity has published some kind of tracking figure like this, I don't know. But I must say that at some point I became much less interested in hit counts and almost exclusively concerned with my comments. But, you gotta get hits to get comments….
Now, about posting pinups. I spend a lot of time on my thumbnails in an attempt to get hits. Remember, people are clicking on your thumbnail, not your picture. As has been mentioned countless times, if you put T&A in your thumbnail, that can help get hits. Other things I have noticed:
-a nice chest usually beats a nice rear end every time. But I’m an ass man, so I don't render a bunch of boob shots just to get hits/comments. Its all relative; lots of other people do no nudity at all, and get a fraction of the hits that pinup guys like me get. So no complaints here. Just an observation.
-a closeup of a pretty girl's face. Realism helps here, but it could be stylized/postworked.
-a partial view of something, not necessarily a body part, but perhaps an action or something that makes people impulsively click to see the "other piece of the puzzle."
[As an aside, I really think Renderosity should sponsor a Thumbnail contest. It is such an important part of what we do around here. There is a real art to it. I see some amazingly clever thumbs.]
Funny.... I was reading a similar thread on Renderotica just the other day, and someday said Tuesday was the worst day over there..... go figure. >Does it differ if your posting pin-ups, NVITWS, fantasy, outdoor landscapes, toon work, realism attempts, photography, 2D work, series, Vue, Poser, Bryce, etc...?<
I don't know. It could be that people who are more interested in things besides the dominant style here (Poser Pinups) tend to sort their gallery by their preferred style, and therefore if you post in that style, you get buried much less quickly, thus it matters less when you post. Just a guess. Personally, I always browse All/All, unless I'm in a hurry, then its Poser/Pinups.
Does it differ at different sites? Here, daz, 3dcommune, artzone, elsewhere...><
Since I think those get much less traffic (not sure about Artzone), your pic will get buried much less quickly. I post at Renderotica regularly, and it hardly matters at all when I post (I don't think, I could be wrong). I don't frequent the other galleries you mentioned enough to know for sure.
Lastly, what Arcady said is certainly true, although I will rephrase in a perhaps more positive way: if you want hits/comments, comment a lot on other people's works. People will quite often return the favor.