Social media has permeated society, particularly Facebook; even the US Army has an account. Any business hoping to increase its presence, and therefore sales, has to consider social media as a requirement, and comics are no exception.
Many people in the industry have realized this and have flocked to social media, Twitter specifically. Gail Simone, in particular, has been very active, frequently interacting with fans and retweeting their comments. She is active on Tumblr as well, reblogging fan art and comments. The benefit of such interactions is that by interacting with fans on such a personal level, the artist/writer/etc can then form bonds and relationships with their fans, which are then likely to help increase sales since fans are likely to support the people they're "friends" with.
These relationships can then be taken advantage of to help increase sales. For example, an artist could talk about a new series they're working on by showing panel or page teasers, which the fans would then go and purchase. A writer could talk about a convention they were attending, which would drive ticket sales by fans attempting to see the writer and buy their merchandise. An indirect sales benefit is that since people are more likely to positively view others they've had positive experiences with, reviewers would be more likely to positively review projects by writers/artists/etc that had used social media well. This is especially important for people who work on indie comic books, as they have to be able to boost the awareness of their projects (more so than Marvel and DC) in order to get sales.
What happens, though, when a site loses popularity, as was the case for MySpace several years ago, and everyone is forced to move to a new platform? Of course it would take some effort to regain the same amount of followers as on previous sites, but by cultivating positive relationships, a devoted fan base should be more likely to follow to the new site.This shows that, if done effectively, there's no real downside to using social media and it's actually vital to do so, for both staying relevant and for increasing sales.
I agree with you that social media is necessary to stay relevant in any industry to drive sales. I like how you tied in the topic with how the comic book industry could serve to benefit and maximize on using social media. I believe that what you've suggested would help improve notoriety and sales. Now, when it comes to gaining loyalty I agree one hundred percent that there needs to be very positive relationships with the sites and the users. Overall, these are factors the comic book industry need to consider in order to gain a larger following and retain their current followers.
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