Let me know down below if I should make an entire video about Discord and how to build your own online art community! But if you're interested in learning more about my overall social media strategy, watch this video next: ua-cam.com/video/srI86rEkxVs/v-deo.html
I would love a video explaining how to use discord effectively and set it up for a community. I've only used it casually for gaming, and don't really understand the ins and outs.
Yes, that would be super interesting ! Also I hope you will talk a bit about discord flaws and big problems with privacies. As this give the feel of an intimate places which can lead to people sharing more personal infos. But this isn't a good place at all for that or personal conversations. Which I could give more infos but I'm on phone sorry
Not everything has to be a community forum… I love patreon for being an easy method for financially supporting a creator without being stressed out about following, commenting, and interacting. It’s exhausting how much time is demanded from creators to do all of this instead of just creating. 😪
I agree, why does there have to be any expectation of fostering a community? Shouldn't it just be about the art? Often, communities are created organically or even independently from the artist.
I feel like I'm one of the few people where I don't have to 'know' an artist to like their art or buy it. I'm also incredibly introverted so i prefer any and all indirect ways of supporting someone.
Agree. In my case, I don't have time to invest on discord, there's so much I need to do that in the end all I want is to create and also follow the art/content from the creators I like
From what I understand from other artists, Patreon is _not_ about community building. It's about sending the community _you've already built_ *to* Patreon to buy what you sell. As a Patreon cartoonist said about crowd funding, " *_First_* you build the crowd, *_then_* comes the funding".
I mostly agree, and I think this holds them back in the ways I talked about. Integrating paid aspects into a solid thriving community seems just like strictly better
Yes this it’s why already established artists thrive on there, it takes a while to build a crowd and many use it like Kickstarter first to sponsor new tech for projects or publish a comic or something. Once you’re consistent with art and have an audience then you’ll have consistent pay. I respect her decision regardless, but factors need to be considered such as the economy and what the audience wants. I’ve supported creators on patreon short term because it’s what I could afford then and loved the little rewards that came with it. I personally wouldn’t want to lose access to the community because I can’t afford to pay and as others have stated this is coming at a time during a global recession. Whereas, with patreon I miss out on some rewards or directly supporting the artist. It’s cool to try this out, but when most people can’t afford groceries or heating in the winter, I don’t know if paying for a discord server will be top of their priority. Even on UA-cam there’s been talks about cuts from sponsors and stuff. My own art shop on Etsy hasn’t sold anything in months and I’ve accepted it is what it is at this point. I still have a full time job I can fall on, but like many others it may not last during the huge economic shift we’re going to experience.
@@KelseyRodriguez isn't patreon an app where everything you want to see has to be bought at least a preview of everything would be nice what a waste of money people sometimes
I sort of disagree with the framing that patreon isn't great for artists, because from what you described I would state it as: patreon isn't great for classes and community driven activities. Most of the people I see doing well on patreon are making art distributed directly to their followers (images, writing, vids, comics, music), and then sending out zips with all the art after the monthly billing cycle. I support a number of creators doing this, and am perfectly happy dispite the fact I don't communicate at all with any of the other supporters. So it makes a lot of sense why patreon isn't working well for what you tried using it for, which by its nature requires lots of interpersonal engagement from your community. I've also noticed creators on patreon tend to struggle if they offer too many rewards early on, and the platform tends to work best if you keep it simple; there are exceptions though. I'm glad to hear Discord is working great for you though, I think I'll join in as well!
This video is gold! As a fellow creative who's looking for ways to interact with my community on a more personal level, I was considering Patreon, but I think I'll look at some different options, thank you Kelsey 😊
Ohmygod i live for this interaction ❤️🔥 Big fan of Abi’s design videos and work 🤍👩🏼💻 sending love to the both of you all the way from the Philippines! Thank you for all the value both of you bring to your respective communities 🥰 ilysm
Yeah, yes. Gold. Thanks for sharing, not only your insight, knowledge, but doing it in a fair diplomatic way. Kudos to you, and keep following that good soul of yours!
Oh my goodness Patreon engagement is seriously difficult, to the point where I started to think my content was just terrible & my art not good enough. I gave myself a massive slap because it’s not us & it doesn’t equal our worth. Reduced my content right down to the very basics, but it’s only ever shrinking, not growing. Thanks so much for talking about this platform! 💖
I'm your patron💕, patrons of 10+ other UA-cam creators, and I am a Patreon creator with 150 patrons. I agree with a lot of what you said. Patreon isn't a community builder and a place for high engagement. But if creators understood that before they join the platform they will be better off. Have free fun convos and engagement in Discord and the UA-cam comment section. Pay your bills and buy supplies from the real income you can make from Patreon. Personally, the platform has truly changed my life. I see a lot of creators giving way too much in their Patreon tiers when supporters actually don't care. They just want to give us money because they love what we do and appreciate the art/entertainment/or education we are putting out into the world. It's a hard concept to wrap our brains around when you imagine that genuine and lovely people do exist in this world 🌟 Sometimes as artists, we're constantly trying to prove our worth because we've been taught that art isn't as "important or valuable". The people who DO value art will pay you to keep the creations alive. At the end of the day, income helps to sustain artists not likes or engagement. From a patron: Wherever you go, I'll bring the cash 🤑
I absolutely agree! I wish Patreon had a bit more variety though, the platform could be a good community building area but it isn't at the moment. I hope you follow me over to Discord
I've definitely been struggling with my Patreon lately too. I remember them sending out a pretty big survey to creators last year, with tons of polls and hints about what's to come in the future. I do agree that Patreon needs to be MUCH better. They could implement so many awesome features that make it easier for the creator to create and share with their community, while also growing organically. One thing that I really wish they had available was the option to make more customizable layouts if you're making a newsletter. I make monthly newsletters for my patrons and am always so frustrated when I have to share photos. I wish I could rearrange them, turn them into a grid, etc. I wish that Patreon was much more customizable, because as it stands right now, it's pretty bland and hard to navigate (as both a creator and patron). It would also be nice for there to be some sort of "featured" page, which features creators you may either already know or could potentially find interesting. I'm still trying to grow my Patreon and it's been pretty stagnant for a couple of years now. I hardy get any engagement at all, but I don't have many patrons yet. I'm not gonna give it up just yet because I believe that I can make it grow, but I have been seriously considering getting a Discord server. It's much more intimate!
Yes! A more customizable page would be fantastic. I honestly love all of your ideas. I truly do wish the best for Patreon and could see myself having both if they changed some things. Really hoping someone at Patreon reads your comment and takes these into consideration 💗
I was on Patreon for 1 month, subscriber to others that you would likely know if I say their names. I quit because of how difficult was to browse content, even though I like the channels. Go back and forward , Patreon and UA-cam , no comments between users, it's very confusing. The feel for a community has gone. I wouldn't expect the host to engage with the subscribers too much, I wouldn't do it ider. Clear content is the best tutorial, not many questions should be from the community.
Patreon is mainly for supporting the creator and maybe getting a bonus if you want. If you're going to do a lot of extra connect for it, you already have to have a big enough audience there, because otherwise the extra work wouldn't be worth your time. Sure some people will look for bonuses as an extra selling point, but thats not all of it.
Patreon pays the majority my bills so I'm not going anywhere, however there is a lot to be improved on Patreon. I have to use dropbox for people to see my content because Patreon doesn't allow long image posts and I do webcomics for a living. I do get some engagement on it, about 50-100 likes and 5-15 comments per post. I didn't overdue the rewards promised so there is only about 3hrs a week or extra work going towards my Patreon and the rest is just my comic that I would be doing anyways. My patreon makes $1500-$2000 per month and I only make $400-$1200 on other sites so I need my Patreon money or I'll be working at McDonalds. I found that there are certain rewards people are more like to sign up for. Usually to see NSFW content, tutorials, support content that is polarizing like hate content gets a lot of support(podcasts), and then sometimes an artist with a massive social media following that just wants to support. I find that even with a large following people still want tutorials or NSFW content a lot of times.
Exactly. The Artist is the one in control of their Patreon strategy. There is no need to offer 363747585 different rewards. The best options are things that are not very time consuming or that you are already doing. There's an artist that offer 1 small comic (4 panels) per month for 5$ and she has more than 1000 subscribers. It does not have to be complicated.
If there was a way to turn a bit of profit from a $3/mth subscription to get an art postcard I think that could be pretty cool. There's so much online digital content these days it could be nice to feel like you can support an artist and get a tangible product without having to spend more of your time online. I went to a funky restaurant once where they had converted an old cigarette machine into an art vending machine. Artists put quick little pieces of art into cigarette pack sized boxes, and you could drop in $2 and get a fun little surprise piece of art. I still have a few of those original little doodles up on my wall. No need to worry about how to preserve a digital NFT over long periods of time, and maybe one day those little doodles might be worth more than $2.
I think if you have a good engaged following for your artwork, like 20k at least on Instagram. There is no point starting a Patreon, unless you already have the support and community you need to make it work. Patreon can be magic for you if you have already built a following, my friend makes a good monthly income on it, it's super inspirational you have to have art that fans are excited about.
I love to hear this perspective. Honestly, I've been surviving with direct donations since my first wanderings in the only art world, mainly cause I don't have nearly enough followers to stablish a Patreon. I'll take this into account in the future when the opportunity to create a community presents. Great video as always ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I'm a creative who's been on and off Patreon as a creator and as a patron. And the whole platform is pretty lacking in a lot of ways, not just on the level of engagement with one's fanbase. To really succeed on Patreon you have to have been an early adopter of the platform. (It's a lot like Twitch that way - something to the tune of 99% of all creatives on both platforms make less than $100/month.) Personally, I've had more luck with Ko-Fi, because it's more flexible for everyone involved. Glad to see you're making Discord work for you though! I don't think I would do the same - my community is less on the commenting end and more on the casual-watching end. My community also knows how much work I put into the comics and art I make, so in a way, the lack of comments reads more to me like "my peeps like it, and they want more, they just don't want my time eaten up by managing a comments section."
As a new artist who has been on social media for a while but looking for new ways to grow my community, I appreciate this video so much! I had it on my list of things to do for a while!
Really interesting perspective! I tried launching my Patreon last year and it straight up wasn't working so I shut it down, and thinking about it over the past few months it seems to really only work for some people. Thank you for sharing your experience!!
Good for you Kelsey 🙌🏻 What always puts me off from doing this is all the extra stuff you have to offer, it’s a lot of work. Keep us posted how this develops for you financially. I hear good things about Mighty Networks but premium memberships on Discord is new to me, how cool!
That’s why I feel like I’d never want to do it, so much extra work and projects every single month and you can’t slip up or you’ll disappoint fans/supporters I can’t handle that type of commitment or even rigid schedule. I know some make a lot from patreon, but there’s so much planning for it on top of social media, client work, an actual job, shop stuff, it’s too much honestly. I want to make what I want at a pace that’s not destroying me.
I really like your discord community (and not just because im a mod) people have good discussions about anything, art, mental health, supplies, drawing advice etc, but keep it civil and polite. You have the more older experienced artists helping out the younger crowd all the time 😀hopefully this change works out well for you 😀
Some probably would but there's probably some that won't. I don't think it always has to do with boredom as much as their own lives changing whether that's financially or what have you.
I disagree, I think Patreon is still pretty useful. As for this strategy, I’ve just been combing my Patreon and Discord and it’s been working out fine for me. Personally speaking, I don’t see much of your art videos in my recommended, so on a whole it might be hard to convert ppl to an art Patreon. I wonder if maybe that was where the issue was?🤔Either way tho, everyone has their own way, so I do hope this works out for you. Best of luck with it!
Watching the video I did wonder why Kelsey wasn't using Discord on her Patreon. The set up is simple enough and would give her the best of both worlds.
I was using both, Patreon fails at giving users the proper roles a lot of the time and I had to do a bunch of manual work that the Patreon Discord bot should've been doing automatically. My Patreon content was mostly business oriented, the same stuff you see here on UA-cam. Decided to switch and I've been liking it so far!
@@KelseyRodriguez I see. Yeah, I feel that with the Patron bot. Def a bit buggy. I'm glad it's working out for you. Knowing when to pivot can be tough, but is a really important factor in business.
Despite the biased antipathy of Patreon's Trust & Safety moderation team for NSFW material, the site remains useful for artists. However, I believe you should think about the fact that we are in the midst of a recession and people do not have as many income to support creators, which explains the slow expansion, and the quantity you are still receiving is something other artists with more limitations would desire and work to get. Actively moderated and raided public Discord servers have its drawbacks. Nonetheless, I want the best for you in your efforts.
@@bruce-le-smith It's definitely an unpaid admin job. i used to mod when i had lower self worth and an unfulfilled need to be useful to someone. i'd constantly have ideas and things to do to build and connect with the community, then i realized i was doing a lot of this for no pay and very little personal growth. i ended up leaving and the community closed up along with it. the artist moved over to patreon and raised their commission prices just to make ends meet. less connection but definitely less effort moderating people's behavior.
@@bruce-le-smith it is and when people can’t pay their mods or treat them how they should the discord servers fall apart. I was a part of a UA-cam community, he did travel vlogs and I did support on patreon then idk he stopped putting effort into his videos and started doing live streams of the same crap over and over and let some really toxic people coexist in his space, which sucks because he was one of the first to do stuff with discord and used to make such positive and inspiring stuff, but I think now he’s just burned out and gotten older so a lot of things have fallen to the wayside. I used to be quite active too and the community was nice, but since the pandemic and lackluster content everything has gone downhill. I told the mods some of the innapropriate messages I got from weirdos in the server sending me selfies and stuff or dragging me into drama… and these people are still allowed to be in what was supposed to be a family friendly server, so I left and came back 6 months later and it’s become nothing but political arguments, conspiracies and trolling nonsense. An active mod that used to be on there quit after a falling out with the UA-camr and the server wasn’t the same so I left for good. It became a place full of angry incels and predators and mods without a spine to ban people like they used to. I don’t know what happened, but the few mods that were still active weren’t doing their jobs and the sad thing is this UA-camr still promotes his discord server and it’s public… like dude you must see what happens?? He does respond to people on there.
@@lehuwu yes I agree! I don’t think you need to constantly interacting with people either. It’s good to have a connection, but we’re way too connected as it is nowadays. Discord is great for smaller, niche things, it works for streamers too that’s when I used it the most, but in my experience UA-cam ones either die out or they become toxic and spammy after a while. Good for you for knowing your worth, like it’s cool you helped that artist, but I’d much rather support them on patreon than discord. I wouldn’t want to lose access to friends or a community because I couldn’t afford to pay one month.
Yeah I love 💕 discord and recently over the last couple of months I left Patreon because it was so hard for people that were supporting me to actually get access to the tier’s and it was like once you post something if people don’t see it on that one particular day there is no way for them to find it or go back to it and even though they recently added native video I still don’t like it. On the flipside I’ve gotten a lot more engagement in Discord it feels like you’re in your own little world and people feel safe to have conversations and talk to each other and share their life so yeah I love it to So you definitely made the right decision many blessings to you on your journey
Looking forward to the update on how Discord goes for you in a couple of months. It is definitely superior over other platforms when it comes to communicating casually with others.
I thought patreon was just a donation box so you can slowly rely less and less on sponsors and ad revenue. Why not have the best of both worlds? Still have both patreon and discord so you have the extra income and still have the community on discord
Yea you can integrate the two and also make patrons have a private channel in the server. I thought patreon was honestly just another supplemental income for artists, partially niche ones with a large following or who want to achieve a project/goal. Many have had great successes with it and it becomes part of their normal income especially if they have an online shop.
Especially now with the current climate, we’re going to be entering a massive global recession soon. Many already can’t afford groceries and winter is going to make it harder with heating costs. I do worry about how creatives will find support, but it’s why they tend to have various channels of income.
It's been hard as an artist to receive support and I do support other artists all the time, specifically other painters, illustrators, SWers, tattoo artists and musicians, the ones that are genuine and honest get my support and also if I like their art!
Conent creators rarely follow their supporters back. Unless you are unique, make interesing content, then you're not gonna get their follow. Some of the biggest artists I support, that Im active in their community and they don't follow me.
That sounds like an amazing idea. I’ve always been kinda weary of Patreon and the idea of putting stuff behind a paywall. It’s partly why I went with Ko-Fi for the flexibility but I don’t think it has the same amount of traffic as Patreon. But the discord premium stuff sounds way better, people can join for free and if they want give back then they can and even if someone might not be able to be a afford it, they can still be apart of the community and everything it already has.
Such a timely video again, Kelsey, thank you so much. Also I love the light at your video, it is so cozy as if I am sitting right in front of you in a living room or a coworking space. My Patreon was on billing pause since February, because I am from Russia and it felt ethically wrong to charge people for cute blogs while my country did horroful stuff, plus later we be been cut from payment systems. And I didn’t know what to do with my Patreon, been pausing it month after month been pausing it ever since. And in the meantime discord has been saving my soul since the beginning of pandemic. And combined with the fact that I am moving into another country soon and maybe will be able to get back some of payment systems back into my disposal, I very much might try to do this membership thingy. I really like that it leaves a possibility to keep the server open to people, not hiding it behind a paywall. A thousand thanks for your insight. Time to sleep now, but I have to look at your discord server tomorrow and most probably jump in ❤
Interesting take, as I’ve always seen patreon less as a social media platform, but as sort of a subscription service for extra content from that creator. I’ve never felt like interacting with other patrons, because I felt like I was buying a product, not buying in to a community. Might just be me tho lol
Same, I never really saw it as a way to connect with the community and the people I used to support had free discords with a private channel in the server for patrons. Personally, I wouldn’t want to lose access to the community if I couldn’t afford to pay as I usually can only support on patreon short term and I worry now with the economic blues how that will affect support for many creatives.
The way you think and speak about the business of art is really great, inspiring and motivating. I am not a professional artist, just an amateur, but I am trying to grow my freelancer business and for some reason watching your videos while I work totally motivates me! :D
It's really great to hear your experiences with Patreon. Thank you for being so transparent as always. I've tried to join your discord a few times but don't really understand it yet 😂 I will learn, see you there 😊
I’ve been working DILIGENTLY on my UA-cam channel for more than 10 years now, and Patreon for 3 years. I’ve recently reached 50k subs on UA-cam, and around 70 patrons on Patreon. It always blows my mind when I see young people pulling in the big numbers within a year or less and already dreaming of more. Surely that’s the wealth mindset of highly successful people! Leaving Patreon would kill me financially. I think there’s a difference between social media super stars and people who use the same platforms but as a regular job, for example the difference between Lana Del Ray and a regular music teacher. Therefore listening to a super star like Kelsey Rodriquez is interesting and inspiring, but the advice needs to be translated into a realistic perspective. Almost everyone can take an airplane, but most people fly economy, only super stars fly private. Be inspired and consider their advice, but don’t throw your economy flight ticket away just because a super star says the champagne is not the right temperature or the Alpaca blankets covering the leather seats have the wrong weaving pattern.
This was really insightful, I have been making a living as a full time performing musician for 6 years. Since the pandemic have wanted to expand into more digital forms of interaction with music and guitar education, until this I was sold on the idea of Patreon, but now I'm inspired to look into alternatives. Thank you very much :)
Man, I didn't even know discord had memberships. That's pretty cool! I support a lot of artists on Patreon but I find I barely look at the content on their because the site isn't user friendly.
Thank you for your insight Kelsey!!! ❤❤❤ I have been thinking of a platform that would best unite my community as I've been getting a lot of questions and being asked for tips. It would be great to be able to answer them together at the same time! I thought of Patreon as I've heard about it years ago but after opening Ko-Fi, don't see the point of opening a Patreon now. Although, I do feel that Ko-Fi is also not what I'm looking for in terms of communication so finding out in your video right now about DISCORD's Premium Memberships, THIS IS A GAME CHANGER!! Now, I'm planning to revamp my server which I used before(for streaming) to get ready for 2023! 😆
All of these platforms position themselves as the answer to your problems when really they bring a whole set of challenges with them. Thank you for being transparent about the reality of trying to achieve your goals and not having your needs met. Don't ever feel bad about moving on when the investment of time and energy isn't serving you!
Patreon or art is not about talking. Maybe UA-cam is. And maybe it's like tgat if you do writing or poetry. Patreon is about building an audience for high quality content. The content has to be good, surely.
first rule to build your patrons: don't take down the pirates if you see your exclusive content appeared there, as they are most likely your patrons themselves. still, Patreon has been doing things against the creators in the recent years, especially on the part of NSFW. their way looking into things have been killing themselves, but on purpose as i saw.
The only time I see Patreon working to the six-figure range is 80%+ NSFW artwork, or over 500K+ Subscribers if you're an artist who's audience mostly comes from YT. Some artists like WLOP (and I believe Dave Rapoza) have managed to bloom up on Patreon, but they have STRONG followings across all of the Social media chains ,and they're masters of their crafts-- which all artists come to at different decades of their careers. Cool to see you're using Discord instead, since it clearly has a lot more ought of use!
Thank you for the video! I Another channel recommended having a Discord channel and sending all the Patrion people to it. I never would have thought of Discord as an option. This is so helpful, thank you!
I also love the Kelsey discord, it feels like I can connect with a lot of artists there. I've spent a lot of time in there and it's at the top of the list in my 'art servers' folder.
Sounds like it’s all on you. How much you interact is all up to you. Well if you share everything on discord, what’s the point on paying you. Looks like you like talking more than creating
Interesting take. It tracks heavily to me. I support a youtuber I really thought deserved the support on patreon and honestly i just don't even check it. She's tried to do some exclusive things, and "it's worth my while" just because there was one video I really liked a while ago that was an exclusive video for patrons, but the way she runs the patreon is pretty poor IMO. I think you're right in that feedback is weird, as a patron it's awkward bc i just don't check the page so the creator experience probably looks like "post something that took extra effort to make -> 0 feedback" which sucks. I don't necessarily think it's the platform's fault as much as the creator's fault in the way they use it. I think people who literally went out of their way to support you just want some connection so the thing to do would be to make "closeness" a priority. Live Q&As, a ton of low effort content, BTS things, WIPs, etc. That plus making your patrons really your "sponsor". If at the end of every video she explained something about the Patreon page instead of just thanking the patrons and rolling the names upwards I feel like the audience would know that she has some stuff there, plus there would actually be incentive to populate it. And for example using existing social media channels to remind ppl patreon exists, like the YT Community tab every time a new post is made, etc. Discord Communities does sound like a nice place if what you want is for a community to build itself though. Patreon integration with Discord is good for exclusivity but not if the whole server is paywalled, that just kills the server. If you have bot trouble that does suck, I haven't ran into issues on that but I've only been part of two discords instead of having a lot of members joining mine. Didn't know discord had built in a patreon-killing feature lol wonder how it plays out. It seems promising tbh
It’s interesting that you bring this up because I feel like people who primarily create video content! Especially through UA-cam, don’t necessarily have this problem, because they maintain community on their home platform. People who go to Patreon are primarily coming as a form of getting behind the scenes and exclusive content but that’s that.
I get that, but the vastly lower engagement I was experiencing on patreon (people not watching the exclusive videos or liking the posts, etc) meant that it just didn't really make sense to stay there. I have far fewer premium members on Discord but the engagement is way higher, everyone on those tiers watches the videos I put out, it's a better experience for everyone I think
I left Patreon a couple of years ago because EVERYTHING we creators were asking for in their community forums were ignored. Better searchability, better messaging (which as you know is shite), better landing page (when they changed it so it didn't include the video that we were told was so important, that was annoying that we could'nt choose which we wanted). At my best time on Patreon I had around 160 patrons which was amazing, but it didn't stay like that for long, then covid started making folks drop (not surprisingly). I decided to build my own membership on wordpress and February will be its second year. I was on patreon from 2016 to '21. I don't know if it is worth the amount of work I put into it now and am considering stopping it (wouldn't be till a year from now though as that's when the payment runs out for the plugin!) but I need to replace the regular income with something else, but not sure what! It's so hard to get folks to sign up, especially now when everyone is really struggling. Although I have five patrons at my top tier at th emoment (for commissions) which is pretty good!). I have around 36 members now and it's nice to have the small flow of income but just wish it was more!
Hi, just read your comment, my thought was to build my own membership website instead of using Patreon. How is that going for you? Do you notice you can get the same memberships/followers/patreons as on Patreon?
@@bubbieble Hi there! I'm still doing my own membership - I think on balance I prefer it since I have total control over everything. Patreon took a large proportion of fees from me (they charge VAT since i'm in the UK, yet doing it myself I don't have to charge that, so that's 20% of what I make that goes to ME now, and not to patreon). As with Patreon most people are supporting me altruistically, they don't comment and don't mind about extras so much, they just want to support. Then the top tier lot get a painting every three months. When you say can I get the same patrons as on patreon? Well, not really - but to really answer that question I would have to be running a patreon alongside and see who prefers patreon and who prefers the one I made. Lots of folks didn't follow me to my new site because they already used patreon and supported a few artists on there already, they didn't want to spread about. If you're a new artist or starting out, I"d always go with something like patreon as you don't have any costs to do it. With my website I pay approx £250 a year to use the membership plugin, it's not free, but the amount I make in profit counteracts that considerably. I hope that helps?
Thank you for this amazing insight! I'm still working towards an art career while finishing university and there is still a lot for me to try out moving forward. I'm grateful to have you sharing your experience to all of us! 😊
WOW! I don’t have the vocabulary in this moment to express how grateful I am for this video! I’ve been in the throes of thinking along these lines, as I make plans for the coming year, and this video is a major help in my decision-making process, as your content typically is. I’m amazed by how your timing intersects with my own thoughts. Thanks for meeting me in the ether! 😂 ❤ I love how you consider so many factors and go into your reasons why you choose to use - or let go of - the various available tools, and how you manage to tell us about why you’re not using something, without bashing anyone while you’re at it. We all make our own choices, and I greatly value the fact that you process through some of yours out here in the open. You get me thinking about many factors I’d not yet considered. Thanks!
Dear Kelsey, I appreciate your honesty, you are a rare character. You will develope into a very fine artist, you already are. Good luck and always be honest. I will be a forever fan.
Thanks for this! I’ve been considering relaunching my Patreon now that I’m fully committed to my UA-cam channel. I had been using Patreon in the past but ended up shutting it down because it wasn’t easy to interact and share with my community. I’m definitely going to look into the Discord option. Just found your channel btw!
I don't know why you wouldn't have both a Patreon AND also offer Discord memberships. IMO from what I've seen the best Patreons are the ones with very limited tiers that basically amount to "I'd like to support this artist/creator/person but I don't need compensation in the form of rewards". Several of the UA-cam channels I follow have *thousands* of patrons and that's effectively how they've organized their Patreons.
I think patreon is good for limited edition products aka patreon only monthly prints and stickers or whatever like a product subscription but it’s definitely not for social interaction
Love the use of discord for community building, it's a lot easier to use for group communication. Just an important note for people who are looking for the settings to get premium memberships on their server: Premium Memberships on discord are still in a closed experimental beta test so it hasn't been rolled out to everyone yet. They've expanded the slots recently but as of right now, most people do not have access to the feature. Hopefully soon though!
This is very interesting, I would never really care about how much the people in my Patreon (whenever I get one) interact, I don't see it as a community place, I see it as a product where the artists just gives what they offer, and most of them offer discord benefits in higher tiers, so there's where they build their patreon community. I never thought that anyone would care about the engagement on Patreon.
Discord is great for community building for sure. I also have hit a ceiling with my Patreon, but also with everything else it seems so I’m not sure what to change.
I just joined your discord! Im kinda a lurker and not very good at conversations but it gives off a nice vibe, and i like that you are active in it sometimes
I agree I have seen even the ones that make 6 figures only maybe a quarter of their audience actually comment or like their stuff. I remember when I wanted to make a Patreon but changed my mind later. I have a ko-fi but im still struggling to figure out what to do with it as I'm not very active these days as I have been slowing down in my social presents these days and focus on finishing up college and dealing with putting my first born in school for the first time lol. I have been working projects here and there and posting them but very slow about it as I realized I really loved to writing and drawing stories instead of just making prints.
I've been using Patreon for a year, I think until I've started hitting burnout. There are a few supporters but they're just in and out. They're not consistent. Some just took some of my art and got out before Patreon even asked for payment. This video is more focused on Discord, while I agree that I met and able to share my art more on Discord - but some servers are quite strict as they don't want you promoting inside of them (understandable). I've used it for clients and fans outside other platforms. I haven't been able to update my Patreon til now since I felt that I was only drawing what I like and it's not what the audience wanted. I use Discord for sharing updates with my art. Patreon is great for those doing NSFW stuff and those who are already popular due to their UA-cam or their Webcomics. So I guess it really takes time to build. I'm going to hang around with Patreon for a while and see.
Very relateable experience on how Patreon is isolating instead of expansive except that instead of Discord as the place where you got organic traffic and started finding community it's been Tik Tok where that's starting to happen for me. I don't use Discord but I am planning on incorporating how similarly Ko-Fi integrates itself with Twitch so this vid really helped me put to words what was bothering me about Patreon. The vibe of Patreon seems to be either like electronic closed board room meetings for investors or private club for fans where Ko-Fi's features make it feel more like an electronic coffee shoppe and art gallery. You can follow anyone, tip anytime casually or do a monthly membership so no one feels excluded but you're also not selling yourself short of opportunities.
THANK YOU , YOU ARE THE REASON WHY I AM STARTING MY ART UA-cam CHANNEL - YOU SHOWED THAT I AM IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE AND IT IS VERY POSSIBLE THANK YUUUU
It's so timely that I've come across your video. I've been considering to join Patreon, but I would like to make sure what I'd be getting into so it's good to hear your points on the cons of being a Patreon user. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! (Perhaps I should consider Discord, too 😁)
I know I'm going to show my age, but Discord: it's like what AOL and MS Messenger used to be. It's a place to chat, and more. But like, it's great this is being highlighted. I tend to be a lurker in large group servers, but definitely appreciate the connection of smaller servers :D Good video. It's nice to hear discussion from people successfully making their art a career. *I struggle on my Patreon, too, but I know mostly it's my skill level XD Still, I know exactly what she's talking about. I don't engage much with the people I'm a patron of either. I usually talk to them on comics, or in comment sections of other stuff. I don't know why, it just seems like one more place to keep up with (and I'm doing my own thing on my own page), so I'm just less likely to engage with the artists I support. Totally agree Discord is better for that.
I honestly had no idea Discord offered a feature like that. I have been using Discord since it originally took off, and have seen Nitro being mentioned a lot. But this is honestly very different and an interesting approach to engage more with your audience. I am half tempted to try this out for myself, but I am also curious to see how it works in the long term. Great video!!
Honestly, this is kinda cool and I think will give patreon a run for their money, especially considering discord allows for NSFW content as long as the server/appropriate channels have been flagged as such. Thank you very much for sharing this info! Even tho none of the servers i'm on seem to be able to have this feature, I think this is an interesting step forward that I am definitely going to yell about to fellow artists who use patreon! Plus patreon is also difficult to advertise on social media, I am unsure if this is legit true or not, but artists tend to have to censor the word patreon on other social media apps (instagram, twitter etc) because it always feels as if the posts that are mentioning it tend to get nerfed in the algorithm, even if the post itself shows the full artwork that was posted to patreon, as soon as you mention the word or do another post under it advertising it, oop, suddenly it's engagement drops. :\
Patreon isn't about building a community. The advise i've heard about patreon is to build a large audience FIRST and then get a patreon to get some money.
Well most artists have told me Patreon only worth trying if you have a large following to leverage. It’s not for everyone. So don’t feel bad if you gotta let it go. But everyone has to find which platforms works for your business model.
my biggest thing with patreon was that you couldn’t edit tier prices as you grow. i make way more money making monthly happy mail packages on my own website. the community aspect of discord def sounds way better too!
I don't know if maybe you were on an older version of Patreon, but I've been able to edit my tier prices just fine and I've seen other artists do the same as they have grown or as their desires for their patreon have shifted. Either way, best of luck to you!
I've thought about going on Patreon but I had to do some due diligence in researching about it being good enough to present my artistry. I'm still looking to expand myself to gain an audience at least. I already have IG and Tiktok being platforms that I'm growing an audience base, growing faster than on UA-cam and FB.
hi. well in my case. i have been on patreon for nearly 3 years now. not one patreon. i ve noticed, now i can no not even see how many people are coming to my patreon posts each month. in the beginning , people were looking. all of a sudden traffic just stopped. i did ask support, why? tbey never responded. what can i say. not much nothing good to say...
and yet, i see creatives making millions. i feel when you opt. to engage patreon creators before the public, they all swoop, to see your creations. the way they are so big is because they use your fresh ideas creations each month and they get all the rewards and payments for the work you have created. that when i put public first, i noticed my patreon statistics, were non existent. exactly, i am intellevtual and a very smart cookie, good at statistics. so people, patreon is about stealing and conning. people use the internet for gain not to give to marketing, when public just need and want to make, virtually Millions Doing Nothing. Content Creating which is Simple and Easy to DO. THERE, IN A NUT SHEL Is the Truth about Social Media and all the other Shop MAKING PLATFORMS...all of them...good luck, its the losers game...
Great observations! I've avoided the Patreon platform because I don't want to spend my creative time fulfilling perks for membership tiers or even feel a tinge of obligation when I want to use my very small amount of free time to make art. I also worry that I would upset or alienate patrons with more recent (and more political) art. I don't fault folks for doing it but I have a day job that supports me financially and gives me peace of mind/stability so I can focus on doing the work. I think there's a real danger that can hurt your process when you invite (intentionally or unintentionally) too many folks into your decision making.
I'm actually really interested in how the switch goes for you! This is the first time I've heard about issues with pateron and what you're saying makes sense. I think it could be a problem for people who don't currently use discord to sign up for it. Have you considered changing your patreon tiers and making it more like a Ko-fi (throw me a couple buck bc you like my stuff)? You could put a disclaimer "same benefits as level 1 Discord sub, no patreon exclusive content as I'm moving away from patreon". I think giving people the choice of how they want to support you is super important, not everyone will want to be social in a community, patreon might work for more casual fans.
Thanks! I looked in to Patreon and was put off from the get go. Look forward to hearing how this works out for you. Thanks for all you share - good and bad :)
congrats! this is an excellent decision for you for sure ive been running a discord server for years, let me know if you need any helps! and good luck!
I went to explore Premium membership feature and it appeared that it is not app wide for now and an experiment for a few servers. I hope they will roll out the feature for all servers
If you think of a live Q&A session like a meeting with a consultant or a class with an instructor, then $35/mth for access to 2 sessions is a pretty good deal! $20 for one painting class sounds like a steal. For me the hardest challenge is a lack of time. Seems like having a simple clear path to sign up for just one month could be helpful for some people? When I know there's one month where I can set aside some of my time to prep, attend, and follow up on a Q&A session, then I'd be more likely to spend that money that month. I usually don't sign up for monthly subscriptions with intangible benefits because I know most months I won't have time to use them, so I'd kind of be wasting hard earned money. Just in case that insight helps you market your services better. Also I agree that free access to a Discord server is a good way to tempt more people to check a community out, and increase the chance of converting a subscriber into a supporter / backer!
Mmm I feel you re: the one month thing. That would be a good idea, and Discord could even offer a slight discount if you wanted to purchase like several months at once. Right now I'm offering free one week trials for all the tiers and making the topics of the Q&As clear in advance, hopefully that'll do the trick!
bro patreon ain't for community building its the bottom of the funnel its a way to milk the super fans discord is free and therefore the top of a funnel its apples and oranges
Discord isn’t the top of the funnel, it still requires conversion from a different platform. So it’s middle tier. My point is that integrating Patreon within Discord is going to increase members even more and make the experience on the patron side even better!
I struggled with it and brought it back down but also struggling with my ko-fi page too. Then again I'm just starting out on UA-cam now so I think it's too early for me to really decide what's failing for me yet. Anyway, good video! I will considering the Discord premium options now!
When people add too many options to Patreon levels, it gets overwhelming. Not only in choosing the option you want. I imagine it is for the creator too since it’s a lot more to keep track of and keep up with. I’d personally rather have videos and q&a and be able to support the artist that way. Or maybe a special thing like a print or pin, sticker every once in a while or maybe for signing up?
The trick is to limit or not make much extra content / high effort connect for members on youtube/patreon/etc, or just have one or two levels maximum. The main idea, most people see it for, is supporting the creator, even if a bunch of people (with already bigger audiences) do much more for it.
Let me know down below if I should make an entire video about Discord and how to build your own online art community! But if you're interested in learning more about my overall social media strategy, watch this video next: ua-cam.com/video/srI86rEkxVs/v-deo.html
Yes.
This type of content is why your channel stands apart from others on UA-cam.
I would love a video explaining how to use discord effectively and set it up for a community. I've only used it casually for gaming, and don't really understand the ins and outs.
Yes please! I love the idea of Discord but it's quite overwhelming at first glace. A little vid on it would be grand :)
Yes please!!
Yes, that would be super interesting ! Also I hope you will talk a bit about discord flaws and big problems with privacies. As this give the feel of an intimate places which can lead to people sharing more personal infos. But this isn't a good place at all for that or personal conversations.
Which I could give more infos but I'm on phone sorry
Not everything has to be a community forum… I love patreon for being an easy method for financially supporting a creator without being stressed out about following, commenting, and interacting. It’s exhausting how much time is demanded from creators to do all of this instead of just creating. 😪
I agree, why does there have to be any expectation of fostering a community? Shouldn't it just be about the art? Often, communities are created organically or even independently from the artist.
Very true. I think nowadays people are too invested in the lives of strangers and form para social relationships way too easily.
I feel like I'm one of the few people where I don't have to 'know' an artist to like their art or buy it. I'm also incredibly introverted so i prefer any and all indirect ways of supporting someone.
Agree. In my case, I don't have time to invest on discord, there's so much I need to do that in the end all I want is to create and also follow the art/content from the creators I like
I appreciate this thread and hearing different perspectives about not needing an active participating community.✌️
From what I understand from other artists, Patreon is _not_ about community building. It's about sending the community _you've already built_ *to* Patreon to buy what you sell. As a Patreon cartoonist said about crowd funding, " *_First_* you build the crowd, *_then_* comes the funding".
I mostly agree, and I think this holds them back in the ways I talked about. Integrating paid aspects into a solid thriving community seems just like strictly better
Yes this it’s why already established artists thrive on there, it takes a while to build a crowd and many use it like Kickstarter first to sponsor new tech for projects or publish a comic or something. Once you’re consistent with art and have an audience then you’ll have consistent pay.
I respect her decision regardless, but factors need to be considered such as the economy and what the audience wants.
I’ve supported creators on patreon short term because it’s what I could afford then and loved the little rewards that came with it.
I personally wouldn’t want to lose access to the community because I can’t afford to pay and as others have stated this is coming at a time during a global recession. Whereas, with patreon I miss out on some rewards or directly supporting the artist.
It’s cool to try this out, but when most people can’t afford groceries or heating in the winter, I don’t know if paying for a discord server will be top of their priority.
Even on UA-cam there’s been talks about cuts from sponsors and stuff. My own art shop on Etsy hasn’t sold anything in months and I’ve accepted it is what it is at this point. I still have a full time job I can fall on, but like many others it may not last during the huge economic shift we’re going to experience.
Do you recommend artist to use pattern to make a bit of extra money in 2023?
@@KelseyRodriguez What about Liberapay and the Fediverse services like Mastadon, Peertube, and Pixelfed?
@@KelseyRodriguez isn't patreon an app where everything you want to see has to be bought at least a preview of everything would be nice what a waste of money people sometimes
I sort of disagree with the framing that patreon isn't great for artists, because from what you described I would state it as: patreon isn't great for classes and community driven activities. Most of the people I see doing well on patreon are making art distributed directly to their followers (images, writing, vids, comics, music), and then sending out zips with all the art after the monthly billing cycle. I support a number of creators doing this, and am perfectly happy dispite the fact I don't communicate at all with any of the other supporters. So it makes a lot of sense why patreon isn't working well for what you tried using it for, which by its nature requires lots of interpersonal engagement from your community. I've also noticed creators on patreon tend to struggle if they offer too many rewards early on, and the platform tends to work best if you keep it simple; there are exceptions though. I'm glad to hear Discord is working great for you though, I think I'll join in as well!
Oh for sure! I don't have anything against Patreon, I still support lots of creators on there. Different platforms for different needs!
This video is gold! As a fellow creative who's looking for ways to interact with my community on a more personal level, I was considering Patreon, but I think I'll look at some different options, thank you Kelsey 😊
Of course Abi! Glad this helped
Ohmygod i live for this interaction ❤️🔥 Big fan of Abi’s design videos and work 🤍👩🏼💻
sending love to the both of you all the way from the Philippines! Thank you for all the value both of you bring to your respective communities 🥰 ilysm
Yeah, yes. Gold. Thanks for sharing, not only your insight, knowledge, but doing it in a fair diplomatic way. Kudos to you, and keep following that good soul of yours!
Oh my goodness Patreon engagement is seriously difficult, to the point where I started to think my content was just terrible & my art not good enough. I gave myself a massive slap because it’s not us & it doesn’t equal our worth. Reduced my content right down to the very basics, but it’s only ever shrinking, not growing. Thanks so much for talking about this platform! 💖
I'm your patron💕, patrons of 10+ other UA-cam creators, and I am a Patreon creator with 150 patrons. I agree with a lot of what you said. Patreon isn't a community builder and a place for high engagement. But if creators understood that before they join the platform they will be better off. Have free fun convos and engagement in Discord and the UA-cam comment section. Pay your bills and buy supplies from the real income you can make from Patreon. Personally, the platform has truly changed my life.
I see a lot of creators giving way too much in their Patreon tiers when supporters actually don't care. They just want to give us money because they love what we do and appreciate the art/entertainment/or education we are putting out into the world. It's a hard concept to wrap our brains around when you imagine that genuine and lovely people do exist in this world 🌟 Sometimes as artists, we're constantly trying to prove our worth because we've been taught that art isn't as "important or valuable". The people who DO value art will pay you to keep the creations alive. At the end of the day, income helps to sustain artists not likes or engagement.
From a patron: Wherever you go, I'll bring the cash 🤑
I absolutely agree! I wish Patreon had a bit more variety though, the platform could be a good community building area but it isn't at the moment. I hope you follow me over to Discord
@@KelseyRodriguez Totally, it could use an upgrade. I'll be there 😉
I've definitely been struggling with my Patreon lately too. I remember them sending out a pretty big survey to creators last year, with tons of polls and hints about what's to come in the future. I do agree that Patreon needs to be MUCH better. They could implement so many awesome features that make it easier for the creator to create and share with their community, while also growing organically. One thing that I really wish they had available was the option to make more customizable layouts if you're making a newsletter. I make monthly newsletters for my patrons and am always so frustrated when I have to share photos. I wish I could rearrange them, turn them into a grid, etc. I wish that Patreon was much more customizable, because as it stands right now, it's pretty bland and hard to navigate (as both a creator and patron). It would also be nice for there to be some sort of "featured" page, which features creators you may either already know or could potentially find interesting.
I'm still trying to grow my Patreon and it's been pretty stagnant for a couple of years now. I hardy get any engagement at all, but I don't have many patrons yet. I'm not gonna give it up just yet because I believe that I can make it grow, but I have been seriously considering getting a Discord server. It's much more intimate!
Yes! A more customizable page would be fantastic. I honestly love all of your ideas. I truly do wish the best for Patreon and could see myself having both if they changed some things. Really hoping someone at Patreon reads your comment and takes these into consideration 💗
I was on Patreon for 1 month, subscriber to others that you would likely know if I say their names. I quit because of how difficult was to browse content, even though I like the channels. Go back and forward , Patreon and UA-cam , no comments between users, it's very confusing. The feel for a community has gone. I wouldn't expect the host to engage with the subscribers too much, I wouldn't do it ider. Clear content is the best tutorial, not many questions should be from the community.
Patreon is mainly for supporting the creator and maybe getting a bonus if you want. If you're going to do a lot of extra connect for it, you already have to have a big enough audience there, because otherwise the extra work wouldn't be worth your time. Sure some people will look for bonuses as an extra selling point, but thats not all of it.
Patreon pays the majority my bills so I'm not going anywhere, however there is a lot to be improved on Patreon. I have to use dropbox for people to see my content because Patreon doesn't allow long image posts and I do webcomics for a living. I do get some engagement on it, about 50-100 likes and 5-15 comments per post. I didn't overdue the rewards promised so there is only about 3hrs a week or extra work going towards my Patreon and the rest is just my comic that I would be doing anyways. My patreon makes $1500-$2000 per month and I only make $400-$1200 on other sites so I need my Patreon money or I'll be working at McDonalds. I found that there are certain rewards people are more like to sign up for. Usually to see NSFW content, tutorials, support content that is polarizing like hate content gets a lot of support(podcasts), and then sometimes an artist with a massive social media following that just wants to support. I find that even with a large following people still want tutorials or NSFW content a lot of times.
Exactly. The Artist is the one in control of their Patreon strategy. There is no need to offer 363747585 different rewards. The best options are things that are not very time consuming or that you are already doing. There's an artist that offer 1 small comic (4 panels) per month for 5$ and she has more than 1000 subscribers.
It does not have to be complicated.
If there was a way to turn a bit of profit from a $3/mth subscription to get an art postcard I think that could be pretty cool. There's so much online digital content these days it could be nice to feel like you can support an artist and get a tangible product without having to spend more of your time online. I went to a funky restaurant once where they had converted an old cigarette machine into an art vending machine. Artists put quick little pieces of art into cigarette pack sized boxes, and you could drop in $2 and get a fun little surprise piece of art. I still have a few of those original little doodles up on my wall. No need to worry about how to preserve a digital NFT over long periods of time, and maybe one day those little doodles might be worth more than $2.
@littperipper312 I was hoping to put my long comics on Patreon as well, how do u use Dropbox on Patreon? Do you use a link or something?
@@littleripper312 may i ask what webcomic you draw? Im interested.
I think if you have a good engaged following for your artwork, like 20k at least on Instagram. There is no point starting a Patreon, unless you already have the support and community you need to make it work. Patreon can be magic for you if you have already built a following, my friend makes a good monthly income on it, it's super inspirational you have to have art that fans are excited about.
I love to hear this perspective. Honestly, I've been surviving with direct donations since my first wanderings in the only art world, mainly cause I don't have nearly enough followers to stablish a Patreon. I'll take this into account in the future when the opportunity to create a community presents. Great video as always ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I'm a creative who's been on and off Patreon as a creator and as a patron. And the whole platform is pretty lacking in a lot of ways, not just on the level of engagement with one's fanbase. To really succeed on Patreon you have to have been an early adopter of the platform. (It's a lot like Twitch that way - something to the tune of 99% of all creatives on both platforms make less than $100/month.)
Personally, I've had more luck with Ko-Fi, because it's more flexible for everyone involved. Glad to see you're making Discord work for you though! I don't think I would do the same - my community is less on the commenting end and more on the casual-watching end. My community also knows how much work I put into the comics and art I make, so in a way, the lack of comments reads more to me like "my peeps like it, and they want more, they just don't want my time eaten up by managing a comments section."
As a new artist who has been on social media for a while but looking for new ways to grow my community, I appreciate this video so much! I had it on my list of things to do for a while!
It's so cool that discord has this feature - would love to see future updates on how this is working to support you!
Really interesting perspective! I tried launching my Patreon last year and it straight up wasn't working so I shut it down, and thinking about it over the past few months it seems to really only work for some people. Thank you for sharing your experience!!
Good for you Kelsey 🙌🏻 What always puts me off from doing this is all the extra stuff you have to offer, it’s a lot of work. Keep us posted how this develops for you financially. I hear good things about Mighty Networks but premium memberships on Discord is new to me, how cool!
That’s why I feel like I’d never want to do it, so much extra work and projects every single month and you can’t slip up or you’ll disappoint fans/supporters I can’t handle that type of commitment or even rigid schedule. I know some make a lot from patreon, but there’s so much planning for it on top of social media, client work, an actual job, shop stuff, it’s too much honestly. I want to make what I want at a pace that’s not destroying me.
I really like your discord community (and not just because im a mod) people have good discussions about anything, art, mental health, supplies, drawing advice etc, but keep it civil and polite. You have the more older experienced artists helping out the younger crowd all the time 😀hopefully this change works out well for you 😀
I have a great fear of relying on people who like your art to make money. I just wonder if they will eventually get bored and move on
Some probably would but there's probably some that won't. I don't think it always has to do with boredom as much as their own lives changing whether that's financially or what have you.
And THERE IT ISSSS.. the overthinking that lead to my inevitable laziness and procrastination
Even if they do, new people will come along, so it doesn't have to be a huge deal~
@@yesirabey2548 💀 same gurl same 😭😭😭😭
I absolutely love how much you share knowledge with others ❤️ You’ve helped me, lead me to wanting to branch out with my artistic skills. Thank you 🙏🏻
I disagree, I think Patreon is still pretty useful. As for this strategy, I’ve just been combing my Patreon and Discord and it’s been working out fine for me.
Personally speaking, I don’t see much of your art videos in my recommended, so on a whole it might be hard to convert ppl to an art Patreon. I wonder if maybe that was where the issue was?🤔Either way tho, everyone has their own way, so I do hope this works out for you. Best of luck with it!
Watching the video I did wonder why Kelsey wasn't using Discord on her Patreon. The set up is simple enough and would give her the best of both worlds.
I was using both, Patreon fails at giving users the proper roles a lot of the time and I had to do a bunch of manual work that the Patreon Discord bot should've been doing automatically. My Patreon content was mostly business oriented, the same stuff you see here on UA-cam. Decided to switch and I've been liking it so far!
@@KelseyRodriguez I see. Yeah, I feel that with the Patron bot. Def a bit buggy. I'm glad it's working out for you. Knowing when to pivot can be tough, but is a really important factor in business.
Despite the biased antipathy of Patreon's Trust & Safety moderation team for NSFW material, the site remains useful for artists.
However, I believe you should think about the fact that we are in the midst of a recession and people do not have as many income to support creators, which explains the slow expansion, and the quantity you are still receiving is something other artists with more limitations would desire and work to get.
Actively moderated and raided public Discord servers have its drawbacks. Nonetheless, I want the best for you in your efforts.
Moderating a Discord server definitely feels like it could turn into a full time administrative job
@@bruce-le-smith It's definitely an unpaid admin job. i used to mod when i had lower self worth and an unfulfilled need to be useful to someone. i'd constantly have ideas and things to do to build and connect with the community, then i realized i was doing a lot of this for no pay and very little personal growth. i ended up leaving and the community closed up along with it. the artist moved over to patreon and raised their commission prices just to make ends meet. less connection but definitely less effort moderating people's behavior.
@@bruce-le-smith it is and when people can’t pay their mods or treat them how they should the discord servers fall apart.
I was a part of a UA-cam community, he did travel vlogs and I did support on patreon then idk he stopped putting effort into his videos and started doing live streams of the same crap over and over and let some really toxic people coexist in his space, which sucks because he was one of the first to do stuff with discord and used to make such positive and inspiring stuff, but I think now he’s just burned out and gotten older so a lot of things have fallen to the wayside.
I used to be quite active too and the community was nice, but since the pandemic and lackluster content everything has gone downhill.
I told the mods some of the innapropriate messages I got from weirdos in the server sending me selfies and stuff or dragging me into drama… and these people are still allowed to be in what was supposed to be a family friendly server, so I left and came back 6 months later and it’s become nothing but political arguments, conspiracies and trolling nonsense. An active mod that used to be on there quit after a falling out with the UA-camr and the server wasn’t the same so I left for good.
It became a place full of angry incels and predators and mods without a spine to ban people like they used to. I don’t know what happened, but the few mods that were still active weren’t doing their jobs and the sad thing is this UA-camr still promotes his discord server and it’s public… like dude you must see what happens?? He does respond to people on there.
@@lehuwu yes I agree! I don’t think you need to constantly interacting with people either. It’s good to have a connection, but we’re way too connected as it is nowadays. Discord is great for smaller, niche things, it works for streamers too that’s when I used it the most, but in my experience UA-cam ones either die out or they become toxic and spammy after a while.
Good for you for knowing your worth, like it’s cool you helped that artist, but I’d much rather support them on patreon than discord. I wouldn’t want to lose access to friends or a community because I couldn’t afford to pay one month.
Yeah I love 💕 discord and recently over the last couple of months I left Patreon because it was so hard for people that were supporting me to actually get access to the tier’s and it was like once you post something if people don’t see it on that one particular day there is no way for them to find it or go back to it and even though they recently added native video I still don’t like it.
On the flipside I’ve gotten a lot more engagement in Discord it feels like you’re in your own little world and people feel safe to have conversations and talk to each other and share their life so yeah I love it to So you definitely made the right decision many blessings to you on your journey
Looking forward to the update on how Discord goes for you in a couple of months. It is definitely superior over other platforms when it comes to communicating casually with others.
I thought patreon was just a donation box so you can slowly rely less and less on sponsors and ad revenue. Why not have the best of both worlds? Still have both patreon and discord so you have the extra income and still have the community on discord
Yea you can integrate the two and also make patrons have a private channel in the server.
I thought patreon was honestly just another supplemental income for artists, partially niche ones with a large following or who want to achieve a project/goal. Many have had great successes with it and it becomes part of their normal income especially if they have an online shop.
People hardly have extra cash to spend on various platforms, unless it's something very valuable and direct.
So true
Especially now with the current climate, we’re going to be entering a massive global recession soon. Many already can’t afford groceries and winter is going to make it harder with heating costs.
I do worry about how creatives will find support, but it’s why they tend to have various channels of income.
and yet most streets turned into a luxury car salon road show with ever and ever more completely pimped out luxury vehicles 🤷♂️
It's been hard as an artist to receive support and I do support other artists all the time, specifically other painters, illustrators, SWers, tattoo artists and musicians, the ones that are genuine and honest get my support and also if I like their art!
If only everyone I supported...followed me back. lol
Conent creators rarely follow their supporters back. Unless you are unique, make interesing content, then you're not gonna get their follow. Some of the biggest artists I support, that Im active in their community and they don't follow me.
That sounds like an amazing idea. I’ve always been kinda weary of Patreon and the idea of putting stuff behind a paywall. It’s partly why I went with Ko-Fi for the flexibility but I don’t think it has the same amount of traffic as Patreon. But the discord premium stuff sounds way better, people can join for free and if they want give back then they can and even if someone might not be able to be a afford it, they can still be apart of the community and everything it already has.
Such a timely video again, Kelsey, thank you so much. Also I love the light at your video, it is so cozy as if I am sitting right in front of you in a living room or a coworking space. My Patreon was on billing pause since February, because I am from Russia and it felt ethically wrong to charge people for cute blogs while my country did horroful stuff, plus later we be been cut from payment systems. And I didn’t know what to do with my Patreon, been pausing it month after month been pausing it ever since. And in the meantime discord has been saving my soul since the beginning of pandemic. And combined with the fact that I am moving into another country soon and maybe will be able to get back some of payment systems back into my disposal, I very much might try to do this membership thingy. I really like that it leaves a possibility to keep the server open to people, not hiding it behind a paywall. A thousand thanks for your insight. Time to sleep now, but I have to look at your discord server tomorrow and most probably jump in ❤
Interesting take, as I’ve always seen patreon less as a social media platform, but as sort of a subscription service for extra content from that creator. I’ve never felt like interacting with other patrons, because I felt like I was buying a product, not buying in to a community. Might just be me tho lol
Totally agree! I think Patreon purpose is different than discord. But of course, everyone has a right to choose what they like 🙂
Same, I never really saw it as a way to connect with the community and the people I used to support had free discords with a private channel in the server for patrons.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to lose access to the community if I couldn’t afford to pay as I usually can only support on patreon short term and I worry now with the economic blues how that will affect support for many creatives.
The way you think and speak about the business of art is really great, inspiring and motivating. I am not a professional artist, just an amateur, but I am trying to grow my freelancer business and for some reason watching your videos while I work totally motivates me! :D
It's really great to hear your experiences with Patreon. Thank you for being so transparent as always. I've tried to join your discord a few times but don't really understand it yet 😂 I will learn, see you there 😊
I’ve been working DILIGENTLY on my UA-cam channel for more than 10 years now, and Patreon for 3 years. I’ve recently reached 50k subs on UA-cam, and around 70 patrons on Patreon.
It always blows my mind when I see young people pulling in the big numbers within a year or less and already dreaming of more. Surely that’s the wealth mindset of highly successful people!
Leaving Patreon would kill me financially. I think there’s a difference between social media super stars and people who use the same platforms but as a regular job, for example the difference between Lana Del Ray and a regular music teacher. Therefore listening to a super star like Kelsey Rodriquez is interesting and inspiring, but the advice needs to be translated into a realistic perspective. Almost everyone can take an airplane, but most people fly economy, only super stars fly private. Be inspired and consider their advice, but don’t throw your economy flight ticket away just because a super star says the champagne is not the right temperature or the Alpaca blankets covering the leather seats have the wrong weaving pattern.
This was really insightful, I have been making a living as a full time performing musician for 6 years. Since the pandemic have wanted to expand into more digital forms of interaction with music and guitar education, until this I was sold on the idea of Patreon, but now I'm inspired to look into alternatives. Thank you very much :)
Man, I didn't even know discord had memberships. That's pretty cool! I support a lot of artists on Patreon but I find I barely look at the content on their because the site isn't user friendly.
Thank you for your insight Kelsey!!! ❤❤❤ I have been thinking of a platform that would best unite my community as I've been getting a lot of questions and being asked for tips. It would be great to be able to answer them together at the same time! I thought of Patreon as I've heard about it years ago but after opening Ko-Fi, don't see the point of opening a Patreon now. Although, I do feel that Ko-Fi is also not what I'm looking for in terms of communication so finding out in your video right now about DISCORD's Premium Memberships, THIS IS A GAME CHANGER!!
Now, I'm planning to revamp my server which I used before(for streaming) to get ready for 2023! 😆
All of these platforms position themselves as the answer to your problems when really they bring a whole set of challenges with them. Thank you for being transparent about the reality of trying to achieve your goals and not having your needs met. Don't ever feel bad about moving on when the investment of time and energy isn't serving you!
Patreon or art is not about talking. Maybe UA-cam is. And maybe it's like tgat if you do writing or poetry. Patreon is about building an audience for high quality content. The content has to be good, surely.
first rule to build your patrons: don't take down the pirates if you see your exclusive content appeared there, as they are most likely your patrons themselves.
still, Patreon has been doing things against the creators in the recent years, especially on the part of NSFW. their way looking into things have been killing themselves, but on purpose as i saw.
What do you mean by pirates?
The only time I see Patreon working to the six-figure range is 80%+ NSFW artwork, or over 500K+ Subscribers if you're an artist who's audience mostly comes from YT. Some artists like WLOP (and I believe Dave Rapoza) have managed to bloom up on Patreon, but they have STRONG followings across all of the Social media chains ,and they're masters of their crafts-- which all artists come to at different decades of their careers. Cool to see you're using Discord instead, since it clearly has a lot more ought of use!
Thank you for the video! I Another channel recommended having a Discord channel and sending all the Patrion people to it. I never would have thought of Discord as an option. This is so helpful, thank you!
Patreon seems more like a payment processing platform than a place to actually build a community.
I also love the Kelsey discord, it feels like I can connect with a lot of artists there. I've spent a lot of time in there and it's at the top of the list in my 'art servers' folder.
Sounds like it’s all on you. How much you interact is all up to you. Well if you share everything on discord, what’s the point on paying you.
Looks like you like talking more than creating
Interesting take. It tracks heavily to me. I support a youtuber I really thought deserved the support on patreon and honestly i just don't even check it. She's tried to do some exclusive things, and "it's worth my while" just because there was one video I really liked a while ago that was an exclusive video for patrons, but the way she runs the patreon is pretty poor IMO. I think you're right in that feedback is weird, as a patron it's awkward bc i just don't check the page so the creator experience probably looks like "post something that took extra effort to make -> 0 feedback" which sucks. I don't necessarily think it's the platform's fault as much as the creator's fault in the way they use it. I think people who literally went out of their way to support you just want some connection so the thing to do would be to make "closeness" a priority. Live Q&As, a ton of low effort content, BTS things, WIPs, etc. That plus making your patrons really your "sponsor". If at the end of every video she explained something about the Patreon page instead of just thanking the patrons and rolling the names upwards I feel like the audience would know that she has some stuff there, plus there would actually be incentive to populate it. And for example using existing social media channels to remind ppl patreon exists, like the YT Community tab every time a new post is made, etc.
Discord Communities does sound like a nice place if what you want is for a community to build itself though. Patreon integration with Discord is good for exclusivity but not if the whole server is paywalled, that just kills the server. If you have bot trouble that does suck, I haven't ran into issues on that but I've only been part of two discords instead of having a lot of members joining mine. Didn't know discord had built in a patreon-killing feature lol wonder how it plays out. It seems promising tbh
Just treat patreon like a tip jar.
It’s interesting that you bring this up because I feel like people who primarily create video content! Especially through UA-cam, don’t necessarily have this problem, because they maintain community on their home platform. People who go to Patreon are primarily coming as a form of getting behind the scenes and exclusive content but that’s that.
I get that, but the vastly lower engagement I was experiencing on patreon (people not watching the exclusive videos or liking the posts, etc) meant that it just didn't really make sense to stay there. I have far fewer premium members on Discord but the engagement is way higher, everyone on those tiers watches the videos I put out, it's a better experience for everyone I think
I left Patreon a couple of years ago because EVERYTHING we creators were asking for in their community forums were ignored. Better searchability, better messaging (which as you know is shite), better landing page (when they changed it so it didn't include the video that we were told was so important, that was annoying that we could'nt choose which we wanted). At my best time on Patreon I had around 160 patrons which was amazing, but it didn't stay like that for long, then covid started making folks drop (not surprisingly). I decided to build my own membership on wordpress and February will be its second year. I was on patreon from 2016 to '21. I don't know if it is worth the amount of work I put into it now and am considering stopping it (wouldn't be till a year from now though as that's when the payment runs out for the plugin!) but I need to replace the regular income with something else, but not sure what! It's so hard to get folks to sign up, especially now when everyone is really struggling. Although I have five patrons at my top tier at th emoment (for commissions) which is pretty good!). I have around 36 members now and it's nice to have the small flow of income but just wish it was more!
Hi, just read your comment, my thought was to build my own membership website instead of using Patreon. How is that going for you? Do you notice you can get the same memberships/followers/patreons as on Patreon?
@@bubbieble Hi there! I'm still doing my own membership - I think on balance I prefer it since I have total control over everything. Patreon took a large proportion of fees from me (they charge VAT since i'm in the UK, yet doing it myself I don't have to charge that, so that's 20% of what I make that goes to ME now, and not to patreon). As with Patreon most people are supporting me altruistically, they don't comment and don't mind about extras so much, they just want to support. Then the top tier lot get a painting every three months.
When you say can I get the same patrons as on patreon? Well, not really - but to really answer that question I would have to be running a patreon alongside and see who prefers patreon and who prefers the one I made. Lots of folks didn't follow me to my new site because they already used patreon and supported a few artists on there already, they didn't want to spread about. If you're a new artist or starting out, I"d always go with something like patreon as you don't have any costs to do it. With my website I pay approx £250 a year to use the membership plugin, it's not free, but the amount I make in profit counteracts that considerably. I hope that helps?
I think I'm just kinda sick of so many platforms. Creators have to keep creating strategies for every single platform out there. It's so exhausting!
Thank you for this amazing insight! I'm still working towards an art career while finishing university and there is still a lot for me to try out moving forward. I'm grateful to have you sharing your experience to all of us! 😊
WOW! I don’t have the vocabulary in this moment to express how grateful I am for this video! I’ve been in the throes of thinking along these lines, as I make plans for the coming year, and this video is a major help in my decision-making process, as your content typically is. I’m amazed by how your timing intersects with my own thoughts. Thanks for meeting me in the ether! 😂 ❤ I love how you consider so many factors and go into your reasons why you choose to use - or let go of - the various available tools, and how you manage to tell us about why you’re not using something, without bashing anyone while you’re at it. We all make our own choices, and I greatly value the fact that you process through some of yours out here in the open. You get me thinking about many factors I’d not yet considered. Thanks!
Dear Kelsey, I appreciate your honesty, you are a rare character. You will develope into a very fine artist, you already are. Good luck and always be honest. I will be a forever fan.
Thanks for this! I’ve been considering relaunching my Patreon now that I’m fully committed to my UA-cam channel. I had been using Patreon in the past but ended up shutting it down because it wasn’t easy to interact and share with my community. I’m definitely going to look into the Discord option. Just found your channel btw!
I recently left patreon since it took all my energy. I just couldn't do it anymore and now I'm creating way more art and I feel happy
I don't know why you wouldn't have both a Patreon AND also offer Discord memberships. IMO from what I've seen the best Patreons are the ones with very limited tiers that basically amount to "I'd like to support this artist/creator/person but I don't need compensation in the form of rewards". Several of the UA-cam channels I follow have *thousands* of patrons and that's effectively how they've organized their Patreons.
I've noticed that ehe most successful people on patreon already had a substantial following before starting patreon.
I am VERY intrigued by this Discord premium thing! I think it can be a *fantastic* alternative that really helps us connect with our Ride or Dies.
Currently looking into my monetization options and your video put words into what I was observing and feeling... Thank you, Kelsey!! 🙌
Thanks. Just unluanched my Patreon too. I have a Discord server but it's not populated - gotta learn more about it.
I think patreon is good for limited edition products aka patreon only monthly prints and stickers or whatever like a product subscription but it’s definitely not for social interaction
Love the use of discord for community building, it's a lot easier to use for group communication.
Just an important note for people who are looking for the settings to get premium memberships on their server: Premium Memberships on discord are still in a closed experimental beta test so it hasn't been rolled out to everyone yet. They've expanded the slots recently but as of right now, most people do not have access to the feature. Hopefully soon though!
Omg I love that you screen capped right as you were replying to me 😂 love this and love you!
Thank you Kelsey, wishing you all the best!
I just joined your discord and very much look forward to share and learn from art-related experiences!
This is very interesting, I would never really care about how much the people in my Patreon (whenever I get one) interact, I don't see it as a community place, I see it as a product where the artists just gives what they offer, and most of them offer discord benefits in higher tiers, so there's where they build their patreon community. I never thought that anyone would care about the engagement on Patreon.
Discord is great for community building for sure. I also have hit a ceiling with my Patreon, but also with everything else it seems so I’m not sure what to change.
I just joined your discord! Im kinda a lurker and not very good at conversations but it gives off a nice vibe, and i like that you are active in it sometimes
I agree I have seen even the ones that make 6 figures only maybe a quarter of their audience actually comment or like their stuff. I remember when I wanted to make a Patreon but changed my mind later.
I have a ko-fi but im still struggling to figure out what to do with it as I'm not very active these days as I have been slowing down in my social presents these days and focus on finishing up college and dealing with putting my first born in school for the first time lol.
I have been working projects here and there and posting them but very slow about it as I realized I really loved to writing and drawing stories instead of just making prints.
I've been using Patreon for a year, I think until I've started hitting burnout. There are a few supporters but they're just in and out. They're not consistent. Some just took some of my art and got out before Patreon even asked for payment. This video is more focused on Discord, while I agree that I met and able to share my art more on Discord - but some servers are quite strict as they don't want you promoting inside of them (understandable). I've used it for clients and fans outside other platforms. I haven't been able to update my Patreon til now since I felt that I was only drawing what I like and it's not what the audience wanted. I use Discord for sharing updates with my art. Patreon is great for those doing NSFW stuff and those who are already popular due to their UA-cam or their Webcomics. So I guess it really takes time to build. I'm going to hang around with Patreon for a while and see.
Thank you for this, thought I was the only one. Patrons have been dropping off bit by bit and it’s killing me. Think I’m going to take the leap.
Very relateable experience on how Patreon is isolating instead of expansive except that instead of Discord as the place where you got organic traffic and started finding community it's been Tik Tok where that's starting to happen for me. I don't use Discord but I am planning on incorporating how similarly Ko-Fi integrates itself with Twitch so this vid really helped me put to words what was bothering me about Patreon. The vibe of Patreon seems to be either like electronic closed board room meetings for investors or private club for fans where Ko-Fi's features make it feel more like an electronic coffee shoppe and art gallery. You can follow anyone, tip anytime casually or do a monthly membership so no one feels excluded but you're also not selling yourself short of opportunities.
THANK YOU , YOU ARE THE REASON WHY I AM STARTING MY ART UA-cam CHANNEL - YOU SHOWED THAT I AM IMPORTANT AND VALUABLE AND IT IS VERY POSSIBLE THANK YUUUU
It's so timely that I've come across your video. I've been considering to join Patreon, but I would like to make sure what I'd be getting into so it's good to hear your points on the cons of being a Patreon user. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! (Perhaps I should consider Discord, too 😁)
This is awesome!! I was thinking about using Patreon once I become more consistent and mature as an artist, but this seems more fulfilling than that.
I know I'm going to show my age, but Discord: it's like what AOL and MS Messenger used to be. It's a place to chat, and more. But like, it's great this is being highlighted. I tend to be a lurker in large group servers, but definitely appreciate the connection of smaller servers :D
Good video. It's nice to hear discussion from people successfully making their art a career.
*I struggle on my Patreon, too, but I know mostly it's my skill level XD Still, I know exactly what she's talking about. I don't engage much with the people I'm a patron of either. I usually talk to them on comics, or in comment sections of other stuff. I don't know why, it just seems like one more place to keep up with (and I'm doing my own thing on my own page), so I'm just less likely to engage with the artists I support. Totally agree Discord is better for that.
Love hearing this perspective and I look forward to seeing how your discord plan works out!!
I honestly had no idea Discord offered a feature like that. I have been using Discord since it originally took off, and have seen Nitro being mentioned a lot. But this is honestly very different and an interesting approach to engage more with your audience. I am half tempted to try this out for myself, but I am also curious to see how it works in the long term. Great video!!
Honestly, this is kinda cool and I think will give patreon a run for their money, especially considering discord allows for NSFW content as long as the server/appropriate channels have been flagged as such.
Thank you very much for sharing this info! Even tho none of the servers i'm on seem to be able to have this feature, I think this is an interesting step forward that I am definitely going to yell about to fellow artists who use patreon!
Plus patreon is also difficult to advertise on social media, I am unsure if this is legit true or not, but artists tend to have to censor the word patreon on other social media apps (instagram, twitter etc) because it always feels as if the posts that are mentioning it tend to get nerfed in the algorithm, even if the post itself shows the full artwork that was posted to patreon, as soon as you mention the word or do another post under it advertising it, oop, suddenly it's engagement drops. :\
Patreon isn't about building a community. The advise i've heard about patreon is to build a large audience FIRST and then get a patreon to get some money.
Well most artists have told me Patreon only worth trying if you have a large following to leverage. It’s not for everyone. So don’t feel bad if you gotta let it go. But everyone has to find which platforms works for your business model.
Oh my gosh I didn't even know Discord had that! It sounds great, building a community is so much easier over than Patreon.
Joined discord community! Two seconds in, its great, loving it. It's the new meta. It will be the meta. UA-cam forever ❤🔥
my biggest thing with patreon was that you couldn’t edit tier prices as you grow. i make way more money making monthly happy mail packages on my own website. the community aspect of discord def sounds way better too!
I don't know if maybe you were on an older version of Patreon, but I've been able to edit my tier prices just fine and I've seen other artists do the same as they have grown or as their desires for their patreon have shifted. Either way, best of luck to you!
I've thought about going on Patreon but I had to do some due diligence in researching about it being good enough to present my artistry. I'm still looking to expand myself to gain an audience at least. I already have IG and Tiktok being platforms that I'm growing an audience base, growing faster than on UA-cam and FB.
hi. well in my case. i have been on patreon for nearly 3 years now. not one patreon. i ve noticed, now i can no not even see how many people are coming to my patreon posts each month. in the beginning , people were looking. all of a sudden traffic just stopped. i did ask support, why? tbey never responded. what can i say. not much nothing good to say...
and yet, i see creatives making millions. i feel when you opt. to engage patreon creators before the public, they all swoop, to see your creations. the way they are so big is because they use your fresh ideas creations each month and they get all the rewards and payments for the work you have created. that when i put public first, i noticed my patreon statistics, were non existent. exactly, i am intellevtual and a very smart cookie, good at statistics. so people, patreon is about stealing and conning. people use the internet for gain not to give to marketing, when public just need and want to make, virtually Millions Doing Nothing. Content Creating which is Simple and Easy to DO. THERE, IN A NUT SHEL Is the Truth about Social Media and all the other Shop MAKING PLATFORMS...all of them...good luck, its the losers game...
Great observations! I've avoided the Patreon platform because I don't want to spend my creative time fulfilling perks for membership tiers or even feel a tinge of obligation when I want to use my very small amount of free time to make art. I also worry that I would upset or alienate patrons with more recent (and more political) art. I don't fault folks for doing it but I have a day job that supports me financially and gives me peace of mind/stability so I can focus on doing the work. I think there's a real danger that can hurt your process when you invite (intentionally or unintentionally) too many folks into your decision making.
I'm actually really interested in how the switch goes for you! This is the first time I've heard about issues with pateron and what you're saying makes sense. I think it could be a problem for people who don't currently use discord to sign up for it. Have you considered changing your patreon tiers and making it more like a Ko-fi (throw me a couple buck bc you like my stuff)? You could put a disclaimer "same benefits as level 1 Discord sub, no patreon exclusive content as I'm moving away from patreon". I think giving people the choice of how they want to support you is super important, not everyone will want to be social in a community, patreon might work for more casual fans.
I was thinking about actually doing something like that but for UA-cam memberships, just to keep things in only a couple places
@@KelseyRodriguez Oh! that's a great idea. Letting people support you where they already are makes sense.
So, what is the best alternative?
You are my new favorite artist; my top three! Love your art, great personality, articulate - you rock!
Thanks! I looked in to Patreon and was put off from the get go. Look forward to hearing how this works out for you. Thanks for all you share - good and bad :)
This is so insightful :) I’ll definitely check out discord’s subscription tiers and see if I can migrate my Patreon over!!
congrats! this is an excellent decision for you for sure
ive been running a discord server for years, let me know if you need any helps! and good luck!
I went to explore Premium membership feature and it appeared that it is not app wide for now and an experiment for a few servers. I hope they will roll out the feature for all servers
Thank you! Crossing Patreon off my possibilities list. Sounds like wayyyy too much work for me. I'll have to try to figure Discord out again.
If you think of a live Q&A session like a meeting with a consultant or a class with an instructor, then $35/mth for access to 2 sessions is a pretty good deal! $20 for one painting class sounds like a steal. For me the hardest challenge is a lack of time. Seems like having a simple clear path to sign up for just one month could be helpful for some people?
When I know there's one month where I can set aside some of my time to prep, attend, and follow up on a Q&A session, then I'd be more likely to spend that money that month. I usually don't sign up for monthly subscriptions with intangible benefits because I know most months I won't have time to use them, so I'd kind of be wasting hard earned money. Just in case that insight helps you market your services better.
Also I agree that free access to a Discord server is a good way to tempt more people to check a community out, and increase the chance of converting a subscriber into a supporter / backer!
Mmm I feel you re: the one month thing. That would be a good idea, and Discord could even offer a slight discount if you wanted to purchase like several months at once. Right now I'm offering free one week trials for all the tiers and making the topics of the Q&As clear in advance, hopefully that'll do the trick!
I love your discord server and good luck with the memberships!! 🎉❤ so glad I didn’t go thru with Patreon now 😅
This is really interesting - I'd love to hear how it's been going for you with the premium Discord memberships! I'm thinking of doing that also...
bro patreon ain't for community building
its the bottom of the funnel
its a way to milk the super fans
discord is free and therefore the top of a funnel
its apples and oranges
Discord isn’t the top of the funnel, it still requires conversion from a different platform. So it’s middle tier. My point is that integrating Patreon within Discord is going to increase members even more and make the experience on the patron side even better!
my patreon didnt grow as well over the whole year... i only get 4 patrons and now 3... am thinking of shutting it down
I struggled with it and brought it back down but also struggling with my ko-fi page too. Then again I'm just starting out on UA-cam now so I think it's too early for me to really decide what's failing for me yet. Anyway, good video! I will considering the Discord premium options now!
When people add too many options to Patreon levels, it gets overwhelming. Not only in choosing the option you want. I imagine it is for the creator too since it’s a lot more to keep track of and keep up with. I’d personally rather have videos and q&a and be able to support the artist that way. Or maybe a special thing like a print or pin, sticker every once in a while or maybe for signing up?
The trick is to limit or not make much extra content / high effort connect for members on youtube/patreon/etc, or just have one or two levels maximum. The main idea, most people see it for, is supporting the creator, even if a bunch of people (with already bigger audiences) do much more for it.