Affiliate Tips: What is Patreon and how it can help you connect with your fans?
Patreon is a crowdfunding platform which allows the creator (YOU) to get paid for the content you’re already producing. Think of it as an ongoing Kickstarter campaign, the only difference being that you get paid on a recurring basis. The key to having a successful Patreon page is engaging with your Patreons constantly. The most effective ways you can do this are: posting often and having a well-structured reward system.
You might have a lot of fans that will ask you what Patreon is. No worries, we’ve done some research and there’s a magic line that works 99% of the time:
“Patreon is a membership platform that makes it easy for creators to get paid.”
If they also ask to provide them with examples, simply tell them what you plan on doing with the amount they pledged and how that is incrementally helping you become better at what you do. As a fan, knowing that you can make a real difference for the creators you love is music to your ears.
For example, let’s take Black Girl Nerds creator/founder Jamie’s Patreon account. The money she gets from pledges go into site maintenance, podcasts expenses, upgrading her equipment, travel expensenses and paying for writers.
What are rewards?
Asking for money from fans can be challenging. With Patreon you’re not technically doing that. Instead you’re creating valuable content and your fans want to pay for it.
Offering rewards is a great way for you to offer valuable content in exchange for a certain amount of money (also known as the pledge). If you want to understand rewards better, here’s an article that talks about that in more depth. It’s also structured by vertical: for podcasters, webcomics, vloggers, etc.
https://learn.patreon.com/build/understanding-rewards/
In our opinion, the best rewards are the ones that are palpable; the ones that you can hold in your hands. And what better way to do that than with merch? We have more information on Patreon coming your way so stay tuned!
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