Please keep this feedback coming! The product team may not be responding directly but most of them have read through this thread and been taking notes on the items you’ve surfaced. It may be some time before things make their way into a product plan, but do know that this kind of commentary and rationale is extremely valuable and that it does get in front of people working directly on Patreon.
Thank you, @carla.
Yeah this is something that Patreon does REALLY badly. If they only show off the high earners, that’s not necessarily going to help new high earners is it! Kickstarter’s platform would be good to look at in how to search for new talent. I don’t really know why they’ve not implemented that. I know they think that the patreon creators should bring their fans with them, and that’s fine, but why not make it easier for everyone to tumble into someone new via the site? It seems like a no brainer. They are always busy changing things that don’t need changing (logo etc), but the workings of the site is laggy at best. I still love the site but man, why don’t they fix this?
Yeah that’s a really good point. Engagement is low for my patrons (usually the same handful of people commenting every time I post (or every other time) amongst 104 people. Seems daft that most of those people don’t interact.
I’ve taken to writing this at the start of my posts, Emily @artbyemilyhare:
Before I Start…
…are you reading this as an email notification? If so, please scroll straight down and click CHECK IT OUT! then come and read it on Patreon.
It’s presented much more nicely over there and it would be lovely to hear your thoughts…please like and comment below!
Once it’s published, I then delete the above text so that people see it in their email notification but not in the post when they see it on Patreon.
A handy tip?
— Jack
Ooh that’s very handy indeed! Has it been working?
Another thing that always helps me with people getting involved is asking them a direct question, but of course that’s not always possible every post!
I’ve only tried it once, Emily, on my most recent post. It certainly dragged people across that maybe wouldn’t have normally for this kind of post (where they can see the whole thing in their email as opposed to, say, a video).
— Jack
Ah cool, I’ll try it today on my post that I’m about to do! Thanks!
BTW Jack, that’s an awesome Patreon you’ve got there! Hello fellow brit!
Thank you, Emily!
Thanks so much for the pledge!
Likewise and my pleasure…think it’s good for us to support each other in the Patreon Community.
— Jack
Me too, it’s a lovely community I think. It’s impressive how many patrons you’ve got in such a short timespan! I am doing a pledge drive currently and hoping it will give me a bit of a boost. Just tried your extra note on my latest post. Hopefully it will get more interaction!
Fingers crossed. Let me/us know!
I am DEFINITELY going to try this with my next post. Thanks for the suggestion!
I think I might also add something at the bottom of the post to leave a comment or a heart so I know they saw the post. I see it at the bottom of Amanda Palmer’s posts and always think I should do that! and then forget.
Glad it’s been helpful, Angela. And, yes, Amanda Palmer’s a good person to follow if only to see how she engages with her audience. 11.1K Patrons can’t be wrong!
I just made a post paraphrasing that first paragraph about clicking to view it on Patreon. The post is also a poll, so hopefully it will get some feedback that I need.
As both a creator and a patron to a lot of other creators I think the biggest issue I have is the browsing experience. Specifically the new creator browsing experience.
I pledge to someone who has 40+ posts and I have to browse through them all with comment previews, partial text visible, and with a “show more” menu at the bottom. The issue is that it could take me going back 20+ pages to find content that I just discovered. Keep in mind, some Patreons have over 1000 posts, at 12 per page it could take days to go through them all!
Flip that around and look how other sites manage that:
On DeviantArt if I find a new artist I can click their gallery and page through 30-70 thumbnails at a time looking at the images they’ve posted. On tumblr I have a responsive feed that autoloads when I reach the bottom and doesn’t force me to expand every post or reload multiple pages.
I’m not saying you should steal either of these systems, but websites dedicated to pirating patreon content are easier to browse than the site I actually post it on.
I would much rather browse through all posts by viewing them as thumbnails than have to do it the way it currently is.
Ideally, I would be able to curate posts in those thumbnails or compact lists easier as well. A system for placing posts in folders or even mass tagging would help me organize my patreon content into mini-galleries that people could easier scroll through to view all available content.
Curation being the key word, being able to weed out posts in an easier to use interface so people don’t have to be exposed to every minor post when they are specifically looking for content is important. 2 years down the road do people really need to know that I had some trouble moving in december and was late with december rewards?
Basically, it’s not so much that the tools aren’t available to curate my content, it’s that they are a bit awkward to apply to posts (I have to edit every post individually to change tags and I have to feature tags that I want to be curated), and very awkward to view (I should have a way to view more than 12 at a time in a smaller amount of space). Giving creators tools to mass manage their posts will help a lot - creator ‘updates’ are a big part of running a patreon but also clog up the same space we use to post our rewards and content.
I leave this feedback not just as a creator and a patron, but someone who constantly has to deal with 6+ month patrons sending me messages about old art they didn’t know I did because they couldn’t be bothered to go back though 5+ pages of posts to find the “gems”.
Sounds like good constructive feedback, Wat. Fingers crossed some of it gets implemented.
— Jack