I’m holding off from doing tiered communications precisely be cause of the upsell. I suppose I could tag them differently if I knew it would suppress teasing and upselling.
4 Likes
-
Depends on the post. If it’s one that we think might drive people to click or upgrade, definitely! But if we don’t, it’s probably for a quick post that wouldn’t benefit from it as much.
-
Specific ones for sure
-
If text only - about a tweet length is usually enough, but having the option to go longer would be great!
-
We rarely do image posts, but when we do, I think that previewing the image posts would NOT be preferred. But his is specific for us and I’d rather defer to people who usually make images posts
2 Likes
No. I usually copy/paste the first paragraph of the post for social media, but Patreon’s teaser text is almost always too short to fit, so I have to rewrite it and eventually just don’t bother with it.
My content is Illustrations only, so making image teasers would be great. I always create those teasers for social media anyway, so it wouldn’t be extra work. Now that we have image galleries, I could definitely use the first image as a cover/teaser.
I don’t use many text posts except for news or polls, but it definitely needs more characters than what we have now. An automatic suggestion from the actual post would be great, but is my memory failing, or did we have an automated blurb as a teaser text at some point? I might be imagining that. For image posts, I think the first pic on the gallery should be good enough.
I think it would be better than the current blurred image, at least for people who post many illustrations in a single post, or maybe other types of content. If your content is a single image per post, it should be darkened AND cropped.
thanks for these questions!
2 Likes
As an artist, I would absolutely love to be able to set my own teaser image. This is something that the Patreon-esque site Pixiv Fanbox does for their creators and it’s something I’ve been quite envious of!
Not only would it allow us to tease what we’re offering, but it provides an opportunity to design the teaser in an overall pleasing way that, when potential patrons scroll through, would serve as another manner of marketing oneself.
5 Likes
I don’t think the darkened version is a good solution for artists whose main creation is illustration. It shows too much of the image. I post horizontal and vertical images, and in the case above, a horizontal image would be barely cropped and almost entirely visible, which negates the point of making it locked at all. I also have images which I need to keep entirely patron-only due to publication agreements and those darkened teasers would show too much of those as well. I wouldn’t mind being able to upload a separate preview jpeg, but I wouldn’t want to be required to do that for every post since a lot need to remain patron only. I also wonder how you would handle this for nsfw creators who are required to be much more careful with their public facing content. If those examples above were nsfw images, the darkened version would not be acceptable as a public image on the site.
Like others have said, a separate upload for a teaser/preview image would be the most useful option rather than these automated versions. I would happily use that feature. I appreciate the effort to improve the current look too, since I know scrolling through dozens of gray squares isn’t a big draw for folks, and it’s not always easy to get a feel for what someone is creating before pledging to them.
6 Likes
I will speak only about images locked posts, because they are my only posts. I like the fading effect on the text of the current version. And I like the teaser option image, where you can guess the image in dark. BUT for me the preview should be narrower (as in the current locked post), to be sure the teaser shows just a (darkened) part of the image of the unlocked post.
In my case, most are vertical comics pages, so the preview would display a part, but for the cartoons, which are horizontal and sometimes without any words, non patrons could “read” them completely.
I think a mix between current locked post image and the option you show would be better. Not only dark overlay, but darker and blurred to the corners.
Thank you very much for asking and trying to make it better all the time!
1 Like
I only use teaser text for my permanent Archive and Reward posts (like my gallery archive, video archive, etc). Most times the title of other posts is enough. I’d probably use the feature more if it were on the mobile app, though.
I like the idea of being able to pick and choose when to include teasers, but I suspect that would be tricky. So if I have to go with one or the other I’d say no. Just keep it how it is.
And the part about previewing text would get really problemtatic for me because I link to most of my content (larger galleries and videos) via the text part so I definitely don’t want that to be teased at all. Personally, if text is going to be shown, I’d like to manually choose that text myself.
Additionally, most of the photos I post (which is mainly what I post) are NSFW so I don’t think a dark overlay would be good for that based on the fact that those could be seen publicly. I think it would show too much. In some cases, it would show more than I want non-Patrons to see too.
2 Likes
Hi all! Thank you so much for the feedback on the designs! I wanted to provide a quick update. Starting today we will be testing some changes to the way text and images of locked posts appear on the landing page. We know that locked posts are great at helping you attract new patrons, and we are now giving your page visitors a bit more of a tease so they are compelled to become patrons. A portion of your page visitors will see less of a blur on images, and the first 140 characters of your text posts (unless you specify a post-tease, in which case that is all we will show).
Here’s an example of what it will look like.
2 Likes
On my husband’s Patreon for his blog, he posts locked posts about what books he’s currently reading. This is only available to higher level patrons. If you show the first 140 characters, that will reveal the title of the book, which the post usually starts with. There really needs to be a way to opt out of these kinds of changes! Several shorter posts may be mostly spoiled with the first 140 characters. We do not generally want our posts shown to non-patrons. The title is enough for them to get a feel for what they are missing and we CHOOSE to not make any teaser available for a reason.
Hi @FutilityCloset, you can use the “teaser text” section when making a post, and that’s all that will show.
Yeah, agreed. Having the ability to choose your own teaser text is still needed at times. I have no idea if it’s still available with this and can override it but that option, I hope, remains for those cases where something more custom is needed.
No, we don’t want any text to show. We need an option to have none show. The first few words of some of my husband’s posts will give away the information that you are supposed to be a patron to receive. This is a problem if you are now showing that to non-patrons.
@FutilityCloset Sorry, I didn’t explain myself very well. You can type anything you’d like to show in the “teaser text” section. It can be a greeting, or anything that a visitor could find enticing. It doesn’t have to be something that gives away information about the content. If you make use of the “teaser text” section of a post (see screenshot below), that’s what will show on your page.
I see, but that’s making a lot of extra work for us. And what about the scores and scores of posts that are already up there that we don’t want the first few words to show on them?
We absolutely need an option to not have any teaser text show. We do a good job of explaining what kinds of posts patrons will be getting. Especially in the case of my husband’s blog; I can’t imagine that any potential patrons have any questions about it. For our podcast, I imagine that the main posts they would have the most questions about would be the audio posts; the text ones are pretty straight forward and well explained. We do not want teaser text and it will be actively counter-productive for my husband’s campaign.
Is the vignette effect from the overlay? Or was that on the images originally? It looks good, but it’s hard to tell if it’s actually part of the overlay effect.
I love the blur, though! It teases the image more than the current blur, but doesn’t show off too much. =]
@FutilityCloset this treatment of locked posts will only apply to the most recent locked posts that are showing on your landing page, so your older posts will show as they have been.
Our goal with this test is to find ways to help you get more patrons. We heard in our interviews of perspective patrons that it’s really helpful for them to get a sense of what a patron gets when they’re deciding whether to become a patron. We are exploring longer term solutions, and this test is a quick way for us to assess the value of this type of functionality. Excited to share any insight with glean with you all in the future.
That’s not accurate, actually - I visited a friend’s Patreon (which I do not belong to), and there are posts over a month old showing info that is clearly meant to be hidden in the post previews.
Edited to add - I sent you a DM with an example @ursula
1 Like
I think if text is going to be teased, we REALLY need to be able to use the Teaser Text option in the app. I post probably 90% of my posts from the app. My concern specifically is that sometimes I make a post with text like this:
"Hi guys 
I’ve got another nude vlog for you:
[Link URL]"
That’s an issue because:
- I’m guessing the link would show and possibly be clickable which would mean non-Patrons would get access.
- The content is NSFW and therefore shouldn’t be public based on Patreon’s content rules.
I’m also still concerned about the blurred overlay on NSFW images in relation to Patreon’s public content rules.
Honestly, I’m just not a fan of this change at all, but if we have to have it, these are the biggest concerns I have.
2 Likes
Also, will this be applied to old posts? Because that’s going to make a LOT of work for some of us to go back and change text and images. Hopefully we get some advanced warning if so.
1 Like
I don’t see a downside in having an option. An option to keep the old previews and to switch to the new ones. If that’s possible, I feel like that’d be the best route.
If it’s not possible, having AMPLE time before these changes are sent out fully would be very necessary. For creators who have hundreds or more posts to comb through, it could be really damaging if they’re not given a warning ahead of time to prepare.
2 Likes