Putting Together Your Patreon
It might be tempting to throw together your Patreon profile and start posting about it as soon as possible, but a little care and cultivation can build more momentum so that you hit the ground running when you decide to launch. Once you’ve built your page (link to “Getting Started”), follow these steps before you launch it:
Do a soft launch.
Once you’re done setting up your page, you can use the “page review link” to send your page to select friends and family and ask them to come in on the ground as your first patrons, or to offer you feedback to make sure your page is representing you and your work well. With some patrons under your belt already, your page will be even more appealing when you do your hard launch.
Join a Patreon Creators group.
It helps to have friends in the biz, so join a creators group on Facebook or another forum to get help and make friends with other Patreon creators.
Create some posts.
You can hit the “Launch” button on your profile without alerting anyone. The benefit of this is that you can start posting and get some content ready before your hard launch. Make sure you have a few posts to tell your patrons about what you’re working on.
Put up at least one patron-only post.
Even if you don’t have any patrons yet, have at least one patron-only post up on your page to entice people to become patrons and see what they’re missing.
Use Canva.
Use Canva to create banners for your social media profiles that announce your Patreon launch date so that everyone can see you’re about to do something big.
Promote your Patreon Launch on Social Media.
Keep updating your fans and followers about your progress as you build up to launch day. Make sure people know what’s coming up and that they’re invited to the party. Ask other Patreon creators, if you know any, to tell their followers about your launch, since almost half of your patrons will likely be patrons of other artists as well. Host a live stream Q&A about your Patreon project. If you got a blog or email list, make sure you post or send out an email about your launch.
Draft your launch day social media posts.
Patreon offers templates you can use to post on social media when you launch. Get your post content ready so you can go all out on your launch date.
Poll your friends about rewards options.
A great way to stir up a buzz about your Patreon and get help developing it is to poll your friends and fans about what kinds of rewards they’d be interested in receiving in exchange for patronage. Make sure to follow Patreon’s best practices for your rewards so you don’t end up doing more work on your rewards than on your art.
Link up.
When you’re ready to launch, link to your Patreon page on all of your social media pages, your website, in your email signature, and on your business card.
Have an online party.
Make your launch a party! Invite your friends to get together for a live feed of your launch to share feedback and celebrate your success.
Tell everyone.
On launch day start posting your prepared content. Make sure to tell everyone how excited you are and invite them to celebrate with you, rather than asking them for money. Make sure you tag and hashtag Patreon by using #patreon and @patreon in all of your posts. Ask your fellow Patreon creators to post about your launch. Share your intro video across all of your socia media platforms. Pin your Patreon launch posts to the tops of your feeds.
Follow up.
A few days later, follow up for the friends and fans who may not have seen your initial posting. You can let them know where to look in case they missed all the hurrah the first time.
Keep creating.
Hopefully you’ve been creating all this time, so keep working hard to deliver consistent, quality content and do what your patrons are supporting you for.
Guest Post by Allie Mazon
Photo by Jamie Mozon