One of the biggest questions I get asked about, being a content creator, is, “How do you make money?” The reality is, you don’t really make money on YouTube. Yes there’s Google Adsense and that is a way to have a little bit of an income, but any YouTuber will tell you that the amount of money that you make from Adsense is not a ton, to say the least, unless you in the millions of subscribers. So you have to get creative in how you offset the amount of time, effort and resources that go into making these videos. For me, I started looking into crowdfunding options, sponsorships, and those kind of things. I always want to keep it really authentic to who I am as a person and I don’t want to ever “sell out”. So I found a really cool option, and if you’re a content creator I’m sure you’re going to find this really interesting too.
Introducing Patreon! Now Patreon is nothing new, it’s been around for a little while, but I just recently discovered it. It’s such an incredible option, as a content creator, to start monetizing what you’re doing. Whether you’re a blogger, a Youtuber, a podcaster, there’s all kinds of content creators on this site. So we are going to dive into how Patreon works!
Patreon is crowdfunding for content creators. If you think about it this way, you have subscriptions for things like Netflix, and you pay for cable for your TV and those kinds of things. So think about all the free content that you consume online – we, as content creators, love making it and I know you hear me on that. We love doing this, that’s why we do it, you don’t really get into making Youtube videos to become a millionaire – realistically. But it is nice to be able to create an income out of it because then it allows you to create even more video content and even more quality video content. That’s really the end game. It’s really about if you are consuming this content and you find it helpful.
I’ve really studied the platform and two of the requirements for having a Patreon account and actually succeeding on this platform is; One, you need to have an already some what established community. That doesn’t mean you need to have millions of subscribers, listeners, or viewers, but it means that you need to have an engaged community who are your brand ambassadors and who care about what you’re doing. They are loyal and they come back week to week, because those are the people who want to support you in this way. The other requirement is really just giving something of value and providing content that’s educational or helpful or of service to your audience. That’s what’s going to make people want to contribute to what you’re doing because at the end of the day, you’re helping them. When you are supporting content creators, they often will have rewards on their Patreon page. Steve Dotto has an awesome YouTube channel, which I will link to below, and he also has a great Patreon account that has lot’s of really awesome rewards available. His pledges start at $1 and go all the way up to $500. At $100 per month, one of the rewards that Steve offers is, he’s going to create one of his videos for your product every six months or two per year – so that’s a pretty good thing if you’re looking to get some publicity as Steve has about 100,000 subscribers on his channel.
Nate is a musician and you can see he has 13 of 20 patreons, so you can cap your amount of patreons of dollar amounts – so that’s what he’s done here and if you pledge $25 or more per month, you get a one on one mentoring session with him and a 30 minute skype call per month. Plus you get a hand written post card and your name in the credit of his songs, videos, and albums.
The Kinda Funny Games patreon account is a great example. These guys actually quite their jobs to become content creators full time and they have some really cool and creative perks. One of there things is early access to their content, which is something that a lot of content creators will do on patreon. Also mentions, like a monthly Q&A stream that these guys will do for you if you pledge $20 or more a month, an on-air thank-you if you pledge $25 or more a month, and as it goes up it increases in value with each of the perks that they have available. Here are a few other things that you can offer and that I’ve seen on other patreon accounts that work quite well for increasing the amount of patreons that you get on your account.
As I mentioned earlier, you can do early access or advertise free access to your content or you can do shout outs in video format, or on your podcast or even on a social media mention if you want to Tweet at someone to say thank-you publicly. You can offer transcriptions of your content, free products, e-books or lower price point products that you’re selling. You can offer discounts on your courses, products or services or swag, meaning bags, t-shirts or hats with your logo on it. You can do Q & A’s, hand written thank-you notes, private coaching calls, sponsored content and the list goes on! The sky is the limit and you just need to be creative with what you want to offer to you audience and what you think they will like.
So that’s really an overview of Patreon. I’m super happy I discovered this platform and this is now a crowdfunded channel, so if you’ve enjoyed this content, my own patreon page is brand new you can check out the details below this video, I’ll have a link to my patreon page where you can see rewards that I’m offering patreons and if you feel like supporting that would be awesome! If not, cool, no worries, I’m just happy you’re here and watching this video!
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If you’re interested in checking out the details and rewards on my Patreon page, click here
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