Patreon for Entrepreneurs

Patreon's the key to monetizing your website or your YouTube channel, right? Stick around, we're gonna talk about this today. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I am Dan from millennialmotivator.ca, helping you learn how to create, engage, and inspire. If you're new to the channel, click that subscribe button down there and the little bell. You'll get notified when I go live. We put out videos here Monday through Saturday. Showcasing the best tips, tricks, and advice to grow your online presence. Whether that's a website, social media, you name it, we talk about it here. So welcome back, guys. It's Monday. It's a new day. Over the weekend, we had our second live stream on Saturdays. We're doing this every Saturday to help people just take a look at their websites, take a look at their social media networks, and take a look at their YouTube channels and figure out some things and tips, constructive criticism that they can use to move their websites and stuff forward. to get some more success online. One of the questions that came out though was, what's the deal with Patreon? Is it viable? Should everybody be using it? What does it look like? How do you, how do you play with it? The reality is, guys, I am not actively using Patreon. I have a Patreon profile, it exists, there's a link in the comments below, but I have recognized several different aspects about Patreon that I think I need to share so you guys understand better what the network is, how it applies and how it's best used and when it's appropriate to start using it. So without further ado, let's go. Okay, first and foremost, what is Patreon? Patreon is essentially a hub for creators of any kind. So whether that's music, video, YouTube, written word, if you are a creator— it doesn't even necessarily need to be a creator. It seems like it's simply a support network. But the reality is this: if you are a person that people want to support in their endeavors, Patreon provides a method to do that. It allows you to create a profile, a wall, and a list of rewards that are tiered in order to incentivize growth. Many, many popular YouTubers use this as a method of monetization, which is why people on YouTube are asking about it. And especially with the change into the adpocalypse, adpocalypse 2.0, demonetization, partner rule changes, I understand why there's a lot more interest in Patreon and whether or not it's a useful plug Now entrepreneurs will obviously always see the advantage when there's the ability to make money, whether or not that should be what they're doing. Is that the direction you should be heading? So now that we understand a little bit about what Patreon is, essentially it's a platform to allow your community that you've created to support you in small monetary ways in order to receive rewards. Okay, that's the snapshot. That's what Patreon is. Now, how should you use it? All right guys, so You hear that I have Patreon, the link's down below. I don't plug it, I don't promote it. This is the first video that I've done speaking about Patreon, and the reason is this: I feel that you need to first create a thriving community that provides value, content, and real meaning before you can make that segue into a monetized community-driven platform. Now, there are people out there that will disagree, and that's the beauty of creation, is you can have an opinion and I can have one. Okay, my opinion is this: I want to provide value first. So for me, did I set up a Patreon account? Yes, I did. Did I fill it out fully? Yes, I did. Why? It's not gonna hurt to have it up there. And the reality is, anybody that goes into the Patreon, joins as a Patreon member, and helps support the channel, all of that goes back into the channel. So it's there, it's great, it is what it is. But I haven't actively promoted it yet because my vision for it is, after I hit 10,000 subscribers, I That's when it starts to become a regular part of the process. My feeling is if I can get 1 in 10 people to donate $1 a month, right? 1 in 10. So 10,000 subscribers, 1 in 10 would be 1,000 people at $1 a month. That is where I start to make the transition from this being a part-time thing to being a full-time YouTube channel. Realistically though, with 1,000 subscribers, for $100 a month, that same rule of 1 in 10, if I could get 1 in 10 people to donate just $1 a month on Patreon, The reality is I don't see that being a viable resource. I don't see it being enough to really build and grow the channel, to dedicate more of my time to this endeavor, or to help improve the quality of the stream. So I don't promote it because I don't see it as being a successful avenue for growth on the channel. And this is what I recommend you do as well, is analyze why you want to use it, how you want to use it, and where you're gonna use it, when you're gonna use it, right? So there are many different places that you can promote your Patreon, obviously. If You have a diverse social network. You can advertise on your Instagram, on your Tumblr, on your Twitter, on your Facebook. You can put it everywhere. And that's the beauty of it. It is an ability to engage with your community at large. It's not restricted to a single network. It's not like it's Twitch, for example, where I have partnership. A Twitch partnership, really the only supporters on— the supporters from Twitch can only support you on Twitch. That's it. They can't support you through your Facebook page other than being a part of it. But your Patreon page can have supporters from all of your social networks coming together in a single platform where you can manage and run that. So there is a lot of simplicity and functionality to how that system works, okay? So keep that in mind. But you want to sit down and really hammer out how are you using the tool effectively, what's the strategy you have moving forward. You know what it is now, so gauge what am I using it for as a creator, as am I, am I looking as Patreon as a quick method to monetize what I'm doing, or am I looking at— am I looking at it as a simple method for my community that I've built through my social network? Am I looking at it as an ability for that community to engage back with me, give a little bit back to the channel, help grow the channel, and help be a part of the process of what they're already doing on— on whether it's YouTube or DeviantArt or wherever you're creating your stuff? If it's SoundCloud for musicians, so be it. But the reality is this, guys: you have to have a strategy when using Patreon. It's not something I advocate for everybody because the reality is, if your whole network— if you're a new YouTube creator, you've only got 30 subscribers— I don't see Patreon really doing big things for you. Now, that's not saying that it can't, because I do see certain circumstances where that could be of value. Let's say you are a photographer, you are a, you know, a really classy artist that has some serious skills, commissions could be a great way to bring in a Patreon community. And of course, using your Patreon in that way can help grow your Patreon. So is it impossible that small creators can use Patreon? No, but I don't feel like it's a viable thing off the bat. So you guys have my spiel now on what Patreon is, how I discern whether or not you should use it. Now let's take a look at why I don't think— why I absolutely will not advocate for people to use Patreon. Okay, now I did just say outline the strategy, know your brand, know your product, know your community, and mold your Patreon strategy around that. Now what I want to stress here, guys, and it's something that I stress on this channel from go, is you have to have a love for the process before you worry about the finance. Okay, and what do I mean by this? If you are always looking at the dollar sign— how do I get partnered on YouTube to make the money so I can start making money— if that's your focus and that's your aim, the reality is this: you're gonna struggle or fail. Okay, what do I mean by that? If you look at creators out there that are largely successful, they did not come onto the YouTube platform saying, I want to make a pile of money. Okay, it just didn't happen that way. A lot of them were very realistic. The ad revenue that you pull in from YouTube isn't going to be bank-breaking money from the get-go. Most of the major creators that you are aware of on YouTube, you can throw them out there, name them, they are people that have created networks around the concept of engaging a community and and building a community around their personal brand, their product, their service. And in that, afterwards, they're able to enjoy the benefits of the partnership. So people say, well, what about guys like the Logans? Well, even the Logans guys came from Vine where they did just that. They built a network from the ground up, built a community, and from that community they've transitioned over to YouTube and now enjoy the benefits of partnership through the community that they built originally. Same thing with Patreon, right? If you have a massive community, whether it be on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, you YouTube, it doesn't matter. If you have a massive network, great, Patreon works for you because you've already done the legwork. You love the process, you love being a creator first and foremost. Your focus isn't on the dollar bills at the end of the road. Your focus is on, I love to create, I'm looking for people that love what I create, and upon building a community that appreciates that, bam, now there's an opportunity to allow that community to come alongside you, support that initiative of what you're doing, and help build it even further, right? That's a key point to remember. If you're going to use Patreon, it has to be about community building and growth. It cannot be a cash grab. It kills me when it's a cash grab. One of the worst things that I see in Patreon accounts is I see people advertising them on smaller channels and even bigger channels. And the reality is this: it's people that throw it up there, you see a page with their smile, it says give me money. Essentially, there's no rewards here set up. There's not the time taken and given to actually explaining who who you are, what your passion is, what your vision is, where you want to go. And as a result, I feel like it ends up being just a massive cash grab. So again, I don't advocate for this. I'm not pushing my Patreon massively now. I want— you won't hear about Patreon again from me until I hit that 10,000 subscriber mark. It's not something that I'm actively pushing. I have a link down there just so it's there if people are looking for it, but I don't advocate it as a massive source of income for anybody out of the gate. I recommend instead, as always, focus on the process, great content, engage your community, and inspire people to come alongside you and build your channel. I feel like once you hit a certain threshold, which for me I've set that goal at 10,000 followers, 10,000 subscribers— once I've hit that threshold, then I feel it's a viable resource for me to tap on people's shoulders and say, hey, you guys are an awesome community, how would you like to come alongside, donate $1 a month, and I will give you access to whatever one of the reward platforms is for $1 a month? And private Hangout sessions is something that I've seen, private YouTube Live, private teaching, private resources, all kinds of special goodies just for people that are Patreon members right now. I think that's a really simple and amazing way to go, and it's a great way to give back to your community for the support that they show you. But I don't feel that it's a vital step for you to take unless first you've done that legwork of create, engage, inspire, building a community around your brand, product, or service. Now I know that was like drinking from a fire hose, guys. I know that I pounded that out there for you, and hopefully you can go back and just check and see anything that you missed in the video. If you're like, oh, that was a great point, but I didn't really follow because he was saying so much at once, I hope you can go back. I tried to make it as simple as possible. I know there are a lot of people out there that see Patreon as an opportunity to go, well, becoming a YouTube partner is so difficult now, I can do Patreon from the go. Should I just do that and forget about YouTube ad revenue? My answer, as always, will be forget about revenue as a whole. Focus on the process, create great content, engage your community, and inspire people to come alongside you in where you want to go. Thank you so much for watching, guys. If this helped clarify at least a little bit for you what Patreon is, how it's used, and how you can use it, click that like button down there, share it out with a friend. And question of the day is, are you using Patreon or will you use Patreon after watching this video? Let me know down in the comments below. Have an amazing day and I will catch you tomorrow with another great video, guys. See you then.