New Follow Page Prompts

[Temrin]

Noticed something today. Was testing something and found that when you follow someone, it now takes you to a prompt to pledge to them if you don’t already. THIS IS AWESOME! However, it’s rather unclear and I was confused at the beginning thinking the follow button was bugged and now making me pledge because it says “Choose a tier and unlock posts” instead of something like “Consider supporting and unlock posts” or “You like this persons content, please consider supporting…” - Maybe creators can pick what their page should say. I know some people would like to be funny and show their personality on screens like this. It looks very much like a next step in the process, and less of an option, which i can understand if that was on purpose but it’s very misleading and a bit pushy for some creators who advertise for people to follow us for follower giveaways and such.

And another thing i noticed after the fact.

On pages i don’t pledge to, when i go directly to a post page, it shows me “edit pledge” not a “Pledge now/support this creator” while pages i DO pledge to, don’t give me an option to edit my pledge at all. o.O This is super confusing.

Example: POST OF PAGE I DONT PLEDGE TO

POST OF PAGE I DO PLEDGE TO

Pages i pledge to should give me the option to edit/update my pledge while pages i don’t pledge to currently, should give me a button to initiate a pledge. While the page it takes me to is the same page as the follower page link, the button itself is unclear and i don’t know why it doesn’t show up on the page i actually pledge to.

@mindy @carla

[Lochy]

Yes, please! The initial process of following, pledging, or editing a pledge should not be this confusing. It should not make the new follower feel tricked/forced/guilted into pledging. That’s a really bad impression right out of the gate. It should not give a new follower the uneasy feeling that they accidentally clicked something they didn’t mean to.

To comply with the no raffle rule I’m doing a sweepstakes that includes followers (the 3rd image in Temrin’s post). Because I want to get SOMETHING out of this giveaway, my only requirement is that people

1. Follow my Patreon
2. Confirm in the sweepstakes post comments after they’ve done this and want to enter.

I can’t direct link the Follow button, so I’m havin’ to walk people through it in DM and make step by step images of HOW to find the follow button, how to follow, (no you don’t have to pledge, omg, I’m sorry it made you feel like you’d clicked the wrong thing or that I had somehow tricked you), and how to get back to the sweepstakes post to comment. I’m finding out most people don’t have the patience to get through what I intended as a simple 2 step process.

I’m also concerned with the first impression Patreon is making to these new followers. If they remember the process of following as something complicated and unpleasant, then they are not likely to sign up later to pledge.

[bronwen]

I agree with this completely. I follow a lot of people that I would like to support at a later date but I can’t right now. The first time this happened I got a bit of a fright because I thought I had hit the wrong button and was now going to have to cancel a pledge and potentially worry a creator.

[mindy]

This is amazing feedback, thank you so much everyone!

I’m tagging in two folks from our product team, @buster and @erin, so they can take a closer look and read all the glorious product feedback.

[buster]

Thank you for taking the time to write all of this up. I definitely agree with your overall sentiments and think the “following” -> “upselling to pledge” -> “editing pledge” flow is a good one for us to do a design audit on. I’ll talk to the team that owns this area about it.

[GrannyPottyMouth]

I like the concept, but the execution of it is wonky and feels like trickery. Like, where’s the OMG NO button? More input as you design this stuff is critical. Springing it on us without notice is not cool.