Promoting without annoying (yourself)

Get More Patrons Special Offers
#1

I really appreciated @rebecca and @tansyrr’s comments that most followers only see a small fraction of your posts, so you don’t need to worry about them getting fatigued with daily (or multiple-times-a-day) posts. But I still feel like it’s a challenge to come up with daily promotional material for the various social media platforms without feeling like I’m saying the same thing over-and-over again.

The suggestions in the document for the special offer were good to help with that - top reasons to pledge, day in the life, thanking patrons, etc… But I wondered if anyone had additional ideas for how to keep things interesting and engaging. I’d LOVE to know what you guys are doing to promote and what seems to be working!

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#2

Hey @ScienceMom! I have a short list that may re-cap many of the same things, but sharing again:

  • Talk about Patreon within your creative output, or tout your benefits as often as naturally possible.
  • Show off benefit fulfillment - take a picture signing merch, or making a piece of art specific to your patrons - in your social channels AND as a public post on Patreon.
  • Create polls on social channels asking for input - and share how it will impact your Patreon.
  • Make a schedule to talk about your Patreon at least once every three days.
  • Ensure your social channels all have links in bios to Patreon.
  • Names in credits (read, heard, viewed) can be a powerful motivator.
  • Collect patron testimonials and share these.
  • Get your fans talking about you! Ask them to share on your behalf.
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#3

Thanks for making this post and raising this issue @ScienceMom. I know it’s something a lot of creators struggle with and @carla has already given lots of good suggestions to help.

Here are a few more things that come to mind:

  1. This blog post has some ideas and good examples as a general kicking off point!
  2. Take some time to do a bit of research, both in your accounts and others. What posts have got the most clicks or engagement? Who do you follow on social media or support on Patreon? I’m a big believer in looking what others are doing that you admire and see if you can use their tactics for your own work :slight_smile:
  3. I think there’s something to be said for just reminding your followers you exist - not all of your posts have to mention Patreon but the more value and moments of joy you bring the people who follow you, the more likely they are to see your posts that do mention Patreon and then convert to becoming patrons! You could post about cool sciencey things that are happening in the world and your take on them.
  4. There are some tools that can help take the manual work out so you can focus on other things - scheduling tweets in Tweetdeck and posts on FB, using CoSchedule to reshare things throughout the month so you don’t have to schedule them,
  5. Look for areas of expansion and collaboration to grow your original audience. Get involved in trending hashtags that relate to your field.
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