Patreon Plans New Ways for Fans to Connect With You for Free

Being a content creator isn't as lucrative as it once was, but Patreon is planning to help creators turn free subscribers into paid members.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Patreon announced some new features coming to the platform that it hopes will help content creators continue to grow their free membership numbers and turn those into paid subscribers. Two of the features—a new way to release work and the ability to expand your community—are designed to help you create and build on the connections you make with fans. There are also some planned improvements that are more business-specific.

According to the blog post, creators have seen 30 million new followers since Patreon created free memberships, and "over half of all free members (52%) say they’re interested in upgrading to a paid option." Of course, those who are interested in upgrading to a paid membership are often the most active and engaged in their chosen communities.

In an effort to capitalize on that, Patreon plans to introduce a system for dropping new content that includes a countdown clock and a live chat that you can share with your fans (both paid and free). The company also plans to open community chats to all members and offer options to share posts with only free members or only paid members.

In addition to these improvements, Patreon is testing gift memberships, which will eventually have their own Promotions tab and other promotional options. You'll also be able to sell individual posts or collections of posts, and you'll be able to automatically generate audio and video clips that you can share outside of Patreon to draw more fans to your page.

Patreon did not share specific timelines for these new features other than to say "in the coming months" or "coming soon."