Subscription platform Patreon has released new monetisation and audience engagement tools for creators, alongside a new brand identity and redesigned mobile application, the company has announced.
As part of the rebrand, all creators can now choose to make some of their content free to access for all fans, not just paying ones. Patreon successfully ran a beta testing phase of this feature with selected creators earlier in the year, who have reportedly welcomed over 160,000 new fans to their communities.
Additionally, Patreon has finished rolling out community chats and member profiles – a feature that it introduced at the start of September - which allows fans to interact with the creators and make connections with other members of the community. The chats are moderated by the creators and members can also flag and report harmful content.
Earlier this year, Patreon also introduced digital commerce which allows creators to sell individual pieces of content such as separate video and audio files to fans regardless if they are a member or not. Commerce is available to all creators on the platform and the company reports that half of the digital product sales have come from non-members.
“We’re going to build a better way for creators to share their work on the internet and bring life and fire to their communities and fandoms,” said Patreon CEO and co-founder Jack Conte in a video announcing the new rebrand. “I want creators to feel like we can make things from our hearts instead of for algorithms. I want fan communities to feel tight, joyful, and alive.”
The transformation coincides with the company’s 10 year anniversary, and to commemorate this event, Patreon also launched a dynamic new logo and wordmark which reflects the state of the world today. The logo can also be personalised by the creators with a bespoke version that incorporates the colours, textures, and motions presented in their own work.
Patreon has also added new personalisation features for creators which allows them to choose how they group their work like highlighting popular posts, organising podcasts into seasons, and more as well as adding custom images and colours for each of their collections and pages to improve their discoverability.
Members also now get better discoverability features on the redesigned mobile app, with their homepages now being organised by creator they follow, allowing them to see their latest work as well as their community conversations. There’s also a new play tab which keeps track of what media they’ve been listening to or have already downloaded.
