Before we get to today’s episode I wanted to tell you guys that I am very happy to receive messages from some of you telling that you tried our Sponsor – Siteground’s web hosting services and are very happy with them. I was absolutely certain you’d love them.
For those of you who have not listened to the previous episodes and wonder what the hell am I talking about. Here is the deal. Brand Architect podcast’s sponsor is Site ground.
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Ok now let’s get to today’s main topic.
Those who listened to the previous episode know that I promised to talk to you about the new things I have come up with and how that connects to Patreon.
So let me start with the back story first.
If you have been around for you while, you probably already know that I am true believer in genuine human relationships. And I don’t only mean personal friendships and real-life people. I believe that it’s the same for the online world and for the online business.
I am amazed how many people talk about SEO and traffic, about profit and sales and about the length of the content and the social proof.
And very few only realize that it is not about all those things at all.
What it is about instead is a high-quality audience. And a high-quality audience can only be built through relationships.
True, sincere and honest human relationships…
Because most of us, who started our online activities, started creating online content and tried to grow audiences – initially wanted to help a certain group of people, right?
We don’t just want Facebook likes or Twitter followers. We don’t want fake and inflated numbers and stats. We want numbers that represent real people… people from the group that we are trying to reach.
When we create content – we write, talk, and livestream to a person. We may not be looking at people’s eyes, but we are talking to them, we are sharing part of ourselves, we are trying to help them out and maybe change their mood. We try to motivate them, encourage them, show them how… On the other end of the world, affront of the monitor or in my case somewhere in the car our in a gym there is a person, who hopefully gets a value from what I do.
I think in order to be true to yourself AND succeed in the online world you gotta do one thing – Simply genuinely care about your audience. I don’t mean tell them that you do, or advise others to do so… I mean really care. Not about how much money they can spend on you, not about if they’d like you if they’d share your stuff… no. Just caring about them.
All that said, of course, I realize that we need to make money. Of course, you and I too spend time, money and effort to create what we create for our audience – no doubt about that. All I am saying is while you try to find ways to make that money – make sure that you stay true to yourself and don’t damage the relationship and the trust that you have gained from your audience. Because as I said in the beginning – it all comes down to genuine human relationships and if that is not in place, if that relationship is not healthy and you’ll simply try to take advantage of your people – even if things work well right now, believe me, you WILL fail in the long term.
So what’s the best approach you might ask?
All I know is that there is no magic button, there is no one right way to do things and you should experiment and see what works best for you. And that’s what I have been doing for a while.
In the past year, I had decided to treat my online activities as a business, because otherwise, I’d need to forget all this and get back to job search… So I learnt everything I could about what works best now – meaning Facebook ads, sales funnels, online courses, lead magnets, email marketing, sales copy and all that stuff… and yes it does work and yes I know many people who make a lot of money by setting all that up. I have interviewed many of them on this podcast too.
So now I know how things work… BUT honestly when I was planning everything for what I do it did not feel right for me. My gut feeling was – it would probably work, it would probably bring in money – but I will probably not enjoy it. The problem was – all that did not incorporate and did not have in it’s core you guys – my audience. It was not going to be about relationships and engagement and community. And I did not like that part at all…
So I was looking for something better. Something that instead of pulling you into a funnel and emailing you all the time would rather be transparent from the beginning and you’d step into knowing what to expect as opposed to you getting a pdf and ending up with thousands of offers in your inbox.
I wanted to come up with a model where I would have get more involved and engaged with my audience, where I would bring more value to you and help them with the things that you need help with. I have decided that instead of scaling and reaching out to more people – I’d prefer having more intimate and better quality relationships with those who are already listening to me, who already know me and would like to join my tribe.
And that’s when Patreon comes to the scene.
What is Patreon? Well the short version is – it’s a crowdfunding platform creative content creators. Something like Kickstarter but instead of one time support – the creators get ongoing support. Patreon is a way to join your favorite creator’s community and pay them for making the stuff you love.
The platform gives your favorite creator an opportunity of making a living doing what they do best… because of you.
I had interview on the podcast about Patreon about 2 years ago and you can check all the details at here.
So having said all the above – I have decided to try something different in the upcoming few months. From now on most of my efforts will be directed to Patreon and having you guys over there.
Why?
Because I want to create exclusive content for all those who support me on Patreon. I want to be accessible to you and provide tailored value to your needs. I want to answer YOUR questions, help you with YOUR projects, know you better and engage more. I want to make sure that this podcast, as well as any other content I create, is of much better quality, that the topics, guests and formats are exactly you prefer them to be and that we know each other better, engage more and become real friends.
If I get enough of you to support me and the Brand Architect I will have more time to come up with better stuff for you and to put more effort to serving my tribe better.
Does this mean that the Brand Architect will not be free and will be accessible only to those who support me on Patreon?
Not at ALL. The weekly episode of this podcast will always be free for everyone and I will always appreciate every single listener, no matter if you support me financially or not. What it means is IF you support me financially on Patreon then on top of the free episode you get many extra perks, additional exclusive content, live Q&A sessions, and much more.
I have all the details as well as a cool video for you over there, so please make sure you go and check it out for me ok?
Go to this link and I’d love to have you in my exclusive community.
I guess that’s all I had… Just wanted to share with you the back story and keep you in the loop of what’s happening and what to expect.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to also check out Siteground – and their amazing web hosting service. As a Brand Architect podcast listener you get 60% off and a free website migration, so it will be a shame to lose that opportunity. I personally use their services and just by moving to them made my website 4 times faster. Get the discount at www.anialexander.com/siteground
Hope you’re gonna have an amazing weekend and I can’t wait to see you at the Patreon’s platform. Let’s have more than one way communication.
As always thanks for listening and hopefully you’ll tune in next week for the upcoming episode.