Patreon continued with his crusade against algorithmic feeds with his newest State of creating Report, a glimpse of trends in the maker -economy based on internal data, and it is an effort that makers can find out.
In his research among 1,000 makers and 2,000 fans, the membership platform reported that 53% of the makers think it is more difficult to reach their followers today than five years ago.
This is not a surprise. Celebrities have fought against the video -oriented algorithmic feed from Instagram, making it even difficult for the Kardashians to reach their fans. And if Kylie Jenner has trouble making contact with her audience, then it is even worse for makers who are not known names.
Fans are frustrated by the shift from social platforms to short video video and the “for you” input, both of which have been developed by Tiktok. According to Patreon’s survey, fans say they see more short content on social media than long content but 52% of the fans said they find long-term content more valuable and that they would generally be more willing to pay for it. Long-form content also tends to generate more income via advertising income share on YouTube, because platforms continue to struggle with income on income with short form.
This is the fundamental tension of contemporary maker -economy: platforms such as Tiktok have made it easier than ever made to build an audience, but the enormous part of algorithmically served content means that as soon as makers earn the attention of a fan, it It is difficult to maintain it. If a fan follows a maker on Tiktok or Instagram, they may not see the majority of that maker’s majority because they are drowned by messages from people they don’t follow.
That is why, as makers said Patreon, they now prioritize quality and deeper connections with fans over statistics such as followers counts, likes and views – a shift from five years ago.
“When you concentrate on the platform that reduces the relationship between the maker and the subscriber, what you do in essence are the platform to give the power and responsibility to decide what to send to who to send,” Patreon CEO Jack Conte told Techcrunch When Instagram made major changes to its algorithmic feed in 2022. “And that is the part of it that makes me angry as a maker. Because I have spent years building communities on these platforms.”
As more makers than ever try to earn a living on the internet, a clear path to contact with fans is essential to earn income with their companies. But the dominance of algorithms often hinders that path and forces them to adjust their content to platform preferences. In fact, 78% of the makers said in the report that “the algorithm” influences what they create, and 56% admitted that it has discouraged them to explore their passions and interests.
These challenges are exacerbated by the broader instability of social media platforms themselves. With Tiktok in legal danger, meta that revises the precedents of the content of the content, and X platform edge Extremism, makers are more frustrated by the current state of social media. Direct-to-consumer content platforms such as Patreon, Substack and only fans have made it easier for makers to control their content and make money, but it is becoming more difficult to get in touch with the people who want their content in the first place for their content pay.
“” The algorithm “doesn’t measure what people want,” said Karen X. Cheng, a Patreon maker, in the survey. “It measures what people pay attention to.”