What's the best 'platform' for an on-line meet and greet?
It would be nice to talk directly to my generous patrons and thank them for their support. Doing this in fleshy person is problematic - I do not live in the most bustling of global hubs, and my viewers are almost all a very long way away from me. Also, I would have to wear a mask and you would all have to stay a fathom apart, constantly wondering whether the man behind the mask is really who he claims to be.
By the way, when I write 'generous patrons', I mean to imply that my patrons have proven their generosity simply by being patrons - not that this meet-and-greet would be reserved for the most generous of patrons only. Perhaps once I've done one or two of these, I could have smaller sessions for the most generous, but I'd rather try it out with everyone here and get the hang of it first.
A solution may be to use one of the many 'platforms' for on-line video conferencing. There was a time when Skype was the thing that all the cyber-savvy cool kids were using, but now it seems that that is for grandparents only, and the mode is for other things like Zoom, Meet, Teams, Discord, Chatalyze, Twebcast, Slack, MeetFox, Starleaf, 24sessions, or... oh hell! I just Googled and got a webpage called "81 alternatives to Zoom".
Well, if I'm to do this, we need to pick one. Personally, my experience with Discord has not been great. Chatalyze and some others seem to be geared to people who intend to charge money, and I'd be doing this for free as a Patron 'reward'. I suppose we need something reliable, easy to access for newcomers, not overloaded right now during the pandemic, where one person hosts and many others can join in, and by some means other than speaking make it clear that they want to speak.
Suggestions?
Comments (12)
Kaboom
Zoom
Zoom.
From the above comments it seems like you either have to do a youtube live stream or cut down the meeting size somehow. Maybe sort patrons into groups or draw names out of a hat?
I second "Not Discord".
Zoom works very well for this sort of thing because the host can curate who can talk - it keeps things organized and civil.
I attend a usually monthly zoom meeting another creator has with her patrons. Admittedly the gender balance is the reverse of your channel. We work on projects together for a bit and chat about books, projects we are working on, differences between how the US and countries all over the world are handling everything. We work on craft projects, usually sewing or lace making. But it might work for you encourage your group to paint models, knit chain mail, work on that leather crafting project, etc., while chatting about history, dance, history of dance, kit for larping, fighting etc. The chat I mentioned does get a bit chaotic, but we are good about not talking over each other too badly.
I did attend online lectures with around 20 people. But those were all students listening to the teacher and only unmuting when asking a question. If all microphones and cameras are open even 7 people are too much. No matter what tool. I have seen Teams, WebEx, Skype, Zoom, 3cx and Jitsi. None of them would probably be managable with 100+ people. Except if you use it the same way you could also do a Youtube livestream. Given that you are a Youtuber it wouldn't make much sense using another tool for this.
Perhaps a book signing. Hint, hint.
They all have pros and cons each person perspective will be very much subjective and dependant on the device, OS, connection etc they are running, personally I use Teams for all my work meetings and Zoom for private as advanced features are currently free . However I would offer words of warning group video meetings with more that 12 can become totally unmanageable even in the corporate world with someone moderating. May I offer and alterative or something you could do in conjunction with this, Big Clive has been doing YouTube Live feeds to his Patrons Only, he assigns two or three friends to moderate the chat and can then be himself present and answer the filtered questions, this works very well for up to around 1000 participants, his public live feeds run much higher numbers but again become very chaotic. p.s. If this is something you would like to consider I am as always happy to assist with the techy bits, just msg me. p.p.s you really should sort out Patron only releases 7 days before the general public to increase your revenue
How about a live youtube stream AMA ? You could make the video unlisted and share the link on patreon so that only patrons can comment in the chat. Once done, just re-list the video for all your subscribers. Everybody wins: Patrons get privileged access You get to upload a new video, with add revenue and new content And non-patreon subscribers get a glimpse of what they are missing
I've been liking Google Meet, and since I can safely assume all you patrons subscribe to your channel, they also all have google accounts with which to join a Meet session. It also can run in a browser so there is nothing to install.