How to direct message members

  • Updated

As a creator, you can easily send welcome notes, deliver benefits and communicate essential updates directly to paid members, from your Relationship manager and the Patreon mobile app.

Conversations with paid members live in message threads – one thread for each member you message directly. Direct messages include member details, including the length of their membership, current membership amount and lifetime paid.

Please note that member-to-member messaging isn’t currently possible – refer to this guide on messaging a creator if you’re a member.

How to direct message a paid member

Due to some recent changes, the ability to filter messages by Unread is not currently available.

How to directly message multiple members

Instead of one message thread for your bulk message, you’ll see a thread created for each member who received the message. So, responses will be kept private. You can search by member name to easily find the right conversations.

Make sure you follow this guide while in your creator profile on the Desktop. You can switch to your creator profile by clicking your profile picture in the bottom left corner and clicking on your creator profile.

Here’s how to send a message to multiple paid members:

  1. Click on Audience from the left navigation, which will take you to your Relationship manager
  2. You can use the statuses and filters at the top of your manager to generate a list of members you’d like to direct message.

    Here are some examples of how you can use filters to communicate with large audiences strategically:

    • Direct message all active members in a tier: Leave the default Active status selected, then click Filters > select a specific Tier(s). You can message an entire tier to deliver benefits via messages!
    • Direct message declined members: Click on the Declined button to get a list of all declined members. You can adjust the filters to set a specific date range of declined members
  3. Type your message in the text field and click the Send button when you’re happy with your message

Direct messaging Commerce customers

Make sure you are viewing your Patreon as the creator. You can click your profile picture in the bottom left corner to switch to your creator profile.

If you are selling digital products with Patreon's Commerce product, you can direct message customers on the Desktop by following these steps:

  1. Click on Audience from the left navigation side
  2. Select the Sales tab from the top menu
  3. Click the name of the customer you want to message, and this will open an Order details side panel
  4. Select the Message Style=Solid.png button in front of the customer’s name
  5. Type your message in the text field and tap Enter or the Send Style=Solid.png button when you’re happy with your message 
    • While typing your message, if you want to enter a new line, hit Shift + Enter
  6. When you send a direct message to a customer, it creates a message thread where you can find your conversation with that individual

Managing your direct messages

All of your direct messages with members live in your creator inbox. Your creator inbox is where you’ll find responses from members and any new direct messages from members who have reached out to you.

If you are a creator and a member of other creators’ communities, you can access your member inbox by clicking on your profile image in the bottom left corner and selecting your member profile. Then select Community  CommunityTab.png > Direct messages, from the left navigation.

FAQ

  • Not at the moment. You can share links with users, which is an option for sharing image sets with members. You can, however, send pictures in a Community Chat space.

    Learn more about Community Chats.

  • Absolutely! Read the above section about bulk messaging to learn how.

  • It isn’t currently possible to delete direct messages.

  • You can only directly message members you have or have had a financial relationship with (former member) on Patreon. So you can’t send direct messages to fans directly through your Relationship manager. If you want to send a quick message to your fans, we recommend making a post for everyone, which fans can access.

  • You can manually select members from your Relationship manager to direct message. Once you’ve selected the members, click the Message button.

  • In 2021, we updated our messaging system to bring a better experience for creators and members. As part of that update, we stored users’ messages dating back to 2019. Any messages dating earlier than January 2019 were not moved to our updated messaging system.

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