Trail Thoughts ✦ July 2022 (Patreon)

Hi everyone! Happy August 1st (or August 2nd for some of you). 👋

First, welcome in to all the new patrons who joined us here in July, or today! This is my Trail Thoughts newsletter that I write at the start of each month and within this newsletter, I share my data and analytics with you all, talk about the previous month and what happened, and discuss what I have planned for the month ahead. These are posts that many folks look forward to reading and it provides some different content here on Patreon to sprinkle in between everything else. I really enjoy writing these, sharing my progress, and being transparent with you all about how things are going!

Feedback

Before I dive into the analytical stuff, I want to chat about feedback of my Patreon and the exit survey that you can complete when you cancel your pledge. The exit survey is optional, but if you do cancel your pledge, I really appreciate this survey being filled out as I do receive the selections. Patreon will give you some default options to select from, but you are also able to write your own. I always appreciate reasons being written out if it's something that I have control over and can improve upon.

The majority of cancellations are due to financial reasons or folks only wanted access here for one month for a particular video or two. These are obviously fine and to be expected. However, since I started Patreon, I have had some cancellation reasons such as "Can't find kaiielle's benefits", "I don't like Patreon", "I expected kaiielle to post more" (that one was funny as that happened when I was on vacation 😅), etc. I would strongly suggest that if you are about to pick one of these reasons, please reach out to me through a private message so that you can provide more information to me. Reasons like "can't find benefits"... I can help you navigate to them!  Or "don't like Patreon", I can take this feedback about what you don't like and submit it to Patreon directly!

As for me not posting as often as you expect, well that's something that we might just have to agree to disagree on, as I will post when I want and can. July was a slower month as it's summer here and very hot, and I had planned vacation time too.

Let me know if you have any questions about this! 💛

Now for the fun stuff...

July Twitch Stats

• # of Streams: 3 📉
• Avg Viewers, incl. Hosts & Raids: 37 📉
• Avg Viewers, excl. Hosts & Raids: 31 📉
• Unique Viewers: 492 📉
• Unique Chatters: 88 📉
• Chat Messages: 1,657 (avg 552 per stream) 📉
• New Followers: 34 (avg of 11-12 per stream) 📉
• Subscriptions: 54 (avg 18 per stream) 📈

The symbols beside each data point indicate if the figures are up or down relative to the previous month.

July Twitch Thoughts

It was a slow month with only three streams. Vacation obviously impacted streams, but I did cancel outside of that too. I kinda felt stuck at times. The streams that I did have were wonderful and thank you to everyone who stopped in to say hello.

On July 6th, I was on my friend Bree's stream for some Animal Crossing with some friends and that was a lot of fun! I wasn't on camera for it, but it was still a blast. 

August on Twitch

There is not as much happening for me this month, so hopefully the heat won't be brutal and we can look forward to a fairly normal month. In addition to my regular streams, I am also hosting a couple of HomieFest events! This Friday August 5 I'll be hosting an American Trucking Sim convoy with friends and then on Wednesday August 24 I'll be hosting a convoy in Euro Truck Sim 2 with other friends! I'm really looking forward to both of these as I love both of these games a lot. I'll also be a guest in a Pummel Party stream on Friday August 26 and a Fall Guys stream (and the finale of HomieFest) on Wednesday, August 31.

The only stream that I know won't be happening is the Sunday August 14 stream as I'll be out of town visiting my family.

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July YouTube Stats

• # of Videos: 12 ⏩ 1 public video and 11 for Patreon 📉
• Impressions: 2,239,908 📉
• Views: 108,437 📉
• CTR (Click-Through Rate): 3.9% 📉
• Watch Time: 15,219.2 hours 📉
• Average % Viewed: 16.3% - how much of the video did viewers watch on average 📉 (this is kind of an irrelevant metric since a lot of folks click on a reaction video to watch just a scene or two)
• Unique Viewers: 68,435 📉
• Net New Subscribers: 457 📉

The symbols beside each data point indicate if the figures are up or down relative to the previous month.

July YouTube Thoughts

Despite only putting out one public video (my thoughts and review on Seasons 1 and 2 of The Clone Wars), I am very pleased with how things went for the channel. I'm starting to see the power of having a library of videos that anyone can find and watch at any time. The algorithm certainly helped me out this month!

I had intended to put out Rain Man and Batman on the channel in July and I'm very sorry that I didn't. The reason why those didn't come out was honestly a combination of a lot of things, but mostly executive dysfunction and general overwhelm, and stress about my vacation and making sure I had things in order for that. The heat was also not a good time for me. I may have to buy a portable AC unit soon so that I can work in my office and not feel like I am melting. I have avoided getting AC in the past because where I live, we usually only have a week or two where it's unbearable and I'm willing to deal with that. But as we all know, the climate is changing, summers are getting hotter and hotter, and I need to deal with that. I will make sure I am prepared for next summer.

Is anyone else like me and their brains are way more productive and motivated when the weather is cooler? I've always been that way. So I'm hoping that we start seeing some cooler temps this month. We should. August is one of those months here where you scrape frost off your car early in the morning and then you're sweating profusely in the afternoon. 😂

August on YouTube

So since I didn't put them out in July, Rain Man and Batman are lined up as mega priority this month! And then I'll also be reacting to the winner of the poll that is currently up! The poll closes on Friday so get your vote in.

This week, I'm going to start editing my thoughts and review video of Stranger Things 4 to put on the channel. I'm super excited to create another one of those style of videos, as I had so much fun making the Clone Wars one. If you want to watch those ST4 reactions, get yourself in on the Snack Break tier or higher.

I am also going to do my first YouTube live stream this month! I haven't formally announced this yet, so you're the first to hear of it. This live stream will be on Saturday, August 20 at 15:00 MDT / 21:00 UTC. I wanted to pick a time that is friendly for most timezones. It's the afternoon/evening for North and South America, late evening for Europe/Africa, and early morning for Asia/Australia/NZ. I expect that the live stream will last at least a couple of hours. The length of the stream will depend on how many people show up and how busy the chat is. It's going to be a chatty type of stream with some Q&A and just a way for folks to say hi and connect with me in real-time. When the live stream is over, it will be available on the channel to re-watch if you're not able to make it.

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Patreon Updates:

• When I was on vacation, I received an email asking if I wanted to be a Patreon Creator Ambassador! I filled out the form and am just waiting to hear back. I'm really hoping that I get into the Ambassador Program as I absolutely love this platform and care deeply about the future of it.
• Patreon's UI (user interface) has changed and this was released over the weekend for everyone. For those of you who use Patreon on the desktop more, you'll probably have noticed this as soon as you logged in. Overall, I really enjoy the UI update. However, there are a handful of minor things that I've submitted feedback on that I think needs to be changed, such as the absurd amount of white space. It looks like they formatted desktop for a mobile experience, which shouldn't be a thing.
• Very soon Patreon will be releasing updates for the mobile app that allow you to actually respond to comment replies properly, as well as hide and expand comment replies. I'm really looking forward to this as I don't use the mobile app that often because of the inability to do that.

Your Regular Patreon Reminders

• Declined Payments: I'll be sending out DM's to anyone with a declined payment on August 5th. I believe you lose access to my stuff a couple days after the first of the month.
• Annual Memberships: At any time during your membership here, you can switch from monthly to annually and receive a 10% discount on the cost of the tier by doing so! Just go to your Membership settings for me to do this. 
• Exclusive Reactions: My Snack Break tier that has 100 slots always has availability and this month is no exception! If you've been considering checking out some of my exclusive stuff, the library is getting quite stacked with videos. Come join us! Switch tiers in your Membership settings.
• Discord Server: The best place to say hello to me every single day and interact with other people in the community in real-time. Sync your Discord account in your Patreon settings and you'll be auto-joined to the server.

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Updates for Exclusive Reactions

• I am going to be watching House of the Dragon when it releases later this month. It's a show that I'm really looking forward to and it will help break up the Star Wars stuff like Stranger Things 4 did. Is anyone else excited for this show? Let me know!
• I will also be watching Andor when it releases in September and I'm happy that a lot of the episodes will be on a weekly release schedule. I was thinking that I would wait and watch this after Clone Wars, Bad Batch, and Rebels (in the timeline order), but I doubt I'll be able to wait, so I'm just gonna decide that I'll watch it right away. While I watched and edited Obi-Wan Kenobi for the channel, I have no plans to do this for Andor. These will be exclusive reactions and then I will create a thoughts and review video for the channel. I watched the official trailer that released and I am way more excited for this than I originally was when I heard about it. I'm really excited to experience more Star Wars that doesn't feel like the "same old, same old" Star Wars. Who else is excited for it?

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Other Things & Life Stuff

If you're not following me on Instagram, please do as I'm using it a lot more lately for stories and general shares. Ideal if you're not in my Discord server and have no plans to join it. I have been doing anonymous Q&A sessions lately too on Instagram, which has been really fun. You can see previouly asked questions in my highlights!

I am also going to be using my Instagram as an accountability thing. I really want to start walking at least 5km every single day and getting back into Ring Fit Adventure on my Nintendo Switch. If you are getting out and about on walks too, tag me! I kind of want to start doing like a "walks with KL" style of share and I'd love to see anyone who joins me with that. Stay tuned on the IG for updates about that.

I don't have much else to say about IRL stuff, so here's a bit of a photo dump from the last couple weeks of July.

Beach KL, pre-sunburn:

Delicious poutine:

When I managed to get an entire row to myself on my flight from Toronto to Calgary. I was SHOCKED, but it was probably because my flight had been moved a few hours.

Flying over the Drumheller area (the Badlands/dinosaur fossil area):

Downtown Calgary with the beautiful Rocky Mountains as the backdrop:

Keeping Ella cool during a warmer-than-normal night in the house:

A beautiful walk on a boardwalk:

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Thank you for reading this month's newsletter. Thank you for being part of this incredible community and for supporting me in what I do. I love interacting with you all here on Patreon and in the Discord server. Y'all are so awesome and make me so happy! Thank youuuuu! 💜

✦ KL