Migrate your existing Telegram channel
If you already have a Telegram channel, group, or bot with even a thousand fans, you can convert it to a tease.bot setup in a single afternoon. There is no migration in the painful sense: no email export, no “tell my fans to follow me here”, no platform switch.
The pattern is simple. Your existing bot or channel stays where it is. tease.bot’s persona plugs in as a Business Bot that replies on your behalf inside Telegram itself. Your fans never have to leave Telegram, never have to subscribe to anything new. They just notice their favourite creator is suddenly very responsive and happens to send locked content sometimes.
Before you start
You need:
- An existing Telegram channel, group, or bot you control
- The number of subscribers, roughly. Smaller (1k or less) is fine. Larger is also fine. Migration scales.
- A clear plan for how you want the persona to handle the existing audience: do you want her to address them as longtime fans, or as new arrivals?
Step 1 — Provision the bot
Run through the first-hour tutorial up to the Telegram link step. Stop before publicly announcing.
When you reach the BotFather step, you have two choices:
- Use the bot you already have. Paste its token. Tease takes over the chat layer of that bot. Any other functions the bot had keep working.
- Create a new bot specifically for the persona. Then bridge the old bot or channel to the new one (typically by pinning the new bot link in the old channel).
Most creators with an existing bot reuse the existing one. It keeps the Telegram identity (handle, profile picture, history) intact for fans.
Step 2 — Switch to Business Mode
Business Mode is the Telegram feature that lets your persona reply in private DMs on your behalf. Without it, the persona can only respond inside the bot’s own chat. With it, when a fan messages you (the human) in a private DM, the persona answers as you.
See Switch your bot to Business Mode for the step-by-step. It takes about three minutes.
If your audience contacts you primarily through the bot rather than your personal DMs, you can skip Business Mode for now and turn it on later.
Step 3 — Run a dry run
Open Inbox. Send your persona a message from your own Telegram account, as if you were a curious fan. Test:
- Greeting feels natural for your audience’s vibe
- She doesn’t break character even when you try to confuse her
- The first PPV (if she sends one in this conversation) feels right
Adjust AI Chatter until you are happy. Repeat the dry run.
Step 4 — Announce in your channel
Pin a single message in your existing Telegram channel pointing to the bot. The exact wording depends on the relationship you have with your audience, but the pattern works:
Hey loves. I have something new for you. DM me on the bot ↘ [link]. I’ll be there.
Avoid making it sound like a different person, a different platform, or a marketing pivot. Your fans should feel like you opened a faster channel, not that you outsourced.
Step 5 — Watch the first 48 hours
The first 48 hours after announcement are usually the busiest you will ever see. Plan to check the Inbox several times. You are watching for:
- Conversations where the persona missed the tone of an existing relationship (a fan referring to inside jokes, a longtime tipper expecting recognition)
- PPV pricing that feels too aggressive for the existing audience (or too low)
- Any fan whose message looks like distress or a real-life issue. The persona has safety reflexes for these, but you may want to step in personally.
Use the take-over guide when you want to intervene manually. Hand the conversation back to the persona once the moment passes.
After migration
Within a week, the dashboard converges. The persona has built a memory of each returning fan, the conversion rate stabilises, and you are mostly a spectator. The Inbox becomes a check-in tool, not a daily job.
If you ever decide to roll back, every conversation, fan record, and revenue history exports cleanly from Settings → Data. We do not lock you in.