This content provides a comprehensive guide for aspiring Twitch streamers, covering essential qualities, current meta strategies, and practical setup advice to build a successful streaming platform.
this isn't going to be a
one-size-fits-all but my ultimate advice
here is
twofold don't overthink it don't overdo it
it
even if you have viewers it's not your
viewers job to entertain you
it's your job to entertain them and i
think a lot of small streamers
forget that what i really want to show
you is look at the thumbnails go for one
of these spots that one it's not
covering up anything in your gameplay
and two it's not going to be covered up
by any of the twitch
ui you are your own competition
[Music]
hey everybody welcome back to my channel
if you're a new viewer welcome in thank
you so much for joining
i'm hey shady lady if you are a
returning subscriber i just want to let
you know that i've converted this
channel pretty much entirely into only
twitch tutorials
so if you have anything in specific
you'd like to see me talk about please
let me know in the comments below or
anything in this video that you want to
see me
go further in detail about let me know
and i can make more videos on that [Music]
[Music]
this is going to be a short but
hopefully thorough presentation on how
you could get started on twitch
now and theoretically create a
successful platform for yourself
i actually collaborated a little bit
with my friend duke stamina
on writing a script for this because he
just recently switched over from being
like an irl content creator a musician
performer who mostly was on facebook but
found that he was struggling with
growing a new following or expanding his following
following
and even monetizing it all and so i
finally convinced him to come on to
twitch because i think twitch is primed
for both of those things
he was a brand new into the twitch world
didn't know much about it at all
any of the tools you needed or anything
like that so this video is created with
him in mind and people who are just
getting into twitch now and don't even
really know where to start or what to do
or anything like that i do have a script
that i've prepared so
if it seems like i'm reading from a
script it's because i am but i just feel
like i deliver the information a little
bit better when i do that
this whole video i'm kind of designed
around the meta of twitch right now
what's currently working on twitch and
what has been for the last
year or so a lot of things have changed
in the last four to five years on twitch
and what's working on the platform
what's selling what gets people to click
and all of that so i kind of want to
cover it as well as i can i'm going to
be making follow-up videos where i spend
much longer going into
gratuitous detail on everything so make
sure you subscribe and hit the
notifications if you want to keep up
with that
if you're already a streamer you may
find some of this information
a little patronizing because i am coming
at this from the perspective of you
really don't know much about twitch or
the platform at all
so sorry about that but maybe you can
still gain some value from this [Music]
[Music]
you're ready to start streaming but have
you sat down and thought to yourself
what does it take to be a good streamer
and how can i do that
what exactly is your job as a streamer
what qualities does a successful
streamer need
you can look some of the bigger content
creators and kind of pull some of this
information why are people subscribing
what is he doing
or she doing well what do they offer and
the five qualities that i think are the
most important your job is to entertain
number one number two being consistent
in schedule and vibes
three being self-aware to honestly
reflect on yourself
of what your strengths and weaknesses
are which is going to lead
into you being able to niche well for
being innovative
wherever you can be and five leadership
so just to dive in a little bit as far as
as
your job is to entertain when people are
logging into twitch they're usually
looking for some kind of distraction
from their life whether they're just
getting home from a job
you're really wanting to give them a
space where they can escape and enjoy
and they want to find a chill place
where they can feel connected to others
with a similar passion or
interest so oftentimes you don't even
need to do this big show
with all of these bells and whistles
it's really just the idea of being able
to go
and hang out with someone whose
personality they like that attracts an
audience or
a community of people with similar
energy while they're playing league of
legends or while they're
doing their makeup or whatever your
interest happens to be they're just
looking for that nice comfy little spot
to chill if you're a content consumer
you know what i'm talking about you're
going to a specific channel consistently
because they bring the same type of
energy every time
this is leading us right into consistent
with schedule and vibes
you don't want to start streaming one
day and be raging out and yelling at
overwatch and what the
like angry and then the next day you're
doing asmr
and hello everyone welcome into all this
like chill comfortable quiet space
because at that point your audience is
confused you're probably even confused
as a content creator i'm speaking from
experience here i'm the queen of
bouncing back and forth between
so many different content types to the
point where it's kind of like shot my
own growth in the leg which is why i'm
giving this advice if you're just
starting out and you're trying to
shoot long term pick something and run
with it for a while until you start to
build a kind of consistent
regular fan base at a certain level of
growth you would be able to branch out
of a schedule or branch out of a
specific content style that you've set
for yourself
but to begin with you're just trying to
build momentum
so even if you can only commit to one
day a week
right now and that's all do it at least
set yourself some kind of schedule so
that you can tell your audience when
they come in yeah
my next stream is going to be this day
at this time and we're going to be doing this
this
because then you can at least deliver
the message and you might have some
returning viewers from one stream to the other
other
and it's all about building your
momentum in the beginning and getting
those like three viewers five viewers
seven viewers bumping you up higher in
the category so you can get more visibility
visibility
self-awareness is one that i wanted to
include because it's important
you're going to have some trolls come in
and say some mean things to you or
whatever and if you lose your temper
lose your cool
and just kind of start raging out at
them you want to think of yourself like
a comedian on stage and you've got
someone in the crowd heckling you
think about when you watch comedians and
they lose their cool and they're like oh
this guy sucks get him out of here i
can't believe he's ruining my show
as compared to the comedian that can
keep their cool and
riff off of it make a joke off of it and
then the whole audience is laughing
instead of the whole audience being like
cringed out and embarrassed because this guy
guy
the performer just completely lost his
cool this is kind of like just being
self-aware being able to take a joke
being able to understand like yeah i do
kind of have a goofy smile yeah i do
kind of laugh like that yeah you know
that that's a that's funny like lol
instead of
it's just it's not only going to help
you but it's going to help your audience
just feel
more comfortable it's also important to
have the ability to
assess what you're doing right or wrong
without blaming
others for where you are and that's the
most important thing
it's so easy to be like well you know
i'll i would be a popular streamer too
if i had five thousand dollars worth of gear
gear
i would be a popular streamer too if i
had that specific look i'd be a popular
streamer too if i was doing this
as opposed to just like looking at
yourself what can you offer what are you
bringing to the table and how can you
capitalize on that
how can you create an audience and a
platform around what you have to offer
instead of trying to measure yourself
against every other person
and then being angry at other people's success
success
you are your own competition nobody else's
else's
being a streamer is already a very
innovative field to go into in the first place
place
it's still not very mainstream to be
able to explain to people what a stream
i'm a streamer and then i'll really
understand what you're saying
but on top of being a streamer you still
need to be more innovative you need to
be able to take risks and try things
that you've never seen people do before
just because you're like i have this
idea that i kind of want to
i want to do a stream from my garden
where i'm also drinking a beer
and talking about this movie that i just saw
saw
and why it's a bad movie like and then
boom right there you've got this really
interesting content style like
you know you've already got like a
content style it's like garden boy movie
reviews or something you know what i mean
mean
it's a really interesting concept but
you you might think to yourself like
well everyone just streams from their
room with these like
gamer lights in the background and all
of these like
hit 17 buttons and i do all these crazy
zoom ins on my face and stuff and
if i don't do that then i won't be a
successful streamer meanwhile
doing gamer boy movie reviews with a
beer is nothing that's being done right now
now
so you're bringing something new to the
table you're innovating in a field
you're going against the norms you're
standing out so think about what you
enjoy doing like or
even something that you want to try and
put into your life a little bit more
the final point that i want to talk
about what makes a good streamer is
leadership and i think that this is the
most important and one that comes with
experience and time
i think this is the most important
quality streamer content creator
influencer your job is to lead your
community your job is being the leader
you have to take responsibility you have
to make decisions keep your word when
you say what you're gonna do
do what you say mean what you say say
what you mean and show up when others
need you to show up
when companies are reaching out to
influencers they're doing this because
that person is
leaning they are a leader of their
community and people listen to the
leader so they're like hey leader tell
them to buy our product basically
basically [Music]
[Music]
i also think it's important to address
actually think what does success mean to you
you
does success look like a lot of
followers does it look like a lot of
chat interaction
does it look like getting into the field
to be able to do voice acting long term
is it about having the ability to
express yourself freely are you trying
to make money
are you looking for opportunities are
you trying to build a community
what exactly is it that you want out of streaming
streaming
that way you don't get sidetracked
because you don't understand what your
goals are
and so you're just sitting here looking
at the view count and feeling depressed
even though your whole goal the whole
time was to advertise the fact that you
have an album coming out or
advertise the fact that you also crochet
and you have an etsy shop or something
think about what it is that you're
actually trying to accomplish from streaming
streaming [Music]
[Music]
another thing that i want to mention is
to understand
why you're streaming in the moment like
what are you hoping to get out of that
stream i think this is really important
because if you go onto your stream and
you stream for six hours playing league
of legends or something and you're
sitting at zero to one viewers maybe no
one's really talked to you the whole time
time
and by hour four five six you're
starting to get angry and depressed
you're feeling like you wasted your time
and no one cares about me
and this is such a this is such a waste
i'm such a loser all of these like this
downward spiral
what did you want to accomplish out of
the stream anyway and this is why i
think it's important for streamers to be
content creators on other platforms
because immediately you can counteract
this by just going into your stream
with the idea of at the end of this
stream i want to have
three hours of footage that i can edit
up into a youtube video that i can use
for other purposes
and then even if you don't have any
viewers or people chatting to you
you still have valuable content at the
end of it that you can
change and transform into something else [Music]
[Music]
so now that you're kind of getting a
feeling for what you need to be
as far as a content creator goes what
you need to bring to the table as a
content creator
let's look at what's already on the
table we're gonna do a little
stream theory here and talk about the
current twitch meta or the most
effective tactics
available a year or two ago the recipe
for success used to be
streaming eight hours a day five days a
week 40 hours a week
right hyper focusing on one game title
or one genre
i stream 40 hours of overwatch every
week i stream 40 hours of dead by
daylight every week
times have changed the current meta is
all about cross promoting your content
across multiple platforms
i have seen multiple people blow up
because they've had a couple of viral
twitter videos they'll post some kind of
funny twitter skit or something
and then they build an audience on
twitter and then the next thing you know
they've gone from 20 average viewers on
twitter to 90 average viewers to 130 to
getting twitch partner
just because they've built a little bit
of clout on another platform
so now we're going to switch over to a
screen capture so i can show you guys a
little bit of statistics
so i'm on a website called twitch
tracker over here there's another
website called sully gnome
which will give you similar information
i'm going to click on
stats overview and we're going to look
at some statistics for the twitch
website you can see here
this is from 2013 to 2020
and this is concurrent viewers on twitch
and you can see very clearly the curve here
here
and specifically april of 2020
this spiked like crazy which coincides
with kovid everyone
is stuck at home looking for something
to do it's a really good time to be a
streamer right now
as twitch has grown for viewers it's
also grown for streamers so there is a
lot of competition right now
these are average concurrent channels
from 2012 2000 concurrent channels in 2012
2012
to 83 000 concurrent channels in 2020
which just means channels live at the
same time we've gone from 300
000 broadcasters a month in 2012 to 6
million broadcasters in 2020 twitch partners
partners
3 000 in 2012 to 45 000
in 2020. even just since the start of
2020 in the aftermath of global events
you can see the amount of streamers has
dramatically spiked
competition for viewers is at an
all-time high but this is also a time
where people have more time than usual
to consume media for the viewer account
is also spiked in a similar manner
in other words this is one of the best
times to try your hand at becoming a streamer
streamer
there has never been more information
available or more viewers available
for this however because there are so
many people streaming
the recipe for success has changed
instead of streaming 40 hours plus a
week in my opinion
your time is better served by streaming
in smaller intervals while focusing the
rest of the time you would have spent streaming
streaming
on creating off-stream content building
authority on another platform gives
people more of a reason to care that
you're live in the first place
and you're also creating scarcity of
your own content driving up the need to
catch you in the moments you are live
we're going to dive into this a little
bit deeper when we talk about scheduling later
later
this website has a lot of interesting
information but you can come down here
and see
here it looks like there are the most
viewers available on saturdays but
there's also the most streamers available
available
the second most viewers available are on
sunday but we've got a drop down
in streamers so i think sundays in my opinion
opinion
right now are one of the prime days to
stream it looks like sundays and
probably like
probably like a thursday or a friday
later in the week there's more
there's there's a little bit more
viewers here towards the weekend
but there's not as many streamers yet
there's the most streamers available on
saturday so as a streamer you have the
highest competition on saturday
and then looking at games just chatting
is definitely our
most popular category right now this is
the last seven days so you can see among us
us
has been a big popping one so i would
actually not recommend either of these
two categories for a small streamer
i would recommend something down here in
this little section so like a
hearthstone dead by daylight
apex music these are categories that
have a lot of viewers but they're going
to have a little bit less
competition i still think there are
better choices we'll talk about this a
little bit later though i still think
there are better choices than picking
these really popular game categories
okay there's a lot there's a lot of
juicy information on twitch tracker so i would
would
recommend peeking at it [Music]
[Music]
so now to talk about how to be
entertaining there are strategies to
have more fulfilling streams in the
beginning even if you don't have an audience
audience
i've gone in depth on how to talk to
yourself when no one is there in another
video which will be linked below
but to summarize it you want to fill
dead space by narrating your thoughts or
your inner monologue
out loud learn to talk to yourself
whether people are responding to you in
chat or not even if you have viewers
it's not your viewers job to entertain
you it's your job to entertain them
and i think a lot of small streamers
forget that because you'll hear them
like oh chat's so dead is it what are
y'all doing
is everyone okay like they're constantly
trying to get chat to talk to them
which is good you want chad engaged but
you really just need to be able to sit
back and vibe
and let chat enjoy what you're making
here are a few quick tips to add
entertainment value to your streams
improving your improv skills which is
can boil down to stay in the moment
learn to say yes and just a quick google on
on
improv skills will help making the
audience part of the show
bringing them in work on your
storytelling skills have strong
listening skills whether that's to chat
a guest you might have on the episode or
scenes in the game
add more enthusiasm from a place of authenticity
authenticity
don't fake being funny or try to be
sarcastic if it's not what you're
naturally gifted with and i have a
recommended video here by bryant chambers
chambers
legacy that talks a lot about this get a
little more physical
talk with your hands dance on stream to
celebrate a raid here's a really good
example of a
fantastic entertainer mr chan chan
dancing doing a little helicopter dance
whenever people raid him and even ninja
is kind of well known for the pon pond dance
dance
so you can even exaggerate you don't
have to get up and show your full body
if you aren't comfortable with that but
exaggerate your body movements to tell a
story or react only go as far as you're
comfortable to
add additional camera angles or zoomed
in scenes for comedic effect or more dynamic
dynamic
video content don't take yourself too
seriously learn to laugh at yourself [Music]
[Music]
now we're going to talk about actually
gaining followers on your platform
the simple answer to gaining followers is
is
make good content and stay consistent
there's really not a formula
or a secret recipe it's literally just
make good content
stay consistent put new content out
every week that's good
people will naturally follow that good
content is an extremely subjective
statement but you should be fine-tuning
your craft constantly
every day there's something you can
improve upon whether it's upgrading your
graphics tweaking your mic settings
researching your niche for a deeper understanding
understanding
or setting up a nicer backdrop there's a
lot about understanding your identity
that will result in people following you
and sticking around for longer term
which we'll discuss a little bit later
when we get into niches
here are my five tips for gaining a
following mean what you say and say what
you mean
aka be trustworthy two don't be afraid
to open up and share your story with
your community
be raw be real be authentic three
celebrate your milestones with your community
community
this could be 200 followers 500 followers
followers
first 30 subscribers we got a new emote
just hit affiliate have fun celebrations
but don't go overboard please with the
12 and 24 hour streams
not necessary you can do you can do
something simple like we wear a mario
hat and play super mario or something
you can do something cute and simple
share your favorite stream moments on
other platforms
this goes two-fold because it's going to
be earning you clout on other platforms
like twitter or whatever
but encourage your audience to clip your
stream moments or go back at the end of
the stream and pull out a spot where you remember
remember
oh this is really funny and then share
it i forgot to mention that this also
creates fear of missing out or fomo by
your followers who weren't present
during the stream when they see these
moments it encourages them to be there
for your next streams because they're
like wow
look how much fun i missed out on
incorporate networking
into your streaming practice to help get
your name out there
raiding is what i would recommend most
if you do nothing else you don't have to
go and spend hours in other people's
streams every day
but just raiding at the end of your
streams will do miles and i can do a
whole video on rating rating etiquette
picking a good raid target etc let me
know if that's something you're
interested in [Music]
[Music]
finally we're going to be talking about
finding your niche this subject
deserves its own hour-long presentation
and there's a ton of videos available on
it but
to put it simply you're trying to create
content where you have a natural
passion and you can provide a skill set
to help you stand out to an audience
that wants
said content this sounds complicated but
it could be as simple as i've always
loved horror movies and i'm very good at
storytelling and people want to be
spooked and so you have your niche
telling spooky stories in the just cat
chatting category you look for stuff you love
love
stuff you're good at and stuff people
want and you want a
combination of the three and just to
talk more anecdotally for a second
i didn't discover my niche until i've
been experimenting with several
different stream styles and started noticing
noticing
trends and viewer count spiking with
specific content so really
you just want to buckle up for a lot of
hit and miss style experimentation in
the beginning it's best to start with
your passion and just hold steady over a
few weeks or even months
until you can really start to analyze
and notice trends and start to fine-tune
your content down into a niche
i think it probably took me a solid two
years before i understood what my niche was
was
and then another year or two on top of
that before i finally yielded
to becoming that type of content creator
twitch tutorials [Music]
[Music]
now we're going to talk about scheduling
your streams this isn't going to be a
one size fits all
but my ultimate advice here is twofold
don't overthink it
don't overdo it yes it's better practice
to have a set schedule where you're live
at the same time every week and that's
the ultimate goal
but to begin with you're really just
trying to get yourself into the habit
and rhythm of streaming
there's no sense pushing for eight to
twelve hour stream marathons in the
beginning you're gonna demoralize yourself
yourself
and burn yourself out in my opinion a
great beginner schedule
is two to three times a week two to four
hours per stream you want to give your
audience enough time to miss you
allow time to pass so that you have
stories about your life to tell them
when you come back
this also creates a scarcity around the
service or content that you're providing
so people are more likely to show up in
the windows that you do provide where
you're live this will help
boost your average viewer count if
you're live every day for eight hours a day
day
your audience may think to themselves oh
they're always online
i can miss them today and i'll catch
them tomorrow i also encourage you to
feel out your audience
if you're used to streaming two hours
but you have a crazy active community
that's really hyped up it wouldn't hurt
to add another 30 minutes or another
hour onto the end of your stream
alternatively if you normally stream two
hours and you see your chats kind of
dying about an hour and a half in
and you're starting to kind of like okay
i'm done streaming
you can just go ahead and end it an hour
and a half you don't have to hit two
hours every day or whatever
the best advice i can give you for
stream length is to go into your stream
with some kind of
goal for post stream content this will
make a stream with a dead chat not hurt
as much
because you will still hopefully have
hit your content goal and have enough
footage to convert that stream into a
twitter video or a youtube video
and use that time you spent to your
advantage by converting it to content on
other platforms that could lead to more
viewers on your next stream
a final piece for advice for deciding
when you should stream is to use a handy
site like twitch tracker like we talked
about earlier
and get a feel for when the optimum time
to stream is i can do an entire video
analyzing the data on the site let me
know if you're interested in that
and it's worth checking twitch tracker
every month or so because trends change rapidly
rapidly
okay now we're gonna talk about avoiding
burnout i am the queen of burnout so all
i can really tell you are signs to look
out for that might signify burnout is approaching
approaching
a growing cynicism or anger regarding
streaming in general
so feeling resentful of the success of
others focusing more on your failures
second where once you could laugh at a
troll it's now angering you to the point
of long-winded rants
and sweaty palms three well-meaning
community members making
jokes at your expense suddenly irritates
you or hurts your feelings
four you dread the thought of going live five
five
you keep making excuses for postponing
your streams like
i have a headache or i have to clean up
or i'm just not feeling it tonight being
a few prime examples and some of my
personal favorites
physical symptoms could be closely
related to stress symptoms headaches
stomach issues appetite changes anxiety
heart rate up
tense body general fatigue etc i'm not a
doctor though
google it yourself talk to your own
doctor what number are we on seven
seven lower performance and compensating
by pulling
longer hours or forcing yourself to
stream more
so your streams aren't as good and you
feel like you need to hang in there even longer
longer
and force let me wait for that next raid
my viewer count isn't high enough i need
to do something else and just like
really wearing yourself and dragging
yourself out eight
feeling lonely even when you're
surrounded by people and this can be a
virtual thing too
pulling up your twitter and just feeling
complete disconnect from everybody
feeling like you are looking in from the
outside and you are no longer part of
the group
nine having a hard time deciding what to
stream and you just kind of fall back on
whatever as long as i'm live or
sometimes trying to do bigger and better
streams than ever
12 hour streams or fan demanded content
that you're not really interested in doing
doing
even if you don't have the energy just
for a regular stream
i see people do this all the time when
they're like oh stream's not working for me
me
i just don't really know what i'm doing
wrong you know what i'm just going to do
a 12-hour stream tomorrow i'm just going
to grind it out we're just going to go
for it
you're already disconnected and burnt
out and unsure what you're doing in the
first place why would you put yourself
through that
torment the other thing i want to say is
burnout is going to look different for
everybody so just learn
yourself and understand what it looks
like for you when you're no longer happy
in what you're doing
the big thing about burnout is that
you're putting more energy into
something than you are receiving in
return so it's looking for a balance
the best way to avoid burnout is to
learn to recognize it and have the
strength to back off and take it slower
possibly even take a mini break and
spend some time outdoors refresh your
mind get grounded get back and you know
take it take care of the laundry you've
been ignoring [Music]
[Music]
now we're going to talk about networking
basics networking is a mixture of making
friends and making smart business moves
the advice i give my friends who are
just getting started is to spend some
time in categories they plan to stream
in and just be a viewer of that content
surf around and find streamers that you
like hanging out with follow them
chat with them without mentioning your
stream and potentially follow them on
other platforms if you enjoy their
content enough
become part of their community and
support them with no
expectations i think that it's a good
thing to shoot for making about one to
two solid networking friends a week
another major thing for networking is
rating at the very end of every stream
it doesn't matter if you have 10 viewers
or two viewers you're adding your viewer
account onto another streamers
and sharing communities i think of this
as cross-pollinating communities
it's extremely rare someone is upset by
receiving a raid
although it does happen and i recommend
that you vet streamers beforehand
just to avoid dealing with an ungrateful
streamer also remember that your
reputation is currency when it comes to
being a content creator
every reaction you have is public and
tells everyone what type of person and
creator you are
so be kind and mindful when interacting
with others
there is an unspoken twitch etiquette
that i'd like to touch on
uh and i'd like to touch on a few parts
of it there's no official streamer
etiquette anywhere it's just kind of an unspoken
unspoken
culture one don't mention you're a
streamer in another streamer's chat
unless they specifically ask this is
seen a self-promotion
most of the time it's polite to just not
mention other streamers in someone
else's channel unless it's brought up specifically
