hey guys! meg Kaylee here
and today I'm gonna talk about some of the basics of streaming
and I guess some of the tips and tricks that I would give to people who are new to it.
I think just start I'll talk a little bit about my journey as a streamer.
I have been streaming for nearly 4 years.
Most of that was streaming full time but some of
it was also streaming part-time
and I've just always been very passionate about
streaming.
I think that it's such a unique type of content creation because you get to interact with people live and in real-time.
I love that with streaming you get the ability to directly impact somebody's day.
Right then in there, you know I've had viewers who could come in
and maybe they're having a hard day and I can try and cheer them up
or I can tell them a dumb joke or something and hopefully brighten up their day a little bit.
So that's what I really love about streaming
I guess a good place to jump in with tips for people who are new to it is creating your twitch channel
it's a pretty obvious one, but something that you should definitely put some thought into.
For me, a couple years after streaming I actually made the decision to change my username.
It used to be sinfully riddling and I changed it to meg Kaylee which is my name
for a number of reasons but one of the main ones being that sinfully riddling was
you can hear what I'm saying it's not the easiest to pronounce
it was very commonly mispronounced very commonly misspelled
and was just not a good name for a brand.
I came up with the name when I was probably like 13 or 14
I was very young and I never really thought about the fact that yeah it's just a username
but I didn't think about how down the line it could turn into the name of my branding.
Definitely be smart about your branding take some time to really brainstorm
come up with something that represents you
but something that is also easy to remember and easy to spell.
And this next thing is arguably maybe even more important than choosing your name
and you might even want to do this before you choose your name because maybe it'll tie-in to your name
and that is planning out what your channel is going to be.
Are you going to be a variety streamer who plays lots of different games on your channel
or you gonna be a streamer who streams the same game consistently each day
or you not even gonna stream games are you gonna stream art
or you gonna stream you know singing
or you gonna stream some other kind of content that's not games.
You really want to sit down and think about that
and also think about the type of content that you want to create.
Do you want to be more focused on strategic skilled gameplay
or do you want to be more focused on just kicking back having fun
not really putting, you know crazy effort into the game
and more so just focusing on hanging on with your chat and having a good time.
When you're building your audience,
they're going to keep coming back because there's certain element to your stream that they like
whether it's your personality or the way that you interact with chat or the way you play the game.
There's gonna be a specific thing that they really like that they're coming back for
and if you're constantly changing the elements of your stream all around
that element that they really like may no longer be there
and it may just be very confusing to them from an audience standpoint and it may cause them to leave.
So it's important to kind of think about in advance
what your channel is gonna look like and what you want to do with it
I think in overall very important message to bear in mind is that different things work for everyone
so just because one streamer might be doing something a certain way
doesn't mean that that same way will work for you
and that's okay, you also shouldn't be afraid to try things that other people have not tried
I think a lot of people almost look at it like it's a formula
like what everybody does this, this and this and that's how I have to do it
when that may not be the case.
One of the greatest things about streaming is that this is your creative space
and you can treat it however you want to treat it there is no formula that you have to follow
in order to create awesome content.
So don't be afraid to try something new and think outside the box.
When you're choosing games to stream, if you are gonna choose games
be careful with games that are oversaturated especially when you're new
it is important to prioritize the things that you love and to create the kind of content that you want to create
but it's also important to establish your niche
and be aware of the fact that if you're streaming an extremely popular game
there is a chance that it may be a lot harder for your stream to stand out
because there are lots of other people streaming that game as well.
When you are first starting to build your channel,
I think it's very important to make sure that you have a schedule for your viewers
to look at to know when you're gonna be live.
It definitely can be challenging to have a consistent schedule when you are doing a lot of other things.
When I first started streaming I was also in college full time
and I was working a part-time job and I was trying to build my stream as well
and so it was very difficult to juggle things.
So, my approach was at the end of every week I would go into my panels
and I would kind of assess what did I have coming that next week.
Did I have a lot of work I had to do.
Did I have to take over an extra shift or something like that
and then I would build my schedule based off of whatever my workload
outside of streaming was for that upcoming week.
So that way even though my schedule did have to change week to week
I still had a weekly schedule that my viewers could look at and no one to expect me.
When you're building your community and figuring out what type of environment you'd like to cultivate.
It is very important to come up with a list of chat rules and enforce them.
I know a lot of people who have a very hard time banning users when they are just starting to stream
because they see it as well you know I have somebody here
I don't want to lose a viewer even though they might not behave or they're just not being nice.
I don't want to remove them because I'm losing a viewer
and while I can understand why you might have that concern
I also feel that it's very important to remove people who are acting that way.
Not only can it put a negative strain on you while you're trying to have fun and create content.
It also runs the risk of scaring away good people in your community
who might actually be fun to have around in your stream
so don't be afraid to drop the banhammer and get rid of people when you need to.
I think something that a lot of people fall into when they're new to streaming is
feeling like they need to stream 12,15, 20 hours a day
and that can become very unhealthy and can lead you on a fast track to burnout very quickly.
So it's important to keep quality over quantity in mind
and not push yourself to stream more than you're able.
It's really up to you to determine. What works best for you what your energy levels can tolerate
and what's gonna fit best in your personal schedule
but don't let that sort of outside pressure of you need to be streaming 24/7 weigh on you
and make you feel like you can never not be live
because I don't think that that's true and I think that that can be a dangerous mindset to fall into.
So don't be fearful about streaming less if it's going to be better quality content.
Another tip I have is a pretty basic one but an important one
and that is to keep talking.
I think a lot of times people might think oh well there's nobody in my chat right now.
You know, why should I bother talking there's nobody here. I'm not gonna be talking to anyone.
You never know when a new viewer is gonna stop by and when viewer stops by.
You have a second or two to grab their attention and catch their interest and get them to stick around.
If someone comes in and you are just kind of sitting there blankly staring
you know not really doing anything super attention-grabbing
they might just leave right away.
But if you're in the middle of telling some crazy story
about how you slipped on a banana peel at the grocery store
and then got in a fight with some guy dressed in a hot dog suit
that's an interesting tidbit that is gonna grab their attention.
something I think can be really helpful is if nobody is in chat and you're not able to interact with anybody
pretend like you are recording a let's play for YouTube
and like you're recording yourself playing gameplay what would you say
what would you commentate on in the game and just keep talking
because you never know when someone's gonna come by
and you want to be able to grab their interest in that split second that they're there
and on the note of chat and viewership and all of those kinds of things,
don't focus on the numbers, focus on the people who are there
every single viewer that comes by is a human being who is
choosing out of all of the things in the world that they could be doing to
entertain themselves they're choosing to come by and watch your stream and that's
really important that means something so focus on the people who are there
hanging out with you rather than getting caught up in the numbers and if you feel
like your live viewership count is putting some sort of strain on you or
making you feel bad hide it and try not to look at it, in general, you've just got
to remember there's really an ebb and flow to content creation the progress
when it comes to streaming or being a content creator it's never just gonna be
like a straight line going up that's just not how it's gonna be it's gonna be
up and down and up and down it's just gonna be a roller coaster and you have
to prepare for that going into it and understand that you're gonna have some
days where things go great and you're gonna have some where you know maybe
your viewership is lower than you were expecting or maybe everything is
breaking for some reason or your game won't launch or you know sometimes
you're just gonna have those rough days and you just have to embrace that and
know that it's up and down overall you are progressing so you just have to keep
that in mind and remember that there's gonna be that Evan flow something I
think a lot of people underestimate is the value in using multiple social media
platforms use Twitter use Instagram if you want to you could even create
YouTube video compilations of stream moments and share them there as well you
could use a Facebook page you can use reddit there's lots of
reddit threads out there that are all about you know streams and streamers
meeting each other and things like that definitely take the time to set up
social media accounts if you don't have them already and put them to use
I personally lately have really liked to go back and create little clip
compilations after a stream if something funny has happened during the stream or
something interesting I will mark down the timestamp and then after the stream
I'll go back and I'll create a little clip compilation of that moment and then
I'll cross share it on twitter facebook Instagram wherever else and I think that
that is a really great way to showcase to people who may be following me on
other platforms but not on Twitch hey this is what my streams are all about
most streamers do this where they will tweet whenever they go live or they're
posting a discord whenever they go live and I think that it's definitely great
to do that because it's a great way to communicate that your live to your
audience but it's also great to take the time to put a little bit of a fun spin
on it whether you want to create a gif of you dancing or doing something goofy
or if you want to use a clip from another stream and use that or take a
selfie putting content with the going live pose definitely I think makes it
more enticing to someone who might see it and it's good to put a little extra
something a little extra in it you know one of my favorite things about twitch
is that when I started I didn't feel like I was just on this journey alone it
very much feels like this great community where people are eager to
support each other eager to be there for each other and help each other grow as
content creators and it's a community that you can be a part of there are
definitely right and wrong ways to go about it so it's important to keep that
in mind, for example, you don't want to go into somebody else's chat and start
talking about your stream or advertising
your stream or anything like that
because that's generally not very good
stream manners if you will but it is
good to support other streamers you can
host and raid other streamers after
you're done with your stream send your
viewers over there maybe in the future
they'll send their viewers to you it's
very much a back and forth kind of thing
and from a viewer standpoint you know no
viewer I think anyway maybe some are but
most viewers are not just watching one
channel just like most people don't
watch one TV show or one movie or read
one book you know there's lots of
entertainment that people like to
participate in and watch
that definitely applies to streaming as
well
