Five things I wish I knew before I started streaming on Twitch.

Picture this, you're searching for content about a game that's just released and you want to know if it's something you may want to play. You decide to go on to Twitch to see a livestream of said game as you think that you'll get more genuine reactions and impressions of the game from the streamer. You find a stream you like the look of, click on it and settle in to see what the game is like. As you're watching, you see an active chat, stream notifications going off whenever someone follows, donates or subscribes and the streamer is having fun. You think to yourself, "This is something I could do". You start to research what you need, get your Twitch account all setup, sort out your streaming software and click "Go Live". You stream for a few hours and you have maybe one or two people come in to the chat, or maybe none at all. You sign off, close your streaming software and think "I thought this was easy, why did no one show up?"

That is exactly what happened to me when I started streaming.

I've been streaming on and off from 2013-2019 however in 2020, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdown and the fact that I found myself at home a lot more with not much to do, I picked up streaming consistently and have been going ever since. I haven't blown up in any sense of the word, my community is relatively small, with just over 200 followers and an average of around 5-10 viewers at a time on my streams. However, I've been doing it long enough to learn a few things about the platform and what you can do on the platform.

I want to clarify, these aren't tips to become the best streamer in the world and how to grow rapidly on the platform. Trust me, if I had discovered those, I most likely would have more than 5-10 people watching at a time. However, these are tips to help you carry on and stay motivated whilst streaming. Most importantly, these are tips and advice I wish I knew when I first clicked that "Go Live" button back in 2013.

Tip #1 - Zero viewers DOES NOT equal zero potential

I've put this one as number one as I feel this is the most important piece of advice I could ever part on to anyone. Just because no one is watching your stream, doesn't mean that you're not good enough. Everyone starts somewhere, there are millions of people streaming at any time on Twitch, therefore you're fighting against a lot of people for those views. It's similar to TV shows all fighting the other channels for ratings and viewers, except on a smaller scale. You must keep going, someone will come in eventually but no one is successful straight away on Twitch. Most people that make their living on Twitch, or that have a decent sized audience, have been streaming for years to get where they are. I want to point your attention to one of my favourite streamers that I'll always watch when I can, AshleyRoboto (https://www.twitch.tv/ashleyroboto) . Ashley has been streaming since March 2018 (according to what I could find online.) She currently has 51k followers (as of when this was written) which she's garnered in her 3 years streaming, she didn't get all 51k overnight, she's worked hard to build her community which is one of the most wholesome and happy communities on Twitch.

What I'm trying to say is, don't let the number "0" get you down, people will come if you keep going and just enjoy what you're doing. Just because no one is watching today, doesn't mean that someone won't watch tomorrow, or the next day.

Tip #2 - Stream what YOU want to play, when YOU want to play it.

This one really goes without saying but the amount of times I see people conforming to what their viewers want to see them play when they want to see them play it is absurd. It's your Twitch account and your stream, so you decide what you play and you decide when stream it. Obviously it's healthy to have some community involvement as it gets your followers engaged, but by this I mean maybe a poll about what game you play next from a list of games you want to play. For example, whenever I finish a game, I put a poll out on Discord server with four choices of games that I would like to play for my community to choose what one they want to see the most.

However, when I usually talk about this point, I'll always call back to one instance that remind me of how important this tip is to me. The first is from 2015. Back then I used to stream a game called Toontown Rewritten (which I'll be abbreviating to TTR). I used to stream that around 3 days a week for around two hours at a time. One day I decided that I wanted to stream some Minecraft for a change, I wasn't feeling up to playing TTR that day but still wanted to stream. I had a few regulars at the time however one of them was more vocal than the others. I was an hour in to the stream and this vocal regular comes in and without even saying anything before this, not even a "hello" he writes "Play TTR, this game is for babies" (bearing in mind that ToonTown was developed as an MMO for younger audiences by Disney). When I respond with an objection and that I didn't fancy playing the game today, he hurled torrents of abuse at me and kept trying to get me to close Minecraft and play TTR. At this point, I was invested in arguing with this guy (I was 15/16 at the time so I looked for arguments wherever I could.) However, my mod that was watching at the time was not having any of it and banned the guy.

The moral of this story is don't succumb to these types of people. They're not worth your time and if they make you do something you don't want to do on your stream, then they shouldn't be welcomed or humoured. You are the streamer, not them.

Tip #3 - Choose your mods wisely.

Your mods are your first line of defence in your chat. They'll be the ones dealing with the trolls, the "wanna be famous" bots and making sure that everyone is being respectful of the rules you set in place. I cannot stress how important it is that you choose your mods wisely. When making the decision to mod someone, you should think "Can I trust this person?" "Is this person respectful of the rules in my chat?" "Is this person here often?" as well as many different things that are unique to your stream.

Back in 2015-16 I used to mod the chat of a friend of mine, I learnt a lot about being a mod in that chat which are lessons I put to use when I decide its time to bring a new mod into the team. I currently have four mods that I put my utmost trust into. Sigma, NoMoreHeroes, Chloe and Jules are the best mods I could ask for and I chose them as I can trust them to look after the chat whilst I'm focusing on the game.

Tip #4 - Respect lurkers.

I feel like this one is common knowledge however a while back, one of my mods told me about a streamer they popped in to watch who bans lurkers as they aren't chatting. This is not the best thing to do. I tend to notice that lurkers can make up about 30% (at an estimate) of my viewership which for someone my size, is important. There are a plethora of reasons why a lurker may not want to say anything in your chat and you shouldn't force them to. Sometimes, I just pop into a stream to watch it, rather than talk and I would feel incredibly uncomfortable if the streamer was to single me out or try and get me to talk when I don't want to. Imagine if you were the lurker and you got made to talk or be singled out, how would you feel?

If you don't respect the wishes of lurkers, you won't have many people sticking around which ultimately hurts you (and please don't ban them like the streamer my mod told me about.)

Tip #5 - Follow up, interact. Make your viewers feel like you care!

One of the worst things you can do is ignore chat or not follow up on what they're saying. If someone says "Hello", say hello back and ask them how their day has been or make them feel welcome in another way. Respond to every chat message (where possible) and talk with your audience. At the end of the day, they're the ones watching you and in an environment where viewer interaction is key, ignoring your chatters will make them want to leave and watch someone else who will interact with them.

If have many other pieces of advice I could part however I'll keep it at five (else this'll never get posted.)

I hope you found these helpful in some way and if you have any other pieces of advice, I'd love to hear them from you.

Check out my twitch at: https://www.twitch.tv/thepandrus