How To Become A Successful Streamer

With the recent strides made by the tech and gaming industry, live streaming has become a feasible option for making a living. The nature of streaming may seem quite easy on paper, but once you start diving into it, you will be in for a world of complications. Although there is no pathway to guarantee you success, here are a few ways to help you find your way.

The Definition of Success

When asked about this, the answer provided by most is likely to vary. However, in layman terms, the definition of success is answerable by considering another question – what happens by the end of this? While some streamers will be happy with 25 viewers, some are not satisfied with even 25000 viewers. Therefore, instead of getting sidetracked, our advice would be to list down a series of goals you have for the time being. On completion of all the listed objectives, all you will have to do is to make another list of goals and repeat the process.

Regardless of your desire, a goal is only achievable through hard work and consistency. While luck and sporadic work do play a role in this line of work, you need to focus on your content and constantly engage with the audience.

Planning and strategizing

Behind every success story is a high degree of planning and strategizing. No one can become a famous streamer overnight. Therefore, all individuals must plan their content, brand, and goals accordingly. But on the other hand, the person must also remember to work smart rather than hard. You can go right ahead and create a document worth several pages on being successful. And though it may prove beneficial, it is not necessary. Likewise, always aim for testing your ideas rather than relying on what others tell you. Learning from first-hand experience is crucial to human nature, and it allows us to grow significantly.

However, planning does not end there. The channel design and voice are often considered the most important factors for determining your success. Instead of following a top streamer word to word, be yourself. Think about yourself and how you wish to implant your ideas onto your audience.

Time Management

Time management is an entity required by most, if not all, types of work and success. Tell me, do you wake up every morning and scroll through your Instagram feed? Or do you end up looking at memes on Facebook? Either way, understanding the importance of time is detrimental to the success of all career options. As a streamer, instead of messaging friends and family, you could spend your time more productively by engaging with your community. Even better, you could interact with other streamers and their audience as well.

Like our bodies, our brain has a limit to how much work it can handle. Therefore, understanding your good and bad habits, alongside managing your time accordingly, is imperative. When are you most awake? When are you most productive throughout the day? Answering these two basic questions will provide you with sufficient information to manage your schedule and improve productivity.

Find Your Value

Streamers are known to capitalize mostly on videogames. And since you are into streaming, you may be also an avid gamer. While it is true that certain game categories garner more attention, you are not required to follow in their footsteps. Focus on what you enjoy and what you excel in. If you enjoy playing MOBA games, then stream games like League of Legends and DotA 2. Even better, why not stream the character you love playing the most? Are you capable of teaching others? Is your gameplay presentable on stream or YouTube videos? These questions help determine the value of your content.

As the Twitch streaming community has become saturated with content creators in every niche, finding success may not be as easy as it may seem. However, competing with top streamers right off the bat is never a good idea. You may become the number one streamer someday, but today you must focus on surviving.

Discussing Money

How to make more money from streaming? How to earn a living through stream donations? How to get more viewers/subscribers on Twitch?

These are some of the questions all streamers have asked and googled when starting off. Though it is part of human nature, the desire to become rich overnight can hinder your career in the near future. Interestingly, many streamers do not even set up their donations till a viewer asks them how they can donate to them.

There are only two kinds of streamers: successful and unsuccessful ones. Frankly speaking, what do you think will make more money? Streaming and begging your audience to donate and join your Patreon? Or taking your time to build an audience, and then announcing the option to support you through your Patreon? The answer is quite evident. The former gets nothing, while the latter secures a sizable share of money from another platform as well. If anything, this reminds us that streaming requires the practice of patience and capitalizing on the right opportunity.

Building a Community

Alas, a streamer is nothing without their audience. The reason why Twitch has become so popular over the years is because of the platform’s interactive nature. What could possibly sound better than watching your favorite celebrity, while being able to interact with them simultaneously? The feeling is unmatched, explaining the dominance of Twitch in recent years.

Community engagement is the key to success for all streamers. Although answering your fans while you play a game may seem difficult, your interaction with the community is what makes or breaks the deal. You cannot ignore their donations, questions, and normal messages. Likewise, this also means you cannot ignore them on other social media platforms, such as YouTube and Twitter.

The second aspect to discuss involves networking. And no, this does not indicate the alleged ‘follow for follow’ campaigns, or simply dropping some emojis on their Instagram. Networking requires you to spend quality time with the community, similar to how you would treat your own friend. Hosting and raiding other streamers is also part of networking, thus, improving your relations with other Twitch communities.

Conclusion

Streaming seems attractive for its low-cost high-reward investment, but that is far from the truth. It requires a considerable amount of patience. Hence, making up for the low-cost investment by demanding a sizable degree of your time and attention. Needless to say, we hope the points stated above have helped you understand what you require to be successful on streaming platforms. We will reiterate, there is no perfect pathway for achieving success. Instead, you must pave your own path through this journey for success.