I Streamed on YouTube for a Month - Where Should YOU Stream? | StreamSchool

i streamed exclusively on youtube for the first month of this year so let's talk about what i learned compare twitch to youtube and finally i'll let you know my verdict as to where i'll be streaming going forward my name is chris folia i'm your stream scholar welcome to stream school for a little bit of history i actually originally started streaming on youtube back in 2018 after i had open heart surgery as sort of a way to feel productive while recovering i couldn't exactly work on my high intensity vr punching game while my rib cage was growing back together that's a pretty picture it wasn't until 2019 that i made the move to twitch when youtube merged the gaming site into the main site and started screwing craters seo for streaming and uploading to the same channel i liked twitch's tools from the streaming side and i naively thought it would be a better place to grow a community with better discoverability but boy oh boy was i wrong long story short twitch has almost no discoverability built into their platform and i'm not a huge fan of the direction they're headed with the ungodly amounts of ads the dmca issues and no future plans for discoverability so i decided to give youtube another shot what did i have to lose and i have to say i was pleasantly surprised my average concurrent viewers barely changed at all i was expecting it to dip a lot harder switching platforms i saw some old friendly faces and the youtube streaming interface has definitely seen some nice upgrades over the past couple years that being said there's not a clear winner here they both have distinct advantages and disadvantages and it's ultimately up to you to decide what suits you better on the youtube side of things youtube offers guaranteed transcoding for all streamers it's just how youtube works this means you can stream happily at 1080p 60 without worrying about excluding viewers with shoddy internet this to me has always been huge twitch only guarantees transcoding to partners so i always felt obligated to stream at 720p60 to avoid excluding anyone youtube also offers dvr which means viewers can go back in time in the stream if they missed something or if they just want to watch from the beginning it's not the biggest deal in the world but it's definitely nice to have and arguably most important is the discoverability aspect while livestream discoverability is definitely rough on youtube as it is on all platforms it's absolutely non-existent on twitch youtube offers custom descriptions tags and most importantly thumbnails for grabbing potential viewers attention if you want to put in the extra effort when i first moved to twitch i viewed not having to make thumbnails as a benefit it put everyone on the same playing field and it really spoke to the lazy person in me that's extra work man but in hindsight you want as many relative competitive advantages as you can get and i've always been decent at making thumbnails your vods are also kept indefinitely on your channel which is great if you're doing let's plays as for the things i don't like about youtube these are pretty nitpicky for one youtube viewers can't choose their name color so if you're using a stream labs or stream elements chat box all of your chatters will have the exact same color name i absolutely hate this and i wish there was a work around custom youtube emotes can't be used across the entire platform they're exclusive to the channel they're created on which is a bummer youtube streams each have their own custom url which makes it more difficult to share your stream when you go live and finally youtube super chat is a lot less transparent than twitch bits youtube takes a percent off the top of the donation amount while twitch charges a premium up front at the time of purchasing bids so you get the exact amount donated now on the twitch side of things twitch has higher quality video and a few seconds less stream delay due to the lack of transcoding they're the de facto cool place to stream they have clips which youtube desperately needs to implement and they also really have their act together on the community interaction side of things twitch affiliates get custom emotes that can be used across all of twitch channel points rewards polls predictions and hype trains and twitch also has gifted subs and raids built into their platform the affiliate program is also significantly easier to get into than the youtube partner program you only need 50 followers an average of three concurrent viewers and seven unique broadcasts over the past month while on youtube you need 1 000 subscribers and 4 000 hours of watch time over the past 12 months definitely not easy but the kicker here is that after watching devin nash's video highly highly recommended i can't in good faith recommend anyone sign up for the twitch affiliate program and after a lot of time spent thinking about it i'll actually be severing my twitch affiliate contract the monetary gains are negligible for most people until they hit partner levels of viewers anyway you can replicate almost all of the community interaction features with a free chat bot and you just give up too much freedom by signing the contract now that's not to say twitch is a bad place to stream at the end of the day both platforms are great places to stream there's no loser here they both have their advantages and disadvantages and neither of them are an easy golden ticket to success you have to put the work in on both platforms if you want the community interaction features the twitch affiliate program offers higher quality video a few seconds less stream delay and to sit at the cool kids table twitch is probably the place for you if you want guaranteed transcoding dvr custom thumbnails and better discoverability albeit still extremely difficult youtube is probably the place for you but if you're a new or smaller streamer i'd honestly recommend trying out both or even potentially facebook gaming which i have absolutely no experience with you don't have anything to lose and you owe it to yourself to find out what you're most comfortable with you can also always multi-stream as long as you're not a twitch affiliate to find out which platform picks up steam for you first neither youtube or facebook have exclusivity clauses for their partners the final verdict for me however is that i'll be staying on youtube for the foreseeable future although i might experiment with multi-streaming at some point custom thumbnails and guaranteed transcoding are just too big for me to give up and i also already have a partnered youtube channel with a small dedicated follower base which absolutely does influence my decision but let me know what you think in the comments down below have you tried both platforms which one do you like better and if you found this video insightful make sure you hit that like and subscribe button below the video and ring the bell for more content i have some really cool tutorials and freebies planned for this year and if you want to come hang out during one of my live streams i'm live at least every friday at youtube.com oraclefish until next time my name is chris folia i'm your stream scholar you

Channel: Stream Scholar

Views: 789

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Id: y2JIexSNRnU

Length: 6min 42sec (402 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 13 2021