TWITCH TIPS - what i learned after 4 years of streaming!

hey everybody welcome back to my channel I am hey shady lady and today I'm going to be talking to you about that what I learned after four years streaming on Twitch so I started streaming in March of 2016 and I've had ups and downs burnouts lols front-page spots podcasts collaborations been Doc's the whole nine yards and so I thought some of my experiences might benefit you whether you're a new streamer or someone who's been on the grind for two or three years and feel stagnant doesn't know what they're doing wrong pause here if you need to to check out the list of timestamps and topics discussed throughout this video I'm not a professional by any means I'm not trying to assert any of this stuff as fact or the only way to do it this is just my opinion based on my experiences I would strongly recommend you to go and look at other commentators or advisers or stream coaches or whichever word and get a bunch of different perspectives from a bunch of different streamers so that you can have a well-rounded understanding take everything I say with a grain of salt this video probably will be extremely long I'm known to talk non-stop for extended periods of time so you might want to grab a snack get cozy and hopefully this will be helpful for you also just a small ten-second promo I've been off youtube for about a year and I did a life channel update about the direction this channel is gonna be going in and I'll link that here okay so the first thing that I learned it's kind of laughed at by a lot of people especially other advice givers as far as the Twittersphere goes but it's to be yourself find your niche play to your strengths I have an addendum to that be yourself but learn from others I'm not gonna go super in-depth on this find your niche thing because you can literally type that in YouTube and you'll probably find dozens of videos on how to find your niche how to play to your strengths the real point I want to make is that you should focus on your passions and strengths and what you enjoy doing just because a game is popular and trending doesn't mean you should or need to play that game stick with retro if you like it even if it doesn't get a lot of viewers in that case just focus on networking to grow yourself instead of selling out by playing fortnight for example when it comes to learning from others pay attention to other streamers when I first started thinking about doing YouTube I avoided watching other channels because I didn't want to feel like I was ripping anyone off or being influenced by other people's styles or techniques but that left me in the dark as far as what was trending and new innovative styles and techniques you probably see a lot of people doing the the super big zoom ins on their face a lot I would say December of 2019 that's probably one of the most trendy techniques the switch to multiple camera angles super zoomin on your face and who knows what it'll be like in a couple of months maybe mukbangs are going to be on the rise on Twitch next year who knows and so it's a good idea to keep your eye on other streamers popular clips that are going around and see what's working for other people what's not working or maybe you see people using a funny snapchat filter to respond to subs or adding sound effects or doing podcasts new things that you could try and add overlays things that you can tweak to just try and always up your game just don't get lost trying to emulate or copy other people to a tee as Oscar Wilde said be yourself because everyone else has already taken and if you're not feeling something people can feel that people can sense when you're not comfortable in what you're doing and when it's not authentic to you so just try and focus on what you actually enjoy what you find funny I know I've got a good clip or a good emote or a good video or something when I find myself laughing at it so try and impress yourself make yourself laugh make yourself enjoy it more than anything and next we're gonna kind of piggyback on that focusing on your strength topic with our next point which is to focus on your passion not on views and numbers so just because you do something that gets you a lot of views doesn't necessarily mean that you should continue doing that for example you could title a stream Ninja sucks and here's why and you're probably gonna get a lot of views on that now is that really a good thing for your brand some streamers maybe but in general I would advise against doing something like that but it will bring in numbers the same with having a popular game or new release coming out like death stranding your general followers will probably want to check out the new game you might hate it though you might just want to sit there and still be playing Minecraft but it's not a popular game right now so you want to play something like death stranding or Pokemon since they're new releases and your audience or the followers that you've gained over time might want to check out this new game but you hate it so it's kind of selling out in a way just for views you're gonna play a game you dislike you should be what you would be doing anyway whether you were streaming or not at the end of the day the time that you spent on Twitch is still time that you're spending out of your life and you want to make sure that you are doing something you enjoy doing because for the most part in the beginning you're getting paid way less than minimum wage playing something or doing something that you don't actually want to be doing at the end of the day you're gonna feel more drained and more like you wasted your time or more like time was taken from you but if you spend that time on stream editing your overlays and turning that into the stream and you really enjoy what you're doing in your community really enjoys it and at the end of it you're like wow I feel so productive and everyone had a great time then you're going to be more fulfilled you're less likely to burnout it is extremely hard to ignore numbers when it comes to twitch the dashboard of twitch practically shoves numbers down your throat gives you all these achievements you want to hit this many viewers you want to do this here's your daily digest for how many subscribers you gain I think that it's a toxic mindset to get stuck in focusing only on numbers especially like for me from my own experience I've had viewer count turned off since August and instead of watching my numbers me like oh my god three people just left was it because I said this or was it because I did that instead of focusing on that I'm just looking at the people who were talking to me in chat and I'm engaging with them instead of sitting here focusing on why I don't have X amount of viewers yet or why I just lost five viewers or anything like that it's helped me immensely to have you count turning off I don't keep track of statistics and I used to be obsessive with it I would have charts and graphs and I would keep track like chart it every day I cannot recommend enough to avoid focusing on numbers unless you're just in this for the quick buck and you're just trying to reach partnership status butwe that's a whole other video topic is partnership burnout you hit partnership and then what this next point has been a very hard lesson for me to learn but I think it is extremely important for anybody who is serious about becoming a large content creator you are the leader of your community and so you need to act like the leader this is a lot of executive decisions that are going to have to be made and we'll talk more in depth on the next point about one of these important thing for the leader of your community you to do is to not be afraid to ban someone in your chat even if you only have one person talking to you I've seen it happen several times where I'll go into someone's stream who has one to five viewers and they'll have a very obvious troll and it's hard to tell them when you first get started on streaming it is it is you don't really understand but anybody that's making you doubt yourself feel bad about yourself look down saying derogatory words don't be afraid to ban them even if you're gonna lose the viewer because at that point the person in chat I've seen it will control the conversation will control the whole vibe of the stream the streamer will get defensive upset self-doubt will come in and you can see it they kind of like crumple a little bit under it they lose their mojo a little bit and they get distracted and just kind of having an argument and it's not fun to watch it's really not fun to watch there are some people that can banter and play off of trolls very well but that's not the average person I would say and it's not something I think that you should aim to do I think you should just cut out toxicity push it away and focus on what you can enjoy together with your community rather than trying so desperately hard to prove to this troll that you're not an ugly piece of or whatever they've come in and said about you another area is that you might have community members sometimes who haven't really crossed the line yet but it's evident that they're making other community members uncomfortable I've had people in my community message me and tell me they don't really want to be in my stream when so-and-so is in the chat and it's because this person is abrasive aggressive rude and maybe talks to me in a derogatory way that I kind of have tolerated so don't be afraid to trim this think of it as a garden and you've got little weeds growing and you've got to cultivate and like to clip this off make sure this weed doesn't grow here you've got to keep this fine-tuned so that it's a good environment for a healthy community to grow in and you failing to take that action will hurt your community in the long run now to counter this don't let your community at large bully you into streaming a certain game doing a certain activity responding a certain way wearing a certain thing whatever it doesn't matter how many bits donations subs etc that one person or many people may have contributed to your stream they don't control you at the end of the day it's your decision what you stream it's your decision what you do do not feel guilty for saying no boundaries are extremely important as a streamer it's very easy for us to lose all of our time in returning DMS and responding here and streaming and networking and all of this so you have to setup clear boundaries and don't be afraid to say no this can get very difficult when people have donated games to you and expect you to stream those games but you already have a backlog of games or you're working on you need to edit this and you don't know how to say no because you feel guilty since a gift was given to you you want to give back to that person it can get out of control really fast so keep your boundaries in place be confident and okay with saying no and just because somebody donates to you you do not owe them any kind of private messages or a personal relationship period and this goes especially for girls I think it happens to girls a lot on Twitch unless you have specifically listed it as a perk in your patreon or as a subscriber perk you don't owe anybody anything now this next point is going to continue on with the you're the leader you set the vibe you control the community you cultivate the garden don't give out mod status on a whim especially as a small streamer you really should not need a mod when you're between ten and thirty viewers you should be able to manage it on your own I would strongly advise to not assign mod ship until you desperately need it until you are really struggling to keep the flow of the stream going and do your shoutouts or ban people or whatever it may be you know an exception to this is if you have a significant other or an IRL friend or something who's who you trust holy but I've had three different mods that I've had to ban because they modded them too soon and they turned out to be very toxic individuals and especially had control problems over me and were rude to new community members were making it hard for new community members to feel welcome because they felt they had an ownership over me and they had an ownership of over the stream whoever has a sword next to their name in your chat sets a direct example for you and your stream so be very mindful with who you give mod ship to an additional point on this is something called a mod wall which is where your entire chat consists of people with the mod sword that can be very intimidating to new viewers into your stream so I would recommend not modding every person that spends a lot of time in your stream which leads me to our next point that in streaming friends come and go this is viewers and streamers you'll notice viewers might kind of drift away at certain points maybe you'll go into someone's stream and see a regular that are you one of your old regulars is now a regular there and you haven't seen them in months don't take it personally think about yourself and how you view content online sometimes you'll binge watch a certain youtuber or streamer and then you'll forget about them for a couple of weeks couple of months and then you'll be like oh yeah this person they pop up on your radar and you go back in or maybe you just grow out of their content or your mindset shifts maybe they're too positive for you or too negative for you or you need someone more chill or someone more high-energy there's so many different reasons that people will drift all over and look at different streamers or participate in different streams so try not to take it personally and this goes for streamer friends as well I've had several people who used to be very close to me who were no longer close we don't talk we unfollow each other and it's not beef it's not drama it's just that we drift apart this is real for life too people come and go in life and it's not usually personal there it's you know if it's personal you know if it's drama but sometimes people just drift apart you won't have streamers that host you anymore like they used to you won't have viewers that come in and shower you in bits like they used to and now they're suspending their bits over here just accept it and focus on who is actually there supporting you in the moment instead of lost in this the past basically next up is another I would say debated point networking is important as a streamer but it's not necessary you can grow without networking I strongly advise networking this is important in small business to making friends with other people in your genre having people speak highly of you speak well of you recommend you to give an example right now I mostly focus on stardew valley streaming I had someone come in my stream the other day and asked if I knew any FPS streamers now I can sit there and be insecure and be like why don't you just want to stay in my stream but if this person is looking for FPS content I'm not streaming FPS content I have friends who stream FPS that I can send business to them this person's not going to be satisfied watching my stream because I'm playing a sandbox game but I can send them to someone who I on good terms with you me like yeah go check out my friend scream Kiwi she plays a lot of FPS on her Channel and say hi for me at this point this person is now gonna go to her Channel catch her live and be like oh Shady Lady sent me to you and then scream kiwi is gonna be like oh cool you know and then you could result in a shout-out for me in the moment anything like that I'm not saying to look at your friends as business transactions but this is now I have sent positive energy over to her I'm helping build her up I'm sending relevant audience people to her they're seeking the kind of content that she creates that I don't create maybe she'll return the favor you don't want to go into networking as expecting people to give you that kind of reaction or energy back you don't want to expect it from other people but you give what you get it's like a scratch my back I'll scratch yours kind of environment when someone comes into my channel I will shout them out if I know they're a streamer when I go into their channel they usually shout me out again I don't expect it but it usually happens that's usually how it works if you have other streamers that are speaking highly of you or can recommend you it's only gonna help you grow I've seen stream advice people stream coaches whatever you want to call them strongly advise against hosting and shouting out and rating other channels saying that it only takes business from you I could not disagree more I think it's a very insecure mindset and this is the same type of streamer where if someone comes into their chant it's almost like a slippery slope to the mindset of say someone uses a really cute emote in your chat that belongs to another channel and then some of your community members are like oh my god I love that emote where's it from and then they all start talking about another streamer and then you're sitting there is the streamer and you're like oh my god my channel you're in my channel why are you talking about another streamer they've got attentions on me attentions on me and no that's not a common behavior but I've definitely definitely seen it you don't want to be that guy you want to be confident secure not afraid to share in the successes of other or celebrate the successes of other people in your community twitch as a whole meaning the community not your own personal stream community but the twitch community at large I can do a whole video on how to network and stuff like that but just to summarize it quickly the best way I could say to network is whatever games you're focused in maybe you're an overwatch streamer Call of Duty or Pokemon spin a good amount of time in your downtime in other people's streams in that category I've been doing that with stardew valley recently I'll pull up the directory I'll scroll through i'll see if anybody catches my eye I'll check out streams if I like the vibe I'll start talking to them start trying to be friends with them I might follow and I usually host people typically when you host someone they kind of assume you're also a streamer and that can lead in the right direction of them learning your streamer I'll follow people on twitter from their twitch streams so that they can see my profile which will then hopefully foster a relationship between us networking relationship meaning they might host me or I might get a raid from them I might raid them at some point and it's only gonna benefit people to rate each other because you're sharing audiences when you're in someone else's chat as a viewer it's important to keep the focus on them even if they start asking you about your stream unless that's their vibe you can kind of tell if someone's like Oh someone's here what's up how are you how's your day what kind of streams you do what have you been playing wow that's so cool some people create conversation in their stream by engaging the audience directly other people don't want to focus on the chat they want to keep the focus on themselves and so I typically in chat will answer people's questions but I'll direct it back to them if they ask me Oh what have you been streaming I'll give them a short answer star D Valley recently it's been a lot of fun what's this game it looks so cool I've not seen it before how far are you I will direct it back to them to keep so I don't feel like I'm drawing the attention away from them you don't want to go into people's channels self-promoting asking for shoutouts saying hey I'm about to I'm a stream or two I'm about to go live it's really frustrating for a streamer to have that happen yes it can be an insecure mindset but it's also just annoying it's not a really good way to grow I'm sure you guys have seen like youtube videos that will get popular and then the next thing you know the comments are filled with people like come check out my stream and it's completely unrelated to the topic if you're going to the comments you want to see comments related to the video you watch not some bozo self promoting their stream that you don't care about it's completely irrelevant it's the same idea in people's twitch chats but becoming friends or part of another community is a good way to network and grow and then to finalize the networking thing that's something that I learned I think from the book how to win friends and influence people that I read probably a decade ago at this point in conversation you'll typically leave a good impression with someone if you're asking them questions about themselves if you're Preem conversation back to them building them up showing an interest in them apply the same idea to networking with other streamers I say that networking isn't necessary because sometimes it can be a distraction social politics get exhausting trying to maintain all of these different friendships or feeling sometimes people can guilt you if you don't show up at their streams and it can get draining and exhausting to be socializing that much all the time and maybe you just you're very busy and you don't have time to network it does take a lot of time to network and go into other people's streams or reply on their Twitter or like their Instagram posts or whatever it may be some streamers live very busy lives they're working multiple jobs they have family etc and networking isn't the only way you can grow putting out good content that people want to share is the number one way to grow making good content which will get to you later so you don't have to network but I do strongly advise it the same way I strongly advise having a webcam turned on so that viewers can actually see the person they're connecting with no you don't need a webcam to be successful but you're at a huge advantage if you have a webcam as far as the shoutouts go nine times out of ten when I even if I go into someone who I would say is a big streamer with a hundred viewers and they give me a shout out I make it one follow out of it may get one follow out of it so it's really not that reliable it's just having that good rapport with that other content creator they could retweet your tweets when you're doing promotional stuff they'll give you a big host on a day that you have like a birthday stream or a front page stream or anything like that when you have good relationships with other streamers you're going to get more support on your big event days which is only gonna help you grow and it's also lonely being a streamer it's nice to have friends even if they're online friends that understand the struggle and that you could reach out to and dm's like the time I got dogs and I had some streamer friends reach out to help comfort me support me and give me advice on how to protect myself I would not have had that if I had not networked and had friends in the streamer community most of my real life friends don't know what the word Docs means continuing directly from that point is that collabs absolutely work no they're not a guaranteed step for success and they're not necessary so skip this step if you are more like introverted and by social and you don't really want to be networking in this way but in my experience when I've done podcasts with other people I've done so many podcasts at this point which served to benefit both communities I've been on other people's channels when they're hosting podcasts I've had people come on my channel when I host podcasts I've done multi-streaming where I will be streaming say over watch on my channel and I'll be on a team with someone who's streaming overwatch on their Channel and people can pull up both streams simultaneously and see both of us working together to you know take full skaia or whatever again this is like cross pollinating communities you might swap people out I've definitely lost regulars when I've collaborated with other people but I've gained regulars from it too and that's just the way that it goes and you can't be so insecure that you're that upset losing one viewer at the end of the day as long as you're being authentic and passionate about your true interests you're going to continue attracting new people to you you also have to accept the possibility of drama coming from collabs say if you are friends with a person and then there's a following out and community members start asking you about it which is going to lead us into some of our next subjects here which is navigating social politics I feel like I could probably make an entire video on just this subject alone not just related to twitch but your reputation when it comes to being a content creator is social currency so how you treat others how you're perceived the way you come across the things you say that is your currency that is your value you want to watch how you talk about other people you want to watch the things that you're saying everything you say has a ripple effect saying mean things about other streamers I do want to say actually this probably leads us into the next topic which is don't start won't be but I want to say that speak out on your passions don't silence yourself when your voice needs to be heard it's difficult to learn when that is and isn't the correct scenario but that's up for all of us to learn and develop on our own my advice is if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all but if it's something you're truly passionate about don't silence yourself because that could eventually build into your brand anyway but my advice is to not jump on trending drama just for the sake of Klout nine times out of 10 your opinion on other people's drama is absolutely unnecessary and you never know when you might end up being the next person being dissected by all of social media for something that you've done so you know be kind to others and maybe they'll be kind to you when you're under the magnifying glass a different way to interpret this point over here though it's completely unrelated to social politics and drama and all of this but don't start won't be could also be looked at is if you don't start anything you won't have anything so don't be afraid to get started this is a lot you know advice to myself where I didn't upload anything on YouTube for over a year because of all of these different anxieties and fears and I would talk myself out of uploading anything and if I don't actually start anything I won't ever have anything so don't be afraid to get started so the next subject we have has been you know very difficult for me throughout my life prepare for a rejection get used to it get comfortable with it learn to appreciate it you will be rejected multiple times on a you know personal level I was rejected for Dischord partner I never applied for twich partner but that's because I didn't want the rejection I have applied to many stream teams and have been rejected including large top stream teams I've reached out to huge streamers mid tier streamers small streamers for podcast collaboration opportunities I've been either ignored outright rejected you know rudely told off like I've had all that happen and it hurts I'm not gonna pretend it doesn't hurt but every single failure is a learning experience and I have a couple of quotes here it is not rejection itself that people fear it's the possible consequences of rejection preparing to accept those consequences and viewing rejection as a learning experience that will bring you closer to success will not only help you conquer the fear of rejection but it will help you to appreciate the rejection itself so that's a lot of words and just to summarize this you're not actually afraid of the rejection you're afraid of the consequences of it the repercussions of it the implications of it so it's not the rejection itself it's what it might mean and when you accept what it might mean that you're not good enough or in whose eyes though you're already putting yourself ahead of the curve and if you look at it as a learning experience you know like my discord partnership application that got rejected it's a learning experience to that point why did I get rejected because my escort server had not been established for a long enough period of time so I would need to wait an extended period keep the activity up and then reapply I never did because I didn't want to inject again but and you're gonna get one step closer to success with every failure that you have so our next quote will hopefully soothe some of the problems that the first quote might have brought up rejection is neither an indication a value or Talent remember that if you believe in what you have to offer then don't stop offering it simply because some of those you offer it to reject it many people are simply not very good at recognizing talent or value it doesn't mean you won't eventually find an audience that will I don't necessarily agree with the sentence many people are not good at recognizing talent or value I think that that's kind of downplaying that sometimes your rejections will be valid your content is not up to par yet you haven't worked out your microphone issues you haven't quite found your unique voice or your streaming and consistently sometimes your rejection is valid and saying that people don't recognize good talent is a little bit of I would say like a denial attitude however the rest of this I agree with it doesn't mean you won't eventually find an audience that will appreciate what you have to offer don't change yourself just to fit in keep doing your thing keep doing what you're doing continue to put out quality content and eventually the right people your tribe will find you and then this will take us to our most simple quote a rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success you are going to get rejected get comfortable with it get comfortable with it prepare to be rejected and don't let that hold you back from trying now to continue out of rejection I feel like too many rejections could end up leading to a toxic mindset so don't let the toxicity set in I see this happen a lot mostly in the streamer Twitter community where people will start to complain about other people's success they'll start to become resentful of other people who are successful there's a bitterness that comes along with it instead of celebrating the success of other people in their community the twitch community at large there now criticizing it or dragging it down or saying well they don't deserve that they're only popular because they look like this so they aren't only popular because they do the same stupid meme every single time and I'm so sick of seeing this dumb meme my twitter can you just stop posting already clearly a lot of people appreciate the content you're just bitter that you're not successful yet and if you let that bitterness grow it's now going to reflect back on that previous point that I had where reputation is currency and if you're constantly dragging down other successful streamers people are going to start looking at you as a bitter person and they're not going to be that likely to support your content you're only going to attract other bitter negative people to you there's been many times where I noticed this toxicity setting in for me one of my big indicators if a troll comes in and calls me like a dumb ugly B word or whatever and I get really mad and it completely changes my mood I'm upset when I'm too sensitive I know that I'm on the edge of like super toxic burnout mode and so I will take a step back from streaming and this is a point we're gonna build up to actually this point don't let twitch control your life is very hard advice to take because when it comes to streaming there's so much to do and it can become life consuming one of my biggest worst burnouts I would wake up in the morning and pull my phone out while I was still in bed and pull up in my discord server and immediately start working like hanging out with people in discord talking to my community in discord trying to keep up with everything catch up on what happened while I was asleep then I'd go to Twitter catch up with their post a tweet then from there I'd go out leave my house maybe go to my job the whole time I'm at my job I'm checking my notifications thinking about twitch thinking about twitch what's going on on discord oh my god I've got a reply to this there's drama going on in my community oh and then I get home and then it's an hour prep time to get ready for stream oh my god I'm supposed to have a new emote done I still don't have this done and then I go live an after stream I'm talking with everyone on discord again right up until the moment I go to bed it was a 24/7 job do not let twitch control your life do not let it take control of every aspect of your life and you need something to fill your cup up on the outside so whenever you're streaming you have a cup full of so much water and you're giving a little bit out to everyone that comes in your stream and eventually your cup gets empty you have to have something outside of twitch outside of content creation internet all of this that's filling your cup up whether that's yoga or hiking or frisbee golf or playing Wow on your own time save video games for yourself too don't just do everything for stream I got into a pretty toxic mindset where I refuse to play a video game unless I was streaming because I felt like I was wasting an opportunity you want to keep some of these things for yourself another thing to fill your cup up could be relationships family friends resting properly just vegging out and watching TV not doing anything not checking your phone unplugging you want to keep your cup filled so that you still have a full cup to give to other people it's going to help you prevent burnout and then also I would recommend having an external support group you know whether that's a partner or an IRL friends group or other streamers that you become friends with people that can be there for you when you're in burnout can can recognize like you need to get away from your computer for a little bit you've been playing overwatch a little bit too much recently some of us are super introverted and you're not gonna have an external support group and I get that but you you need something whether even if it's online friends that you convince to because say you have a regular in your stream that's getting on your nerves but you don't want that to come out and stream because you're just kind of getting burnt out and it's not really their fault you can vent to your friend about it get it out of your system and then it won't come out on stream and this is going to bring us to a point that I'm very well acquainted with at this point don't be afraid to take breaks from streaming even extended breaks I've taken so many over my streaming career yes it's going to impact your numbers you're just gonna have to accept that and deal with it that's one of the reasons why I have you count turned off now is because I will get in my head about well this time last year I had twice as many viewers and because I took that break and you'll really start to feel guilty and you'll do a downward spiral of thoughts about this which will lead you into bullying yourself in a streaming non stop it's very easy to get addicted to streaming because every second that you're not live you feel like I could have been making donations I could have gotten it zonation I could have gotten a subscriber I could have gotten a new follower I could have gotten a host and I'll find myself on stream sometimes where I'm on like two hours and I'm pretty much done I'm feeling like I just want to get off stream but I'm like man I just got up to like my peak viewer count I should chill for another hour so that maybe new people in the directory that I'm under can find me or maybe I might get that host from that streamer over there and you can really bully yourself into overdoing it which again will lead you to a burnout and when you do feel the burnout setting on your burn your burnt out you're sick of it you you're you're stressed all the time you're not enjoying it all of your games have lost the flavor you're getting sick of talking to your community you're getting sick of talking to streamers you're getting sick of hearing about twitch everything here and you're starting to get that toxicity the resentment the bitterness you're seeing the other person get retweeted by this big giant celebrity are you seeing that person get partnership and why haven't I gotten partnership yet or that person just hit affiliate and I haven't or this person just got a hundred gift subs why they didn't deserve once you start that mindset will come in if you're overdoing it step back from streaming take a break I've taken extended breaks sometimes two or three-week breaks sometimes six-month breaks I could do a whole video on how to manage a break and what to do during the break that will still kind of keep you in the sights of your community continuing to create content on another platform whether it's just posting pictures on Instagram keeping up with them on discord or something staying in touch with people and maintaining relationships and connections that you've made but not making yourself go through this huge effort of streaming it could happen - maybe you have a piece of equipment break and then you're stressed out because how am I going to buy a new microphone step back from streaming for a second and reassess reanalyze come back to it with a fresh mindset and yeah a six-month break will truly helped me I got my priorities straight instead of 24/7 streaming I was I was like no I need to get this type of job I got an art studio started I now have real friendships where I'm going out and hanging out with people I got my life into a better balance that would make me a healthier person to come back to streaming and have more quality content to produce because I'm just a more I'm feel like more of a quality person this entire conversation here there's a really important video by a streamer called weiu BER Huber called what streaming on twitch has done to my life and I think it's an extreme example but it's a powerful testimonial to devoting too much of your time and energy to streaming so I'll definitely link that down below but check it out and listen to what he has to say about how far gone he got pursuing the becoming twitch face and how much it pulled him away from his life and how far things escalated so my next point is kind of um a spicy take twitch is a tool not an identity this is a tool for you to grow you don't know how long twitch is gonna be here we've seen many social media platforms rise and fall throughout the last decade or so plenty of them AOL myspace Facebook is on the fall now YouTube is still holding strong but probably on its way out Instagram seems like it's on its way out tic toc is on the rise vine came and went really fast you never know how long this platform is gonna be here do not make it your entire identity I see so many streamers and this might just be a personal preference so don't be upset if if this applies to you but I'll see streamers who have twitch pillows in the background they're drinking out of a twitch Cup they're wearing a twitch shirt they've got a twitch beanie on and everything about them is nothing they're a walking advertisement for twitch yes it's important to be proud of the platforms that you're on or be proud of the tools that you're using but I think this can be also said for streaming communities where the streaming community wants you to make your header on Twitter the streamer community you want they want you to have a panel they want you to have an icon on your stream on your overlays and I've run a streamer community where I offered panel graphics and overlay graphics but it was never a requirement or anything like that and I would never want anyone to turn their entire identity into the community itself watch out for communities that do that where they require you to wear it everywhere because at the end of the day you're advertising for them you want your brand to be prominent so when I go into your profile I don't want to see the header just be like a twitch logo I want it to be something that represents your personality your brand whether it's a photo of you or a funny meme that you resonate with or whatever the games that you enjoy playing your fashion I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wearing twitch t-shirts or anything like that it's just when you become consumed with being a walking advertisement a walking billboard for twitch itself and everything you do is I'm on Twitch 24/7 this is why I think I'm kind of averse to the the contract for partnership where you're not allowed to stream on other platforms I think it's really valuable to build followings on YouTube even on mixer or live streaming on Instagram or live streaming on Facebook you want to have press is all over the internet which is going to lead us into some of these other points create content for other platforms yes you can take your twitch clips and post them on Twitter but don't link I could do a whole video on this too but just shortly don't link the twitch clip on Twitter I actually download the video and upload it as a video onto Twitter it's going to get do better in the algorithm make specific Twitter videos make specific Instagram stories post on Instagram different images than you would find anywhere else on your social media presence your YouTube videos can be a collection of your vods but you should be making unique content for YouTube I can't tell you how many people I had come in from that how to talk to yourself when no one is there video I grew a lot of my followers on Twitch because I made a video on YouTube that happened to go viral quote/unquote viral for me and it brought a lot of people into my twitch there I've see plenty of people who have built a tik-tok following and people will follow them from tik-tok onto twitter people will build a huge twitter following and because of that twitter clout that they get people now care about what they're doing on their live stream you want to be a content creator you don't want to be a twitch streamer in my opinion don't blame me but I especially think that's important the larger you grow now as far as twitch being a tool while you're streaming and this is an especially important I think for small streamers who are sitting between 0 and 3 viewers they don't usually have someone talking to them and chat they're still working on building themselves up go into every live stream that you do thinking of it as an opportunity for post stream video content so what do I mean by that for example tonight I have a two hour window where I can stream something so I want to have a compilation of play the games from overwatch as genji I'm gonna practice Ginji and I'm gonna get a couple of play the games and I'm going to make a 10 minute youtube video out of my two hour livestream edit it make it funny do all of the you know zoom ins and the memes and stuff and then I can post that to YouTube later my live stream is an opportunity for me to have a chunk of content that I can cut and dice up into pieces I can cross post it onto Twitter I can share it on Instagram I can make a YouTube video out of this it could be any type of thing it doesn't have to be playing the game on overwatch I could my goal is to beat the Capra demon on Dark Souls tonight my goal is to finish spring year one in stardew valley and then I'll make like you know how much money I made in stardew valley during spring year one or maybe you want to go into it creating a tutorial for conquering the mines how to get to level 100 of the skull cavern in star D Valley that's your goal going into the stream it doesn't have to be a game objective it could also be a chat objective if you do have an active chat maybe you use the stream as an opportunity to vlog and to get like thoughts and and feelings out that you could then turn into a youtube video or something anything like that use your live stream for content on other platforms don't let that time be I don't want to say wasted because streaming shouldn't be a look at it looked at as a waste but especially for people who maybe don't have a large community yet are sitting between the 0 to 5 viewers this was something that helped me and I think will help anybody who is like twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone to come talk to them and chat you like I said in that video you want to be talking as much as you can you want to be entertaining as much as you can so if you already got an objective in mind then you won't be so hung up or down on yourself because I still only have two viewers no one's here talking to me and then maybe you start talking about how no one's there talking to you instead you're focused on like I want to have really good play of the games and I'm gonna get it done and narrating what you're doing is you're doing it view every stream as an opportunity to create post stream content and the final area that I want to talk about is related to money twitch it's not your main source of income until it is a lot of people go into twitch not a lot but some people go into twitch with the mindset of I want to make money I want to pay my bills with it I want to do this I want to buy that I want to you know they go into it with a money focused mindset which is only gonna lead to failure and burnout period you need to be focusing on passion like we discussed earlier and don't quit your job until you're sure make time outside of your job even if it's just an hour a day and build your content up using some of the techniques that I've talked about throughout this video that you are now getting enough subscribers that it's now starting to take money away from you by going to your part-time job this is I've gotten to this point several times but I also like burn out and go back so I'll get my part-time job back I'll quit and go to sweet but there's been several times where going to my part-time job is less financially beneficial to me than if i streamed for those six hours instead I would make more money by streaming then I would go into my part-time job when that becomes a consistent thing for you you're starting to get to a point where you can think about quitting your job and making twitch your full-time I'm not a financial adviser take this with a grain of salt but I would never ever ever advise anybody to quit their part-time job has a new streamer ever twitch should not be considered your main source of income until it is your main source of income just because you hit affiliate and you've got two subscribers does not mean that you need to quit your job how are you gonna pay your bills you need to you need to be focused on that and if you're sitting there struggling for your money while being a full-time streamer with no other job it's going to start coming out in the stream you're gonna start doing more desperate things for money there's nothing wrong with having donation goals but but your community can tell when you're motivated by the money and it's gonna make them less likely to support you they're gonna feel less valuable they're gonna feel like they're just looked at as a money opportunity trust me the viewers can tell and to piggyback on this don't buy every bell and whistle until you know that you need it so you don't need a hundred and fifty dollar microphone and a three thousand dollar computer and two $100.00 webcams for all of these different camera angles and these $300 you know Elgato lights and a stream deck and a this and that and these crazy hundred fifty dollar headphones and download this software and pay for that software and I want to pay this person to design my email you don't have to dump all of this money into it especially if you're new and you've never done it before try it out and see if you like it and then just start with what you have just get started this is something I think people commonly talked about but literally like when I got started I had one computer monitor I had a 720p webcam that was not great and from there I would earn money through streaming to buy the upgrades I needed that's how I got my new graphics card was through streaming income that's how I got my stream deck was through streaming income all of the lights that I know use streaming income second webcam streaming income I think this is just a good business practice in general I'm not a business major or anything but any upgrades for your business you should have your business generating that income to put back into it and continue to build that business up further and further and further I heard my friend Gail level talk about this one one of his YouTube videos and I'll link him down below but and this is definitely something that I am victim to as well but getting stuck in this perfectionism mindset where I have to have the nicest webcam I have to have the good lighting I have to have this or else I'll never be successful and it's this perfectionism trap where it will also lead to paralysis by analysis fear of even getting started because you don't have the perfect setup and you'll never get anywhere you're never gonna have the perfect setup I still after four years have things that I want to upgrade but I have to take it one step at a time and that leads me to my next point one step at a time there are so many things on Twitch that you need to do and it's very overwhelming there's sub badges emotes panel graphics overlays alerts bit graphics you've got to learn all the pots you've got to add this you've got to learn how to do a camera switch once you get a stream deck you need to learn how to program it you need to learn how to switch from seeing the scene you need to learn rating and hosting etiquette on Twitch there's so many different things to learn and it's so overwhelming but you just have to take it one day at a time one step at a time you're going to get overly anxious trying to get it all done at one time there's been so many nights where I start out with this to-do list of like fix all of my overlays touch up my discord server and organize an Instagram queue organizing an Instagram queue is probably gonna take me an entire week alone of dedicated time just going through all the pictures that I've taken and organizing it out I can't do that in one night and fix up my stream deck stream deck I've been working on for like four days now and I'm having to do an hour here an hour there learn this new technique especially if you're trying to learn how to edit videos too you need to find the right program to download your vod's from twitch and then you have to learn how to work that program once you get the video downloaded you need to figure out what program you need to edit the video then you need to learn how to edit videos which will require hours of watching tutorials or taking courses you have to take it one step at a time you can't have this perfectionist mindset then just expecting to be an expert overnight and then getting disappointed when I can't achieve this insane to-do list or insane expectations that I set upon myself which will lead you to burnout would you want to avoid and the final thing that I want to say is it's not that deep it's not that serious don't take yourself too seriously have fun go into twitch with like a not so serious mindset where you're doing what you love to do what you're gonna be doing whether you're streaming or not playing the games that you like to play doing the content reading the books that you like like I'm reading an encyclopedia on stream I found that the like the blue fairy book pink fairy book etc are in the public domain so I'm going to start having fairytale soft-spoken reading streams do you think that a stream coach is going to recommend doing reading a book on your live stream or are they gonna recommend doing the popular game like death stranding if I'm straight if I'm streaming this relaxing fairy tale reading I'm going to attract the right people to me that need that content in that moment I'm happy because I've wanted to read this fairy tale book and so I'm feeling like I'm using my time in a way that is fulfilling me rather than just playing the popular game doing the popular thing don't take yourself too seriously have fun enjoy what you're doing take it a step at a time don't over stress about stuff don't be a perfectionist don't get your nose up in everyone's drama and business and feel like you need to make a comment on every social situation ever you know don't get on a high horse in your platform and think that your opinion is the god's gift to the world speak on what you feel you very strongly passionate about don't censor yourself by any means or force yourself to conform and not express yourself genuinely stay in your lane mind mind your business keeps yourselves do your thing grind it out every day don't get upset don't get bitter don't start comparing yourself to other people just keep here grow friendships with people genuine friendships not just oh this person has twenty thousand followers I better be friends with them but like people that you genuinely enjoy make friends streaming on Twitch have a have a good time enjoy it make sure that you're keeping community members around that you actually enjoy don't let jerks stay around just for the sake of numbers or because they sent you twenty dollars one time and the final thing that I want to say is a quote that I just recently heard that I really like which is you can't have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic I really like that because you have to it's a grind you have to work long hours you have to be innovative you have to take risks you have to try things that you really don't think will work you have to do think you have to take initiative you have to make executive decisions you have to show up on time you have to show up early you have to work overtime with no pay you have to hustle but I don't really like the non-stop hustle every day never stop working attitude because we all do need to relax a little bit I don't know how long this is gonna end up being if you made it all the way to the end I wish I could give you a thumbs up if you liked this video give me a thumbs up and subscribe and do all of the YouTuber things you don't have to turn on the bail notification that honestly makes me feel really awkward I'm on Twitter twitch tik-tok Instagram the YouTube I appreciate you watching I appreciate you sticking around I hope some of this has been helpful thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video which I don't know what it's gonna be or what it's gonna be about heat bye

Channel: HeyShadyLady

Views: 22,334

Keywords: heyshadylady, hey shady lady, twitch tips, twitch tutorial, how to stream, how to be a streamer, twitch streamer, streaming

Id: EA6xhhckmWA

Length: 47min 49sec (2869 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 13 2020