Basics, Tips and Guidelines for (Beginner) Twitch Streamers

Hey there!

A while ago, I released a video about streaming on Twitch, after I've had many discussions about things to do and not to do. You can watch my video about it here or read what I said in the video below (literally just the video but written down). It's quite the wall of text (or 17 minute video) with some interesting screenshots that you can check out.

One thing that I did not mention in the video is what my personal goals with streams are. I literally only started streaming because I had the time to do so, mainly because I wanted to record my Overwatch Gameplay and re-watch it myself in order to improve at the game (there weren't any Replays at the time). I had limited space on my drive for recordings, so Twitch was the easiest and fastest solution. I had no expectations when it came to viewers, but I got viewers who were interested in watching at the time, so I continued without even knowing that you could earn revenue at all. I made a bunch of friends and then I realized that I actually enjoy streaming a lot, so I continued it until this day.

This video is not really about how to stream because people have different goals, expectations and opinions about what's right or wrong to them, but I can maybe give you some basics and recommendations about streams after I've gained some experience over years. This is especially for those who are rather new to streaming and basically don't even know where to start when it comes to improvements. I guess this is a little more focused for our community "The Bonfire", because we get a lot of new people in regularly, a lot of them being non-affiliates.

Now, if you disagree with something, that's alright, because it is your stream and in the end you can do what you want. This topic comes up often on my channel or our discord server, so I thought I would make a video about this and refer people to this every time.

So where do I even start? There's a lot that we can talk about here. Let's start with:

• Eating before you begin your stream. I don't wanna wait an hour for you to cook and eat after 20 minutes of you streaming, so most people will just leave and not come back again.

• Preferably, stream more than one hour, more than just once a month, and have a schedule if possible. At the beginning of my streams I only have been live for about 2 hours with no schedule and I noticed that it takes people about up to an hour to even discover or see you online. So I recommend streaming more than an hour and having a schedule so people know when to expect you.

• Don't force yourself to stream when you're extremely tired or exhausted from work or school, or stream a specific game because you think it'll get more views. I've mentioned something like this at some point in this video already, but I've added this one afterwards because it came up on my channel the other day again. It is better to take care of yourself first, before you drag yourself to your PC doing something you don't actually enjoy at the time. By the way, a good example is a person I've met who got partnered for a specific game, because he was really good at it and stayed consistent with the same game at all times. He got up to 200 viewers at the time, but once he decided to play any other game, because he wanted to play something else and got burned out on his main game, his viewership would drop down to 10 to 20 people. Be mindful of what you're trying to achieve in the end, find the right ratio of you having fun and your viewers enjoying the game. Again, everything depends on what you really want in the end. Some people are fine with no views ever and they get really excited if one single person comes by and says hello, not even thinking about what game to pick. Other people expect to see growth every single day and want to get partnered, so they always expect viewers and do everything necessary to grow. So they end up working so hard and then having no energy anymore. It can be really draining, trust me.

• Another thing that I personally find extremely annoying, but it might be fun to others, is the fact that you can enable extensions where people can play sounds by paying bits, but the person I recently raided had those sound effects spammed by his chat. Sure, it's nice that he gets like 50 bits for each sound effect, but depending on how loud and repetitive it gets, it drives some viewers like me away. They were extremely loud too and just hurting my ears. Same thing goes for text-to-speech or similar things, make sure you moderate that stuff, so it cannot be abused or spammed by certain people. If you want to know more about overlays, scripts, extensions, feel free to ask, but I won't be covering those things right now.

• In general, don't set your expectations too high, remember that people have lives and can be busy. They come and go, maybe they have a family, pets, a lot of work etc. so even if you stream a certain amount of hours and days with a schedule, you can't always expect people to be there. Some days will be more active, some days can be really quiet and that's normal.

• Make sure that you disable your follow-only mode. There are better ways to deal with the "Wanna become famous?" and other spam, like blacklisting those sentences or websites. For me personally and a lot of other people that I know, they will not follow you in order to say hello or get to know you. This is not how you gain more followers. It's rather turning possible followers away from your channel. It's extremely counterproductive. Needless to say that subscriber-only chats are a no-go as well.

• Optimize your quality! Nobody wants to watch a slideshow or listen to loud gunshots where your voice gets buried. Go back to your own broadcast, see if there's anything that you don't like that you can fix. I also recommend having the game sound and any other sounds lower than your voice, because this is not a YouTube video, but the live stream with the possibility to interact with your chat in almost real time.

• If you decide to go for upgrades for your setup, you of course want a decent PC so you don't get any frame drops and can stream at a decent quality, preferably 720p and 30 fps or better. As a non-affiliate or even affiliates, you don't get to choose the encoder that Twitch uses for your channel, which means that people cannot change the quality of your stream. Some people have bad internet connections, so you don't really want to stream at like 1080p and 60 fps, when people aren't able to change the quality of your stream. Overall, I found 720p and 30 fps just fine.

• Match your stream output with your actual fps and resolution of your game. I found another person recently who streamed at 1080p 60 fps and the game itself wasn't that high quality, because it was on a console and made it look quite blurry in the end, which is a wasted encoder and not everyone can watch that high quality as I've mentioned before. Other than that, if you want to get a new mic or cam, I would go with the mic first. That's just personal preference to me, but being able to understand you well rather than seeing you in really high quality is more important to me. A lot of people stream without a cam in general, so a decent mic would be great. I know that we have a lot of artists especially, who don't use a cam OR mic, but again, if you want to upgrade, I would go with a mic first. If you decide that you don't want to use either, that's up to you and if you do have a mic, keep talking! It's not that interesting to watch a game alone. You might as well just watch a YouTube video or watch somebody else who talks or engages with his chat. You are the streamer and you have to start a conversation or engage, because you are trying to get viewers in. It's not the viewer's job to get you talking in the first place.

• Pay attention to chat! It might happen that things are quiet for a while, but ignoring chat for like 20 minutes is not gonna keep people around. If people do come by and say hello, make sure you acknowledge them and maybe get a conversation going by asking them how they are doing, or anything else. Whatever comes to mind to get an interaction, if that's what you want.

• Something that I didn't think about and forgot to mention is to get a second monitor for your chat or at least use your phone or iPad to read messages, because tabbing out every 5 minutes seems annoying for both you and your viewers due to the constant interruptions.

• Have some alerts so you at least notice when you get raided, hosted or followed. Nothing is more disappointing than someone wanting to spread some love and then be completely ignored. I personally use StreamLabs and it's fairly easy to set up. It doesn't have to be super fancy, you can use the standard alerts and work on changes later if you want to. It doesn't have to look super professional right off the bat, so don't worry about the design yet. Especially when you're still fairly new.

• Just because you're affiliated and can play ads, you're not gonna get much out of it with lower viewership. Of course you can use it when you take a break anyway, but I recently had someone I visited that I was talking to and he spammed it every 8 minutes or something automatically on cooldown. It's really annoying and in the end you earn like five cents, but lose all your viewers because it's frustrating as hell. 3.50$ CPM is what you get for ads, which is "Cost Per Mille". What that means is basically that you need a thousand views to get 3.50$ and if you think about it, it'll take quite some time to get a thousand people onto your channel and it only counts if an ad has been played for all those people.

• Also play something you enjoy, not because you think that's gonna get more viewers. How fun is it to watch someone who doesn't even enjoy what they do? If you start seeing streams as a job it's gonna be disappointing. As I said before, you can't expect people to come by. And even if they do, there's no guarantee that they will come back in the future. You always have to consider that people have their own lives. Things can get busy, maybe they stream themselves or they are working or simply don't feel like being on Twitch for a while. Time zones play a huge role especially if you are joining a community like ours. They simply might not be able to catch you online, because it might be the middle of the night depending on what time you stream in your own time zone. Other people might be doing the exact same thing as you. If they're working until let's say 6 pm and then they start their stream at 7pm. Sometimes you just don't have a choice and adjust to your life situation which is fine, but remember that people have their own things to take care of as well.

• Use social media to help with exposure or join Discord communities. The Bonfire specifically is a very friendly, supportive community. We provide a place for you to get to know others and make friends. Friends support friends if they like you as a person, I'm sure they'll try to return the favor or help a friend out. You can always ask for advice there and get some feedback on the stream setup, like panels etc. and we also offer free transitions and our community logo to use. We have a stream team that you can apply for, that may help you with other generous and supportive people to find you and help you out. You can head to team-application in our Discord in order to apply and read through the rules. We expect you to be active and engaging, support each other when possible. Of course, we keep in mind that you have a life as well and things can get busy. Communication is key so let us know about it. Demonstrate that you want to be a part of the team by being active on Discord and visiting other team members' streams. We can only encourage you to raid team members and break the ice, get a conversation going. The use of follow- or view-bots is a huge nope. This is not how you grow your stream and this will definitely get you removed.

• Ultimately, the follower number means nothing. Appreciate the people who come by and this will go a long way. Streaming isn't as easy as you probably have noticed. Twitch is a huge platform and discoverability is difficult.

• Definitely do not just drop your link everywhere. That's what I call "low-effort-promotion". You have to stand out and give people a reason to come to you, rather than other streams.

• Also do not complain on your stream or other people's stream how you don't get enough viewers or money. If people want to give you something, it's up to them. Please don't give us this entitled "Oh, give me money"-acting, it will drive people like me and a many others away too. I don't have the money to Subscribe to people or Donate; I barely have enough to sustain myself, but I'm giving you something way more valuable if I do visit you and that's probably the case for anyone who does visit you: They give you their time! Time is super valuable, because it's something none of us will ever get back and that is a huge deal to me.

• Don't get obsessed about numbers. Turn them off if possible. Don't act different depending on the number. There will be days where you have lower views or a quiet chat and that doesn't mean you are bad. Numbers will always fluctuate so focusing on it too much is probably not a good idea. Of course you can set goals and try to reach certain numbers, but I recommend turning it off at least during your stream. Also don't "grind" a stream, I hate this word "grind" by the way. It's not about reaching 10 hours of stream time and then suddenly you're more successful. That's not how that works. Quality over Quantity. Streaming more doesn't mean you're doing better. Some people have the time to do streams for 12 hours every single, some people only stream 3 hours 3 times a week. The hours do not define your success.

• Don't compare yourself to other streamers who do better than you. There's always someone better, but you're unique. Nobody does exactly the same as you! There's an audience for everyone, you just gotta find them. Twitch is huge - if you take affiliates as the baseline and only take data from affiliates and partners, if you have more than 6 average viewers, you're already in the top 30% of all streamers. If you have 11 or more, you're top 15%, so think about that. Don't see others as competition though, you can learn from them instead of being discouraged. You can watch other streamers not to be jealous, but to learn from them. See what they do well and find what you could maybe implement on your own stream, but remember that you're still unique.

• Of course if you enjoy watching somebody, please do support them. You help them out with your view and support in general.

• Always appreciate the people who do follow or come by and hang out, don't focus on the people who don't. A lot of people just lurk, they're busy but took the time out of their day to have a tab of your stream up to help with a view.

• Don't call them out, let them lurk. There's not always something to say and that's okay. As I said, time is precious. It's something none of us can ever get back, so that's amazing of people to give you their time.

• Remember to raid or at least host somebody, no matter how many viewers you have. Most people are very kind, especially in our community and they will at least check you out as well and maybe return the favor if possible.

• Keep time zones in mind, not all of them can give something back to you, but that doesn't mean that they don't care or don't like you. If you enjoy somebody's stream, feel free to continue to help them out in any way. If it's just a lurk or you have a chat or whatever else. Don't make it dependent on their view count either. Support if you want to, but don't just do it because you expect the same back.

• Just because somebody may have a higher number than usual, it doesn't mean that you're suddenly irrelevant and stop the support. It kind of feels like one step forward and then two steps back.

• In general, I don't like the link drops in communities or after every single online game you play or having TTV in your name. That usually doesn't really get you anywhere, because you don't give people a reason to come by. Technically, everyone can stream and can be called a streamer, so nobody really cares. In our community, if you don't talk to anyone, you'll stay unknown.

• I also didn't think I would have to say this, but it came up recently. Don't make your viewers feel bad when you know that they can Subscribe or give Bits to somebody else than you. Nobody owes you anything. If you stream for the sole reason of earning money, then I don't believe you'll get very far. Streaming isn't easy at all and it might take a lot of time for people to grow and a lot of dedication. So honestly, if you want money, then you might as well just get a normal job and get guaranteed income.

• As a viewer, please don't mention that you're gonna stream. A lot of people don't like the self-promotion. Just interact with people and if it comes up in the conversation and the streamer is fine with it, you can talk about it. I personally don't care about the self-promotion, but don't just say "I'm gonna go stream now, bye!" or something, because it's just kind of rude.

• Also don't point out someone's view count and don't make comments about how many people actively chatting or how it doesn't add up with somebody's follow count. Numbers are always going to be somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes you get lucky and get raided by a bigger streamer or you happen to play a game that offers drops for example and people come by because of it. Everything might've lined up perfectly and people were able to support more that day.

• Don't do backseat-gaming unless requested by the streamer. I don't stream in order to have people to tell me how to play. A lot of people just want to play the game for the first time and backseating can ruin the experience.

• You don't need to mention that you're gonna leave to watch somebody else. Even if you are free to do what you want, you don't need to make the current streamer feel less important by saying such things. As a streamer, you should also not feel jealous that your viewers may watch other streamers too. You're not the only one they might care about.

• I have this little story to tell: I am a moderator in a lot of channels and I've noticed this one specific person coming by to type "!lurk" in all of those channels repeatedly. Sometimes they would do that in 10 channels at the same time, so I went to that person's stream because they were just about to start their own, to tell them that you cannot lurk 10 channels at once. Your view does not count for any of them, even if you had good intentions, you cannot have more than maybe 3 tabs opened for streamers at a time or your view will disappear. You can also not pause the stream or mute it or you will not count. So I approached him in a friendly way, suggesting that he should not have so many tabs opened and maybe he should go and get to know those people he supports, because he has never ever said anything else but "!lurk". So the only thing that he told me was to "take some shit out of his toilet, put it in a sandwich and eat it". He then banned me and I made sure that I banned him in all of the 10 channels he lurked in. So my recommendation here is to not be like that guy. You can be open to advice or ask for help, but this is a good example of how not to be helpful or even liked in a community and it will turn people away from you.

Here are some extremely interesting examples of people I've gotten to know years back, when they weren't partnered yet. I have witnessed their growth and have been part of their path to partnership. I have also seen how their viewership has dropped down or how they all got burned out when they were working so hard to achieve partnership in the first place. Even if you manage to get this far, it doesn't mean it will last forever! This is really hard work and most people still cannot stream without having an additional job to pay their bills.

The red bars show the amount of hours streamed while the green line shows the number of average viewers. During the peaks, that's when all of them got partnered. Those are only 10 examples out of the many partners that I know (Edit: I lost the screenshot and would have to do it again, but I can't be bothered right now :/)

I hope this was somewhat useful to you and if you have any more points you want me to talk about or add in a future video, let me know. Remember that you can do what you want with your stream, it is all up to you and you do whatever you feel like.

Thanks for watching the video / reading this post.

Bonfire Discord Community: https://discord.com/invite/dsQY2yT

My Discord Tag: Kelyna#8923

My Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@kelydrex

My Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/kelydrex