What's up guys. Welcome back once again
to the Gaming Careers YouTube channel.
Today's video, I am super excited for. I
think it's going to be really useful for
you guys. It's my top 7 tips as to why you
might not be growing on Twitch. Now
obviously with me running this channel
full time, it's completely
dedicated to helping live streamers, I
see a lot of VODs and live streams on
Twitch and I get asked what my
opinion is as to why they're not seeing
growth. Maybe they've been stuck at 0 to
5 viewers for a long time, or 5 to 10, or
they're pushing for partner. There are many
different stages in your Twitch journey
where it's going to be really tough to
grow. These are my top 7 tips as to
why you might not be growing on Twitch.
Just before we jump into the tips I
want to make one thing clear. This video
is really for those people that want to
grow on Twitch. I have zero problem with
those people that just want to stream to
their friends share a link with
their friends or their family or they
just have a community that they're very
very happy with and they're not looking
to grow at all, by all means do whatever
you want on the platform, I am totally on
board with that. But I do get a lot of
people that want to grow this into their
full-time job one day, they want to push
for affiliate or they want to push for
partner and start earning some
proper money from this. To do that
you have to build a community, you have
to build an audience, a lot of people
need to be watching your stream so this
video is dedicated for the people that
want to grow rather than the people that
want to just have fun on the platform
and are not focused on growth. The
purpose of me making this list really is
to give you guys the best baseline
of the things to do on Twitch, or
the things not to do in some cases. So if
you apply these seven tips to your
stream, I think you're massively
increasing your chances of being able to
grow on the platform. OK let's jump in. So
tip number one and bear with me, is that
you might be streaming a saturated game.
Your selection of game that you're going
to choose to stream consistently on
Twitch, it's probably the single most
important factor as to whether or not
you're going to see growth and I completely
understand where you're coming from, you
want to play these awesome titles from
these amazing studios. Things like Fortnite,
the new Call of Duty that's just
come out,
League of Legends, Overwatch. These games
are incredible to play and I'm sure you
have a lot of fun playing them but
they are so so difficult to grow in that
kind of directory on Twitch. As an
example I just checked earlier and
Fortnite had a few thousand
different streams that were on Twitch
live at that moment. That is just, I
mean you are competing with over 3000
people to try and get views and nobody
is going to be scrolling down that page
right to the bottom to try and find your
stream. It's just so unlikely, whereas
if you choose a less saturated game,
something with maybe only 20 or 50
different streams. There's a much
higher chance that somebody's going to
stumble across your stream and if you're
providing the value in the
other tips in this video then hopefully
they will start to watch on a more
regular occurance. Obviously you need to
be playing a game that you're passionate
about. I wouldn't want to advise you to
go and start streaming a game that
within a week, you're going to be
super bored of. You need to be passionate
about the game and that needs to come
across in your stream, but just I really
would advise against choosing one of
these massively oversaturated
games to try and stream, because
you're really putting
yourself in a difficult starting
position. If you want to eventually move
to a game like that, that's certainly
something that you can do later down the
line, once you've build up a bit of a
loyal audience. But to start I would
really advise against choosing a
super saturated game. There is an awesome
tool out there called Twitchstrike
which allows you to browse through the
games that are being streamed on Twitch
and see how saturated they are,
how many viewers they have on average,
how many streamers they have on average,
as well as whether the top 5% of
streamers how many of the
viewer base do they hold. If
you're wanting to stream a game where
the top two or three channels
hold 95% of the viewers, it's going to be
super difficult to grow. Whereas if
you choose a game that has a lower ratio
than that, then it's going to be much easier
to be discovered. The other advice I
would give is to head to the Twitch
directory and try and find a game there
that has still over a thousand
viewers in the whole directory so
there's plenty of room for growth for
you in there, but maybe not as many
streamers trying to compete for
the number one spot or the first row
in that directory. Again I do want to
emphasize you still want to be playing a
game
that either you're very good at
or at least you enjoy and you're
very passionate about because that
needs to come across to your audience as
well. Reason number two is probably the
most common one that I see and that's
just that you're not interacting or
being entertaining for your stream. I
know that sounds a little bit harsh but
I really would encourage you to go into
your Twitch settings, enable highlights
to be created from your Twitch streams
and go back and watch one of your VODs
of your full stream and think to
yourself, if I was to stumble
across this stream, would I be
entertained. You need to be constantly
talking to your viewers, even if you have
zero viewers you need to be constantly
talking because you've got to grab
somebody's attention as they arrive at
your stream. So talk to them about what
you're thinking about in game.
One of the easiest ways to start is
just to speak your mind and say what
you're doing in the game but you need to
be constantly interacting, talking as
much as you can and just being
entertaining because at the end of the
day a lot of people come to Twitch to be
entertained and if you're not doing that
then why would they stick around? A
couple of tips for helping you to be
more interactive with your chat is to
keep an eye on your Twitch chat.
Obviously you want to be making sure
that you don't miss any messages of
viewers that come in and say hello so
you can start a conversation with them.
Having just a single monitor is no
longer an excuse, I did a video last week
or the week before about how you can now
get Twitch chat on top of your game with
a single monitor, so if you haven't seen
that video do check it out. I'll link it
up in the card above, but you really need
to make sure that you are interacting
with your chat, you're asking them
questions, you're starting a conversation
because at the very beginning of
your Twitch journey you need to be
building that relationship with them. The
other thing you can do is to get a
family or a friend, somebody that's
going to give you some proper advice to
watch back one of your streams.
Not somebody that's just going to tell
you are doing everything right, but
somebody that's going to give you some
proper feedback about things that you
can improve. So try and do somebody that
understands Twitch and knows what
a good Twitch stream is. If you're
struggling to be critical of yourself
and you think you're doing everything
right, then try and find somebody else
that can review your stream and give you
some really helpful feedback. Reason
number three is that your stream is
plagued with technical issues and I'm
not just talking about little things,
little bugs that happen
once in a while, you forget to swap
scene or something like that.
I'm talking about something that has
been going on for weeks and you haven't
made any attempt to fix it.
It's 2018, it's so hard to grow on Twitch
nowadays that you just can't get away
with any sort of constant technical
issue. If you have low frame
rate or low bitrate or you're
dropping frames all over the place, you
have to fix those issues because people
are just going to find somebody else to
watch. The Gaming Careers Channel has
now over 40 videos helping you set
up your stream, make sure that you can
fix issues and things like that. So do
your research, do the work that's
required to make sure that your stream
looks great and also you need to be
thinking about the sound as well.
Have you got a really bad mic
that's just not that great to listen to.
A lot of people that watch people on
Twitch
sometimes minimize the tab and
will be listening to you and your
conversation that you're having with
your viewers, so make sure that you have
a proper mic setup. You don't need to go
and spend hundreds of pounds, but just
spend the time sorting out your audio
levels making sure that your game noise
isn't louder than your microphone volume.
That you can be heard clearly and you
can be understood. Really get all of
those technical aspects of your stream
nailed down and then that
isn't a reason why you're not growing.
One of the tools that I recommend to fix
these kind of issues is the Twitch
inspector which lets you analyze either
past streams or lets you run a test
stream that doesn't actually go live to
your viewers and analyze things like
drop frames or bit rates being varied and
things like that. I've done a full video
again on how you can analyze your stream,
so check that one up in the card if you
are experiencing any issues. Reason
number four is that you aren't sticking
to a consistent stream schedule. I'm not
asking you to stream five hours a night
every single day of the week, because I
understand that many of you are still
working full time jobs and with
the eventual dream to come into
streaming full-time. If you can only
manage even if it's only one
day a week for a couple of hours, make
that your schedule, because if somebody
does discover you and stumbles upon your
stream but they don't know when you're
going to be streaming again, then it's
very unlikely that they're going to be
able to come back. They might
follow you but they might already follow
a thousand channels and all those
notifications, they probably turn them
off on their phone they've
got so many followed channels. So they're
not going to see when you're streaming
again, whereas if they stumble upon your
stream and they see below in one of your
Twitch panels that you have a schedule
and that you're going to be live that same
time the next week, that is going to take up
a part of their brain, a part of their
memory and just like a TV show
there's a chance that they might turn up
again because they really enjoyed your
content. I feel like I'm plugging all my
other videos in this video but there is
a super handy Twitch extension that you
can install from Streamlabs that lets
you put your schedule down in the Twitch
panels below your stream and actually
convert the schedule to the viewers
timezone so there's no confusion about
when you're going live for their
timezone. If you want to learn about that
extension, I have done a video and you
can check that up in the card above as
well. Reason number five why you might
not be growing on Twitch is that you
don't use a webcam and I know there are
plenty of examples of big streamers that
don't use webcams but I think certainly
when starting out it is one of the best
investments that you can make for your
stream setup. It's all about connecting
with your audience and if you don't have
a webcam the only real human to human
connection that you have is your voice.
If you add a webcam in,
you effectively doubles the
connection that you can have with a
viewer. Not only that but they have a
better chance of remembering you so if
they stumble upon your thumbnail again
in the directory, they're going to say oh I
actually watched that person before and
I really enjoyed watching their stream.
So I actually think investing in a
webcam is a really great upgrade for
your stream and it can help potentially
increase your audience as well. You don't
need to be going and splashing out on a
4k webcam or a DSLR camera that
somehow connects to your computer. I'm
just talking about a basic webcam, maybe
something that can capture in 720p
embedded nicely into your stream just so
that your viewers can interact with you
both through your voice as well as being
able to see you and see your
reactions to some of the things in games.
I really do think it's a way of
building a better connection with your
audience. Reason number six is that you
aren't networking effectively on Twitch.
I get it that networking is one of
those words that makes people cringe and
think of LinkedIn,
but you really need to build up a
network of fellow streamers if you want
to be able to grow in the directory.
What I mean by that is not spamming your
link, joining people's Discord's
and saying check out my stream I'm live
and things like that. That is the wrong
way to do it. I'm talking about hanging
out in the directory that you're
streaming and trying to grow and hang out in
other people's streams, talking to them
genuinely, being a name to remember but
not spamming your link. Like a lot of
these tips, I have a completely separate
video about how to network effectively
and so do check that out if you want
more information. I can't tell you
how many people are doing this the right
way in the Gaming Careers Discord.
Offering help to newcomers and
really giving advice and things like that
and then maybe the next time you stream
they're going to check you out because they
remember your name as that super helpful
person in Discord. So yeah, do check out
my video, I've done a real deep dive in
networking on Twitch, on Twitter and on
Discord. I think it's a really useful guide.
Reason number seven, our final reason and
maybe our most important is that you
have to be providing value to your
audience. It doesn't matter what platform
you want to grow on online, it could be a
website, could be Twitter, Instagram,
YouTube or something like Twitch. You
have to be providing value to your
audience. This comes across in
many different ways depending on the
platform, but particularly on Twitch this
could come across as just being really
entertaining. That's the main reason that
people come to watch streams on Twitch,
is to be entertained. So if you are
really entertaining than that is
certainly a value that you're giving to
your audience. But there's also plenty of
examples on Twitch of people that are
very good at games, competitive
games, that aren't particularly
entertaining but they're so highly
skilled that that is the value that they
are giving to their audience. People
will tune in to watch them because they
want to watch somebody that is
incredibly good at the game and how they
play and how their mind works when
they're trying to play competitively. If
you are one of those people that is very
good at a game, you could also give
tips and tricks on how to improve on
certain heroes or certain maps,
completely depending on the game
obviously. But the main reason I would
give to give value to your audience is
just to be entertaining, because people
usually come to Twitch to be entertained.
It's the new TV, it's what the youngest
generation are watching so be an
entertainer on-screen. I know we've
covered a lot in this video so let's do
a quick recap of the 7 tips. Tip number
one was to choose your game wisely, don't
stream an oversaturated game if you want
to grow on Twitch. Tip number two was to
interact and entertain your viewers, you
have to be exciting to watch, would you
watch your own stream if you were
stumbling around the Twitch directory.
Tip number 3 was fix all of those
technical issues. This channel has so
many videos about setting up OBS and
doing all sorts of tests and things like
that so take your time and do the work
required to set up your stream properly.
Tip number 4 was to set up a stream
schedule and be consistent with that
schedule. It doesn't matter how many
times a week it is, but just stick to
that schedule so that your viewers know
when you are coming back. Tip number 5
was to use a webcam and connect with
your audience with more than just that
audio. You also want to be
entertaining them and them being able to
see how you react to certain things in
games through your webcam. Tip number 6
was to network effectively on Twitter,
Discord, Twitch, any platform really that
you can use nowadays, but network in the
right way and build some real
friendships within the streaming community.
Then finally tip number 7 was to
offer your audience value. Talking about
value, if you have found this video
valuable and maybe you've
picked up a few tips of things to and
not to do, then please do give it
a thumbs up, share it with a friend
that's struggling to grow on
Twitch. I'd really appreciate that.
If you could check out my
Patreon as well, I'm massively thankful
to my patrons every month who are
helping me keep doing this job full-time,
creating content for you guys, creating
new tutorials and guides like this one.
So a massive thank you again to my patrons.
Also we hit Discord partnership, so we
have a new amazing URL for discord. You
can just head to discord.gg slash gaming
careers. Come and join the community of
3000-4000 members in there now,
all helping each other out with their
streaming journey or that content
creation journey, whatever it is as long
as it's to do with gaming and creating a
career out of it.
Also this might be my last video before
Twitchcon.
I'm heading to Twitchcon next week, I'll
probably try and get a video out before
that but no promises, we'll see how tight
the deadline is and how I manage all of
the packing of my equipment, because I'm
probably going to create some
sort of video about Twitchcon whilst I'm
there anyway, so I'm going to take some
of my kit out with me. Thank you very
much for watching, Subscribers I will see
you in the next video. Peace!
[Music]
