How to get started on twitch?

[iLostMyXbox21]

So I wanna start on twitch soon. I’ve figured out I’m better at talking to a camera and mic if there are people that I can interact with real time. On youtube, I typically get 4 viewers and even then, I can talk naturally. I just need to be able to talk to people real time..

 

however, I’m worried about starting and not having anybody watch. I already know the basic tips. 

- be consistent

- don’t stream games that have a large competition

- tell your friends

 

but is there any place (like a forum or anything) that is for twitch streamers to meet, make friends, collab, etc? I haven’t been able to find anything. I wanna start in about 2 months if possible. My friend says if I stream minecraft, he might come watch (especially bedwars) which I was gonna do anyways. 

 

Any tips for when I get started?

[Max_Settings]

1. Don't be 14 or under

2. Be different from everyone else

3. Have a good personality

4. Have a good looking stream

5. Don't have crap audio

[Slottr]

2 minutes ago, Max_Settings said:

1. Don't be 14 or under

2. Be different from everyone else

3. Have a good personality

4. Have a good looking stream

5. Don't have crap audio

6. Be female

[iLostMyXbox21]

2 minutes ago, Max_Settings said:

1. Don't be 14 or under

Well I’m 15 so yayyyy

2 minutes ago, Max_Settings said:

2. Be different from everyone else

I’m pretty good at that. People tell me I’m unique

3 minutes ago, Max_Settings said:

3. Have a good personality

Well, my friends say that I have a good personality, does that count?

3 minutes ago, Max_Settings said:

4. Have a good looking stream

I was thinking 720p 60fps. Good?

4 minutes ago, Max_Settings said:

5. Don't have crap audio

I was planning a blue snowball for now. Is that good enough?

 

1 minute ago, Slottr said:

6. Be female

Damn it. Time to go get surgery.

 

 

 

 

/s

[Tsuki]

4 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

I was thinking 720p 60fps. Good?

I was planning a blue snowball for now. Is that good enough?

thats a decent start, but aim for 1080p if you can.

blue snowball is good start. just try to limit background and keyboard noise.

 

[iLostMyXbox21]

Just now, Tsuki said:

thats a decent start, but aim for 1080p if you can.

blue snowball is good start. just try to limit background and keyboard noise.

 

The keyboard I wanna get is mx brown, which I believe are quiet

 

Thanks for the help

[Spotty]

4 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

however, I’m worried about starting and not having anybody watch. I already know the basic tips. 

- be consistent

- don’t stream games that have a large competition

- tell your friends

I would say play games you enjoy. Unless you're playing a very specific and unique game you're going to be at the bottom of the channel list anyway, so you may as well play something you enjoy.

 

5 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

but is there any place (like a forum or anything) that is for twitch streamers to meet, make friends, collab, etc? I haven’t been able to find anything. I wanna start in about 2 months if possible.

Play games, meet other streamers, play with them on streams, shout out their stream on your channel and they'll do the same. Join their discord groups, meet other streamers, do streams with them. You can promote your twitch channel through status updates here on LTT forums (just don't spam it).
 

19 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

I’ve figured out I’m better at talking to a camera and mic if there are people that I can interact with real time.

Play Co-op/Multiplayer games. Get your friends in Discord and talk to them (warn them that you're streaming and people can hear them, it's rude not to tell them, and you don't want them saying anything that could get you doxed/banned)... It won't be the same as interacting with the audience, but it means when someone new comes to your channel they're not just seeing some guy sitting in a chair staring at a monitor with a blank expression for 2 hours not saying anything. Plus whatever discussion you and your friends are having can spill over to twitch chat with people watching joining in.
 

6 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

I was thinking 720p 60fps. Good?

Yes. IIRC when you're first starting out Twitch doesn't allow viewers to choose the stream resolution, so if you go too high (1080p60) there may be people with shit internet connections that can't watch. If you go too low (480p) then people will just move on to the next stream that looks better. 720p60 is probably a good place to start out.
 

2 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

The keyboard I wanna get is mx brown, which I believe are quiet

Set up a noise gate for your mic and try to position it as far away from the keyboard as possible while still sounding good with your voice. Any switch can be loud if you bottom out.

[Cyberspirit]

28 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

The keyboard I wanna get is mx brown, which I believe are quiet

 

Thanks for the help

Browns are still clicky so, you might want to get red switches. Seems like I didn't remember that right, sorry.

 

As for being a streamer, I'd say all you need is a good personality and consistency.

 

This is all personal preference but, the streamers I watch have amazing and funny personalities and overall are no bs people.

They all stream in 720p 60 which is fine but, 1080p is nice if you have the hardware for it.

 

Don't expect to get a lot of following for a couple years though because it takes a while to figure out everything.

Edited February 11, 2019 by Cyberspirit
Corrected mistake

[iLostMyXbox21]

5 minutes ago, Spotty said:

I would say play games you enjoy. Unless you're playing a very specific and unique game you're going to be at the bottom of the channel list anyway, so you may as well play something you enjoy.

I mainly wanna play minecraft and some other games I find on itch.io

 

5 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Play games, meet other streamers, play with them on streams, shout out their stream on your channel and they'll do the same. Join their discord groups, meet other streamers, do streams with them. You can promote your twitch channel through status updates here on LTT forums (just don't spam it).

Where do I meet streamers that will play with me? Cause most of the time they don’t collab with people smaller than them (from experience) 

6 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Play Co-op/Multiplayer games. Get your friends in Discord and talk to them (warn them that you're streaming and people can hear them, it's rude not to tell them, and you don't want them saying anything that could get you doxed/banned)... It won't be the same as interacting with the audience, but it means when someone new comes to your channel they're not just seeing some guy sitting in a chair staring at a monitor with a blank expression for 2 hours not saying anything. Plus whatever discussion you and your friends are having can spill over to twitch chat with people watching joining in.

So get people to join me on discord while streaming? I didn’t think of that, I have quite a few friends who might do that. I might start doing Csgo surf. It’s something I’ve wanted to do. And I can invite them to do it too and we can just hang out and stuff. Is that what you mean?

 

7 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Yes. IIRC when you're first starting out Twitch doesn't allow viewers to choose the stream resolution, so if you go too high (1080p60) there may be people with shit internet connections that can't watch. If you go too low (480p) then people will just move on to the next stream that looks better. 720p60 is probably a good place to start out.

Okay, personally I like 720p. I don’t see why people don’t. I see a difference between 720p and 1080p, but there are just benefits 720p has

 

8 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Set up a noise gate for your mic and try to position it as far away from the keyboard as possible while still sounding good with your voice. Any switch can be loud if you bottom out.

 

3 minutes ago, Cyberspirit said:

Browns are still clicky so, you might want to get red switches.

 

I thought reds were louder? Or I might be thinking of blues... I’m not sure...

4 minutes ago, Cyberspirit said:

As for being a streamer, I'd say all you need is a good personality and consistency.

I wanna do Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday (for now, since my parents don’t let me have my things on school days except Friday after school)

 

5 minutes ago, Cyberspirit said:

This is all personal preference but, the streamers I watch have amazing and funny personalities and overall are no bs people.

They all stream in 720p 60 which is fine but, 1080p is nice if you have the hardware for it.

Personally I prefer 720p. Plus as mentioned above, if I have it at 1080p, people with slower connections won’t be able to have the stream as good as everyone else

5 minutes ago, Cyberspirit said:

Don't expect to get a lot of following for a couple years though because it takes a while to figure out everything.

Yeah I don’t expect to get big. This is just something I wanna do and get like 30 followers. My actual goal is like 50 people in one stream (my goal for now is 5 or so)

 

 

 

thanks for all all the help everyone

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

Where do I meet streamers that will play with me? Cause most of the time they don’t collab with people smaller than them (from experience) 

These days just throw a rock in any direction and you'll hit a twitch streamer. Playing squads in battle royales you will often meet a few. You're obviously not going to be playing with DrDisrespect. I'm talking about playing with other new streamers starting out.

 

2 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

So get people to join me on discord while streaming? I didn’t think of that, I have quite a few friends who might do that. I might start doing Csgo surf. It’s something I’ve wanted to do. And I can invite them to do it too and we can just hang out and stuff. Is that what you mean?

Sure? If that's your sort of thing. I mean normally when you play multiplayer games with friends you would voice chat on Discord, right? So just do that but on stream.

 

12 minutes ago, Cyberspirit said:

Browns are still clicky so, you might want to get red switches.

Browns aren't clicky. They're tactile, non-clicky switches. Triggering the switch/keystroke doesn't make a noise, but like any switch they will still make a lot of noise if you bottom out. You can buy o rings to put under the keys to stop them from bottoming out if you're super concerned about noise.

[Cyberspirit]

1 minute ago, Spotty said:

Browns aren't clicky. They're tactile, non-clicky switches. Triggering the switch/keystroke doesn't make a noise, but like any switch they will still make a lot of noise if you bottom out. You can buy o rings to put under the keys to stop them from bottoming out if you're super concerned about noise.

Were they never clicky? For some reason, I remember that they were but not as much as blues.

Been a while since I looked into mechanical keyboards so, it's very possible that I'm misremembering.

[Spotty]

3 minutes ago, Cyberspirit said:

Were they never clicky? For some reason, I remember that they were but not as much as blues.

Been a while since I looked into mechanical keyboards so, it's very possible that I'm misremembering.

Never been clicky. Cherry MX Browns have a slight tactile bump you can feel as you're pressing the key down when it's registered, but that doesn't make an audible sound. Cherry MX Blue switches have an audible click sound when the key is pressed. MX Reds are linear switches and don't have either the tactile bump you feel or the audible click.

 

Spoiler

 

[Cyberspirit]

2 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Never been clicky. Cherry MX Browns have a slight tactile bump you can feel as you're pressing the key down when it's registered, but that doesn't make an audible sound. Cherry MX Blue switches have an audible click sound when the key is pressed. MX Reds are linear switches and don't have either the tactile bump you feel or the audible click.

 

  Hide contents

 

Oh, I guess I confused the tactile bump with being clicky. Thanks for the heads up.

[Crunchy Dragon]

37 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

I was thinking 720p 60fps.

720p60 is recommended if you're on a more midrange machine that doesn't have the resources to encode a 1080p stream while gaming. Also if your upload speed can't handle 1080p.

50 minutes ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

but is there any place (like a forum or anything) that is for twitch streamers to meet, make friends, collab, etc?

Small community or clan Discord servers. I'm in one server that has a few small streamers in it that I've played with from time to time, on and off stream. I would also recommend trying to make friends with people prior to asking them to stream with you.

 

One of the other big tips is to find a good time to stream. I don't mean necessarily a time that works for you and your schedule(although that is a must-have), but find a time when not many(if any) people are streaming your game of choice. That way more people who watch that game will be more likely to click on your stream.

 

The other tip I see streamers give out a lot is to just stream. You'll never get your channel anywhere if you never do anything.

 

Another big thing that I personally recommend is Stream Elements over Streamlabs, all day all night, 24/7. Streamlabs butchered the OBS software and it's a real pain to use(it's also not as intuitive or easy to get the hang of as OBS Studio). Stream Elements is basically just a plugin that uses the classic OBS Studio, making it much easier to use. I've tried both(actually never fully got around to really streaming with SLOBS since it was that bad), and Stream Elements is miles better.

 

Having a good sense of humor and personality is good to see in Twitch streamers as well, I prefer streamers who can take and dish out jokes(as well as get mine), and I watch a few streamers just because their personality makes them entertaining to watch.

[FezBoy]

7 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Never been clicky. Cherry MX Browns have a slight tactile bump you can feel as you're pressing the key down when it's registered, but that doesn't make an audible sound. Cherry MX Blue switches have an audible click sound when the key is pressed. MX Reds are linear switches and don't have either the tactile bump you feel or the audible click.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

My family is always complaining about my mx reds being loud.  Maybe I need some o-rings.

[iLostMyXbox21]

So for now, until I figure out the keyboard situation, I’ll probably stick with my ps4 controller and an old HP kbm from a prebuilt I took apart. 

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, iLostMyXbox21 said:

So for now, until I figure out the keyboard situation, I’ll probably stick with my ps4 controller and an old HP kbm from a prebuilt I took apart. 

Don't get caught up with the idea of needing the expensive keyboard and blue snowball mic and the stream deck and all that. There's people out there that have probably spent hundreds, if not thousands on their stream set up who only get 1 viewer... Just use whatever you have available, especially when you're starting out. If you end up enjoying it and stick to a schedule and do it as a regular thing as a hobby, then you can consider upgrading things as needed.

[iLostMyXbox21]

3 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Don't get caught up with the idea of needing the expensive keyboard and blue snowball mic and the stream deck and all that. There's people out there that have probably spent hundreds, if not thousands on their stream set up who only get 1 viewer... Just use whatever you have available, especially when you're starting out. If you end up enjoying it and stick to a schedule and do it as a regular thing as a hobby, then you can consider upgrading things as needed.

Definitely not getting the stream deck (unless I make money some time soon either by streaming or a job) but I have a kbm combo that’s like $80 total I think. Imma just stick with my earbuds mic (not very good quality, but I’m just starting) until I get a snowball, then I’m going to use my phone for a camera 

 

and as as I said, probably gonna stick with my ps4 controller at the beginning, or at least until I get used to pc kbm

[Paranoid Kami]

Clicky keyboards in streams are pretty normal. Not much of a big deal. Once people get bigger they usually get rid of it but it's not much of an issue until then.

[AmpedUpDad]

If I could weigh in(I stream.)

 

Most of what everyone has said is great. Those things are good.

 

Here are the things I tell my friends who are just starting out or are struggling with their channels:

 

1. Make a schedule. Stick to it. Your viewers will learn your schedule and look out for you at those times.

 

2. Have a Twitter. And a Discord server.  Use both of these platforms to communicate with viewers/potential viewers about stream and to just communicate and network.

 

3. Make sure you save your past broadcasts on Twitch. Go back and watch them to see what you like and don't like. Also, see what your viewers responded well to and not so well to.

 

4. Network. Get out there and meet other streamers. Don't go into their channels to advertise, but genuinely get to know them. Eventually, other streamers will notice you in their channels and start to come around your channel and maybe even drop hosts/raids on you.

 

5. DON'T ADVERTISE IN OTHER CHANNELS. This is huge. Other streamers will hate you. It's tacky. Don't do it.

 

6. Don't do follow for follow, lurk for lurk or sub for sub.  Sure, you may see some great growth, but it's not sustainable and it's not genuine.

 

7. Figure out your niche and stick to it. Do you like one game/one type of genre of game? Do that. Do you like to play a bunch of different games? Do that. But be aware, both ways come with their own pitfalls.

 

8. If you are going to use a cam, make sure it is decent quality. Blurriness is very off-putting.  Same goes for mic quality. People don't want to listen to you if you sound like you are in a wind tunnel.

 

9. Don't use ridiculous overlays. It's tacky.

 

 

Tbh, this is all I can think of from here. There are probably things that I forgot to put, but this was a hastily put together list. 

 

Good luck!

[Giganthrax]

Not a successful streamer or anything, but from what I can tell, getting into streaming is extremely difficult. You have to stream a lot and you have to stand out somehow.

 

My suggestion would be to become extremely skilled/successful at one game and do stuff not many other streamers do. So, for example, for Dark Souls 3 that would be doing invasions all the time and being good at them. For WoW it would be playing high rating arena. For Rust it would be doing interesting raids, and so on.

 

(none of these games are very popular on twitch, but I'm just giving you an example)

 

By doing this specialized stuff in a game that isn't overflowing with streamers, you would potentially start gathering an audience. Then, if your personality is fun and cool, you'd start getting subscribers and slowly building your viewership. Then eventually your audience would follow you into any other game you wanted to play.