- Live streaming on YouTube is not what it used to be.
In fact, not only has it improved so much
that it is certainly a viable way to grow your channel,
it can grow you to the point where you actually
reach your monetization goals.
Unfortunately, it's not as easy as just going live.
Nothing on YouTube can ever be that easy, can it?
So today, let's talk about the ways
in which live streaming can help you grow on YouTube.
From there, I'm gonna leave you with a whole bunch
of tips that can help you get hundreds,
if not thousands of views on your next live stream.
As you're probably already aware,
in order to make money through the YouTube partner program
your channel needs to reach 1000 subscribers
and 4,000 hours of watch time.
Or in the case of a shorts channel, 1000 subscribers
and 10 million views within a 90 day window.
It's a pretty big mountain to climb either way
and for certain types
of channels whose production is unavoidably long
for just one single video,
this goal can be completely unrealistic.
That is where live streaming comes in though,
and live streams can work for all types of channels.
They do a few things very, very well.
They help you build a stronger connection with your viewers
allowing you to communicate with them
in real time via live chat.
They can get views
after they're no longer live provided you have
a strong title and thumbnail.
More on that later.
And for the purposes of this video,
the most important thing live streams do is help you
towards that goal of 4,000 hours
of watch time to get into that YouTube partner program.
What that means is that
if you are a creator that exclusively makes YouTube shorts,
if you decide to incorporate live streams
into your strategy, that can help you get
to your monetization goals without you having to
somehow get 10 million views within the space of 90 days.
So those are just some
of the reasons that live streams are important.
But now let's talk
about how your live streams can be successful.
As I mentioned before, having a strong title
and thumbnail on your live streams is important.
I would say the title and thumbnail
for your live stream is just as important
as any other long form video that you make on your channel.
That's because as long as you pitch it correctly,
the VOD lives on your channel for the rest of time,
just like any other video.
Now, for certain types of channels,
certain types of content,
you don't really know exactly what's gonna happen
in that livestream before you start streaming, right?
So having that strong title
and thumbnail can be a bit challenging to come up with.
This can be especially true
for gaming channels who are just looking to vibe
out with their viewers playing some Minecraft.
However, I would argue even those types of streams
can have a really strong title, thumbnail, and hook.
And by the way, when I say strong title and thumbnail,
I'm referring to how clear this live stream is.
What's the purpose of it?
If I'm a perspective viewer, I haven't clicked
into your live stream yet.
I should really know what it's about before I get into it.
So to do this, you need to plan your live streams.
Start with a goal.
What is it you're hoping to achieve by the end
of this broadcast?
Goals are a great place to start when you're trying to
figure out what your stream is gonna be about.
However, if things take a left turn while you're live
and the entire stream changes completely, you can always
go back and change your title and your thumbnail
after you're done streaming.
That's okay to do if you feel like it'll help.
Ultimately though, when you start your live stream,
in the first couple minutes, you need to explain what
it is you're doing today and what the goal is.
Even if later that goal changes, at least the viewers
who saw that hook, that opening, will understand why
it suddenly changed.
One of the things you'll find
with these tips, by the way, is
I'm really focused on the people watching your live streams
after they're no longer live streams.
Take our own live streams at VID IQ for example.
Twice a week we go live
and review channels that have been submitted
to us and give them advice on how they can grow.
Those live streams get way more views
after they're finished than they ever did
while we were live.
Stream prep is something you can never have enough of.
You're gonna save a lot
of time not editing this when it's over, right?
So take that time you save, put it on the front end,
and prepare as much as possible so that you
can have a really engaging dynamic stream throughout.
I recommend jotting down some notes before you go live.
What are some things you would like to make sure you
don't forget to talk about as you're streaming today?
Or maybe you wanna have some opportunities where
you break away from the normal content
and poll your audience on something fun.
Things like this can be posted somewhere on your desk
so while you're talking to your audience
you don't forget any of the topics of the day.
Aside from notes,
you can prepare other fun interruptions as well.
I like to prepare pre-recorded,
pre-edited clips that will show
up at specific moments in a live stream.
These help catch the audience
off guard and keep the overall energy up.
These types of small preparations
that you can do beforehand are great,
but I also encourage you as time goes on,
to go even deeper with the strategy and do things
like adding storytelling elements to your livestream.
This actually combines a lot
of the tips I've already mentioned.
What you're gonna do is prepare your livestream
so you have a really clear picture
of the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Maybe you introduce a fun character
while you're live streaming, and part of your goal
for that day would be to maybe help them get
out of some kind of situation that you encounter them in
and something like that could even
become a recurring theme across multiple live streams.
You could go so far
as to create a story arc for this character that drags
on into future live streams weeks and months from now.
This is more of an advanced strategy
and I will say it's not gonna be for everybody,
but this type of storytelling can be incredibly powerful
because it makes your live streams memorable and it makes it
so your regular viewers do not wanna miss a single one.
With my tips about prep out of the way
the next thing I wanna talk to you about is the amount
of viewers you can expect when you start going live.
I would anticipate a really low turnout
for your first few live streams.
In fact, it could be as low as zero people.
My advice here though is to stream anyway
and stream as if you have a hundred people watching you.
Treat this as simply a video you happen to be recording live
because in this case, when you have zero live
concurrent viewers, that's exactly what you're doing.
Once it's over,
YouTube is going to recommend that live stream
like it would any other video you upload.
As you continue livestreaming
and people start to come in the door,
I also don't want you to be discouraged by the amount
of concurrent viewers you get relative to your channel size.
Take our own channel for example.
At vidIQ, we have over a million subscribers,
but when we go live we get anywhere
between 400 to 800 concurrent viewers
while that stream is in progress.
There's a few important reasons for this.
Number one of course, is that subscribers don't matter.
A lot of our own subscribers came in years ago,
so a lot of them might not be watching vidIQ today.
Two is that live streams happen
at a specific time, and a lot of viewers simply
don't have the room in their schedules to be there
when the broadcast is actually happening.
And three is that live streams are a revolving door
of viewers, meaning people who are watching
in the first hour will slowly leave
and be replaced by new viewers.
By the time you get to hour number two
you could be streaming
to an entirely different set of viewers.
Like any video on YouTube,
when you're ending a live stream,
you should avoid long goodbyes.
As soon as it sounds like you're starting to wrap up,
you can watch and you will see your concurrent
viewership slowly start to dwindle away.
Instead, you should try to wrap up really quickly.
This is also a great time to ask people to like
and subscribe if they haven't already
or you could take advantage of YouTube's redirect feature.
This is gonna allow you to send your viewers
to another channel that is currently live
and this can be a great way to actually start building
up a relationship with fellow broadcasters in your space.
Maybe as you start to prepare to add live streams
to your content schedule, you should do some research
and see who else in your niche is also streaming.
Be sure to give them a follow and then keep them
in mind so that you have those redirect opportunities.
All of these tips are very specific to live streaming
but don't forget also
that general YouTube tips still matter here
in the context of creating live streams,
such as the advice we give you in this video here,
which is gonna help you with everything you need to stay
on top of so that you can be successful in 2023.