streaming the same game or content every single day just sucks!
No other words for it it's boring it's repetitive and if you ever
try to switch games you lose half your viewership
If you're lucky it's usually much worse than half!
The thing is you and almost every small streamer or Creator want to be variety streamers but you
also misunderstand what variety actually means and because of that misunderstanding you struggle to
keep viewers coming back when you change your games and if we can't keep viewers coming back
you never grow your average viewership and you stay small streamers so instead do we just stream
the same thing every day and deal with it God no because playing one game forever as I said sucks
worse than my vacuum cleaner when I was a curious teenager so let's talk about what variety actually
is and the best way to grow your average viewers as a variety streamer because you see before I
even started this YouTube channel I managed to get over 80 average viewers as a variety streamer how
do they do that well I'll tell you in a second but first speaking of variety let me tell you
about the best way to use a variety of different overlays own.tv I want to say thank you to our
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a massive thank you to own for supporting this channel as well if it wasn't for them we couldn't
keep making these videos so thank you so much so your idea of variety is fundamentally wrong you
think a variety of streamer plays what they want when they want and if you're a variety streamer
you might be playing Minecraft today but tomorrow you're streaming Call of Duty Warzone which is
that still a game or is there a new one now I I'm old and I have a wife I don't know anymore but the
truth is variety doesn't mean playing different games all the time and when I tell you to Niche
down you guys think I mean playing a single game forever and I promise you niching isn't playing a
single game forever so yes variety does mean you do different types of content but as a variety
streamer you still have what I call a target audience or a key demographic AKA a specific
type of person that you will make content for I want you to think of niching down as picking a key
demographic of people who enjoy the same types of content if you can Define who your audience is and
what they like to watch what content they already watch and what games or Hobbies they have then it
becomes incredibly easy to make content that would appeal to them most of your Gamers so let's look
at a content creator who is a gamer let's look at Point crew for example if we ignore everything he
has going for him such as the YouTube channel and whatnot and just focused on his content well then
we can say that he mainly plays breath of the wild if we put breath of the wild right now
in the middle as a core game we can map out the other games that overlap and where the audience
connects so someone who likes breath of the wild likely enjoys other Nintendo games they probably
own a switch which means they probably like Mario Odyssey and probably like Pokemon on people who
play these games also probably play popular indie games on that switch as well such as Hollow Knight
but then we have to think about how he packages that content Point Crow mostly does challenges
and speedruns so viewers who enjoy those categories will most likely enjoy any content
that he packages as challenge or a speedrun while you might disagree with me I actually
consider Point Crow a variety streamer because he has a wide variety of content but he is targeting
a specific key demographic that enjoys Nintendo Indie challenges and speedrunning content I want
you watching this to comment down below what your map of content or games are going to be what set
of games all has an overlapping audience do they all play strategy Sims and watch smarter every
day on YouTube or do they love anime and only play those anime games on Steam don't be coy you know
exactly which ones I mean that is the actionable tip consider what your mind map is going to be and
write it down even if you don't want to comment that's okay I just need you guys to think about
this and take an action here so the video actually helps you in some way so put it down
on paper so you understand properly roughly what the games are and how they overlap it's not just
about being consistent and targeting your Niche that keep viewers coming back as well there are
lots of ways I've personally lost viewers or seen streamers lose viewers while trying to be variety
one of the big ones is just not finishing games I know that sounds weird and this isn't always
a big deal but if you pick up a playthrough and your viewers get invested into that playthrough
and then you don't finish it sometimes viewers can feel let down or disappointed or blue balled it's
like watching a movie but the ending never happens you really would get blue ball obviously this
isn't always the case sometimes it's better to abandon a playthrough if nobody likes it or if you
just aren't enjoying it anymore like if you got stuck on the same Dark Souls 3 boss for a week of
streams and eventually have to give up that would be pretty embarrassing but it's not like that's
ever happened to me or anything like that but think about your content and just make the right
choice when you feel that it's time to move on and remember people need a big payoff so if you've
been playing Minecraft for a few weeks maybe blow your entire world up with TNT and let your viewers
climax another massive mistake is switching games or content every single night or every time you
go live this is the main mistake new creators make they stream something different every time
they hit that go live button I know I've certainly made this mistake as well and it can be rough even
if you're streaming multiple games in the same demographic for example Legend of Zelda one night
Mario another night and then Pokemon another night that's still switching too much if you don't agree
with this that's fine but imagine this you like watching Survivor every single night I don't know
if that show is still on air but let's just roll with it for now every night you sit down to watch
the new episode of Survivor but it's a completely different season different cast but the same host
it's still what you wanted but not the thing you really wanted now imagine you love watching
Survivor every night and you come back but instead randomly on Friday night rather than Survivor it's
Master Chef ooh yuck you don't want to watch that delicious food is gross I want sweaty tired angry
white people stabbing each other in the back on a beach that is how viewers feel when they come
to your stream expecting the same consistent content but are met with things outside of that
if your goal is growth specifically then you need to make sure you appeal to their expectations the
actionable tip is to be as consistent as possible don't switch every single night try to plan out a
week or two worth of content in your mind map and then focus on getting that done let viewers get
invested before you bail and move on to something else and make sure they climax but at the end of
the day that is still technically niching down and you guys want to be full variety you want to
be able to go live and do whatever you want which means that your actual goal at the end of the day
is to have your viewers become invested in you that is the true definition of a variety streamer
is when you can go live and they're coming back for you not for the game or the content you're
producing one day you want to be able to go live with a title and a go live notification entirely
focused on you and your personality and that gets more clicks than any game or content would
but that takes a lot of time and consistency to have viewers become consistent like that but one
of the best ways I found to slowly transition your audience from being there to see you play whatever
game or make a specific type of content is with the magical world of just chatting once you have a
small audience watching you for a specific type of content let's say you play Animal Crossing you'll
go live as totally normal tell them you're playing Animal Crossing and set your category to Animal
Crossing as well this means your go live will say hey I'm doing the Animal Crossing content like you
want but during that stream make chat a focus for you start lots of conversations and treat
the stream more like 50 Animal Crossing 50 just chatting set a standard of chat interaction being
the main or the big focus of the stream and then once you've done this for a little while you'll
go live as totally normal and again tell them that you're playing Animal Crossing set your category
to it as well have the loading screen open or be sat on your Island but don't start playing
the game straight away talk to those Chatters or regulars who come in at the start talk about
your day talk about games or whatever you and your audience enjoy when that chat starts to slow down
a little bit start the gaming content and jump in like you normally would you'll repeat this process
and build a standard or routine that at the start of your streams you do a lot of chatting at first
this might not go perfectly you might see a lot of low chat interaction and that's totally fine the
goal is to build up a standard or set a routine that at the start of your streams you do a lot
of chatting and they still get to see the game and be involved in it eventually you'll take the
plunge and go live in the just chatting category and actually just chat to your community if you've
done the transition right carefully and to be honest very very slowly then you'll eventually
be able to have your audience Rock up for you in just chatting the actionable tip try to make the
content more than just commentating on what's happening in the game add your own personality
into it anyone can sit there and commentate what's happening on screen very very few people can be
personable engaging strike up conversations and make jokes with a live audience that's all well
and good but the dirty little secret is that most of the hard work has already been done
for you that's right you don't have to put any effort into this whole situation you don't even
need to build your own mind map you don't need to come up with your own variety of content that
targets a key demographic or who that audience is Big creators have already built out entire mind
maps of content that worked they've experimented and failed they've experimented and succeeded and
all of that is easy for you to use to inform yourself about what type of content you should
make remember how we looked at pointcro if you are hoping to make content just like him well the Mind
map is done or if you want to make content similar to someone like ambiguous and Vivian you can go
to his channel and see Survival Games The Sims rimworld Zoo Tycoon management games and of course
packaging it as a challenge I am not telling you to copy big creators I repeat I am not telling you
to copy big creators but you can see that they've found a niche or a key demographic a target
audience they've created content that appeals to that demographic and if you want to make that type
type of content or similar to it well you can use their channels as a way of understanding who your
audience would be the actionable tip is to pick two or three big creators that are established
and create a mind map of their content the games they chose the style they make and their top 10
best performing videos you'll start to understand that they aren't just one game they are variety
of course as always this isn't the only way to grow as a streamer these are just the ways that
worked for me and others I know this isn't meant to tell you what you have to do but instead give
you some more tools and ideas to help you grow if you have any tips or ideas comment them down
below I love reading them all I'm also going to go through all of your mind maps that you
comment and give you feedback and if you want to learn more ways to grow and improve check out this
video here about how to encourage more active Chatters in your stream see you guys next week