let me guess you're expecting this video to tell you to start a YouTube channel if
you want to even reach twitch affiliate or maybe we're going to say some really mundane
bullshot like stop using starting soon screens and then we'll pass it off like some marketing
genius no I'm tired of all of that it's been covered to death and today I want to focus
instead on seven things I wish I knew before streaming and they're not mundane bullshot
These are seven things that I had to learn the hard way but more importantly there's
seven things that I think actually allowed me to become a successful content creator and streamer
if I hadn't learned these things I would not be able to do this full time and I think neither
will you but before we get into that I first have to say I have a present for you well two presents
first is the time codes in the description which will allow you to skip ahead to whatever part of
this video you want and the second is a link to our sponsor own.tv you guys should know about
owned by now and I'll tell you what I wish I knew about them when I started streaming because when I
started out I tried to make my own overlay a with zero experience in overlay creation and of course
it looks terrible but owned well they have both animated overlays alerts and more for your stream
but they also have static overlays that take up less of your PC resources meaning you can let
those resources focus on encoding your stream and making your gameplay look buttery buttery
smooth we have a link in the description so if you want to go ahead and click that and check
it out then you might find the brand new overlay pack and more for you massive thank you to own
for supporting this channel as well so if you want to support me go support them it really helps us
out by clicking that link in the description okay what is the most important thing I wish
I knew before I started streaming and what saved me from failing at streaming and also stopped me
from quitting streaming when everything was going wrong over and over well that's the question isn't
it when everything goes wrong what do you do when you're struggling confused lost who do you turn to
sure you can watch guides from idiots like me but guides can't be tailored to your specific
issue every single time so what do we do well we turned to friends who have gone through or
might be going through the same thing and I cannot stress enough how much it helps to have a group of
streamer or content creation friends around you when you're trying to make a real go at growing
and being successful in this space when things are bad you can all lift each other up and when things
are great you're all there to cheer each other on the mental load of trying to be a Creator becomes
so much easier when you've got like-minded people around you but the real value comes in
the mistakes you'll all make together when I was learning how to grow with YouTube shorts I had
all these theories and ideas as to why some shorts worked and others didn't I couldn't prove anything
without spending another two months uploading shorts every second day though and that would take
too much time and too much guesswork so instead I turned to my friend lonely shark and we began
sharing out analytics our data and we suddenly understood all of the mistakes we were making
we realized every short that was 45 seconds to 55 seconds long with an 85 to 95 retention rate would
get millions of views but if the short was under 26 seconds long it didn't matter what we could
do it would be doomed to fail the actionable tip here is to find hard-working like-minded content
creators people to surround yourself with if I didn't have that I'd not be here right now and
before you ask me how to make friends trust me I have no idea I think I just got lucky
I'm an adult man I meet like three new people a year and can usually only stand being around
two people at a time but hey the stream scheme Discord that's Linked In the description has 60
000 plus small streamers all working hard to grow no spammy promotion so maybe start there
okay second thing I wish I knew is going to blow a lot of you away you'll think it's obvious but
if you want to succeed on a platform you need to actually spend time on the platform watching
absorbing researching and enjoying the content others are producing especially on Twitch because
twitch has such specific culture it takes ages to understand all the different emotes and what
they mean you need extensions like bttv and if you don't have them then you're going to say hey guys
why is everyone writing the words keg W and then suddenly you've got everyone in chat calling you
a frog and saying you're a loser just bullying you and booing you and it's really ironic and
sad because you just sat at home trying to have some human interaction and you just don't know
what kick W meant and if you don't watch other streamers big and small and instead just try start
streaming well you'll probably waste a lot of time because you don't understand the medium or what
people like watching on Twitch a great example is when I started out I hated my content despised it
I thought it was lazy slow boring and generally I just didn't want to keep going because I didn't
think I had what it took to be a streamer and then I started spending more time on the platform and I
realized my content it was not bad but neither was anyone else's it was a different format to
what I was used to dreams are slower they're more designed to be casual interactive chatty they're
not highly edited videos and that's okay and when I spent time on the platform it helped me realize
my streams didn't suck oh and not to mention you won't understand all the tiny insignificant but
apparently intense rules that twitch as a platform has like how lurkers are the backbones of streams
sure the content is interactive but there's no pressure to talk and expecting Chatters or calling
Chatters out to try to get them to talk will be an instant turn off or begging for subscribers
apparently as seen as being scummy or making sure you don't use follower only chatter mode which is
a great way to lose viewers and piss people off no seriously turn off follower only mode if you're
using it you're probably cutting out like 50 60 of the viewers you could have again I cannot stress
enough how one of the most important things you can do on any platform whether it's twitch YouTube
tiktok or even YouTube shorts is to First spend time on the platform as a viewer otherwise you'll
never know what your viewers really want and this leads us to the next part and probably one of the
most common mistakes issues whatever you want to call it it's bad okay because when I say spend
time on the platform watching researching and understanding content a lot of you are going to
hear Hey spend time judging people and no I do not mean judging other creators the amount of
new streamers I see who look at big streamers and say their content is bad or that they're lazy and
don't deserve viewers it's just honestly wild you gain nothing from judging others harshly and most
importantly you don't learn from that everyone who is bigger than you has offered some sort of
value or has done something in order to get there that you aren't doing sure some could be like soda
Poppin who while is an amazing streamer he's been on the platform for so long that you can't really
follow what he did as a way of succeeding but there is always something you can learn like
how sodapopping is always finding unique new games that really draw a crowd because they
want to know if it's the next big thing or you can look at Doug Doug and how he constantly makes his
streams interactive with chat controls and heck even xqc who might not have the most technically
astonishing stream is there live for hours on end longer than anyone else and constantly
talking constantly doing new things and it works damn it you need to make sure you aren't looking
at someone else succeeding and saying they don't deserve it and on the other hand you never need to
look at someone failing and then go oh that makes me feel good essentially stop wasting your time
on other creators when that time could be spent on your own content focusing on your own space focus
on your content focus on how you can improve and be the best you can be focusing on others
in a negative way will only hurt you especially when most people who judge other streamers well
not to be harsh or to be judgmental they have a lot of room to improve themselves usually they're
sat in the dark streaming Call of Duty for hours on end in their underwear never speaking a word if
that's what you want to do then you do you but don't have a go at others okay moving on this
is something I've tried to explain for years and it's partly a critique of myself but there
is no one-size-fits-all approach to streaming and content creation you don't have to follow
what the gurus tell you to do I got my first 30 average viewers doing the exact opposite of what
every twitch coach or Guru told me to do there are no special life hacks and sometimes what people
say is the best bet is actually a terrible idea for you personally for example I kept being told
to edit my streams into videos but it just led to worse streams and kind of shitty videos but I kept
doing it and kept telling others to do it because everyone told me I had to do it it was the way
the industry worked but then I started recording videos offline once a week for 60 to 90 minutes
and streaming just for streaming wouldn't you know it both forms of content improved because they are
actually different types of content and they can sometimes Clash if you try and merge them together
for example streams people want to be constantly chatting with you but sometimes for videos you
need to be reading out dialogue or explaining how something works that might be really boring
and monotonous now but once it's edited it'll be great everything I say on this channel I try to
follow what I call the concept of best practices so the idea is a men as examples rough guides and
generally the best way to grow but will they work for everyone no because you need to adapt them to
fit you and not everything as I said is one size fits all I think the thing that really messed
me up the most in those first two years as a streamer especially once I had some growth and was
desperate to keep the viewers I'd grown was how repetitive I became as a streamer did an idea work
quick do it again and again and again and again and again which don't get me wrong it worked it
actually really worked constantly repeating myself kept my viewers really high and people loved it
but it became really monotonous like some dancing monkey on a tricycle it looks great and it holds
their attention but after you've done it once it's really not that great you're just watching
it because you liked it the first time so surely you'll like it again I wish someone had told me
that I should set a deadline for once a month or even once a week where I would make cool [ __ ]
it's become my catchphrase lately and it doesn't actually mean cool it just means make something
that is different to the normal make something that'll make me feel accomplished because viewers
well they come and go and we can't control that sure you can do the normal gaming streams or the
everyday content that we all have but as creators you need to do something that makes you excited
like you've taken a risk because even if you fail that risk means you learn something new and you
grew as a person and as a Creator and then you can say to yourself who cares if I don't have as many
viewers as I did because I did something awesome I tried something and failed that's better than
doing the same thing forever so make cool [ __ ] guys please next up I wish someone had told me how
much of a grind it truly is to be a streamer yeah sure people will say it and they say it
all the time non-stop but they don't really tell you the whole truth of it and to be honest we're
all a little arrogant as streamers and when we hear that It's a Grind well we kind of think we
be different right we're not like everyone else it won't grind us down to nothing but no matter
how smart you are with your streams no matter what you do you are spending hours of your time
going live streaming with nothing long term to show for it if you get sick if your PC breaks or
Heck if you just get bored and decide not to go live again it's all gone followers mean nothing
live viewers die off and your vods expire within two weeks leaving an empty dead twitch Channel
it just vanishes if that isn't a grind I don't know what is wearing yourself down for years
until there is absolutely nothing left to show for it that's a grind these days I am so glad
that I uploaded videos here and on my side Channel because I'm not grinding anymore I'm not wearing
myself away I'm building myself up building a portfolio of good well semi-good videos I hope
that people can find Forever watch forever and and that feeling means I get to do something with my
streams that keep them fun enjoyable and fresh which is actually our next point I don't have to
take streams so seriously I don't have to get 100 Subs every stream to pay rent or have to get 100
average viewers every time I go live I can just do what I want and have fun with it have a laugh
and enjoy myself while interacting with viewers who like my content I wish I knew the secret to
loving streaming long term and to be successful as a streamer was making sure that streaming
never became my focus as a career and instead stayed a side hobby to the rest of my content
and all of that is thanks to the fact that I quit twitch and moved to YouTube to come a YouTube
streamer and if you want to know more about that you can click this video right here it's
all about how I ask the honest truth was moving to YouTube a mistake I'll see you guys next week