your twitch panels and your bio are incredibly important
they provide information to your audience such as how to follow subscribe or how to donate they
can help you grow your social media and they can even generate passive income and passive revenue
for you while you're live but most importantly if they look bad it makes you look bad so let's
upgrade your stream today let's upgrade those panels and give you a full makeover
hey i'm Eljay with streamsheme.com i'm also a variety streamer over at twitch.tv/eljayem_
there's a link to me and to streamscheme.com in the description if you're interested i get asked
every single day what do i put in my twitch bio i always get asked how do i add panels and how do i
use extensions properly but the thing i get asked the most these days is how do i add these little
purple lines and make text bold and dot points don't worry i'll be covering all of that today so
that you can go from zero to hero with your twitch panels but first you know what else is a hero own
own.tv not only do owned have a bunch of animated overlays and static overlays depending on how good
your pc is but every single overlay pack comes with panels that match it but also later we're
going to be looking at an extension that owned has created called the animated panels extension with
this you can add some production values some flash and some animation to your twitch panels entirely
for free there is a link in the description to own so if you guys want to feel free to head over
there and grab yourself a whole set of panels or a full animated overlay whatever you need
and by supporting them you support us which really helps us out guys there are also time codes down
in the description so feel free to skip ahead to whatever part of this video you want straight away
let's cover exactly what a twitch bio is exactly what a twitch panel is and how you can find them
so if you go to any twitch channel such as my which is linked in the description click on the
about section and scroll down you will see the twitch about page as well as a whole heap of
social media bars now if we look below the about section we'll find the panel section and you'll
see that most streamers will fill this up with commonly asked questions and a whole heap of
information that helps the viewer now i'll cover exactly what you can add later in this video but
first i want to throw it out there there are other streamers though and we're going to call these
streamers billy because these streamers just chuck on a donation button and they'll call that a day
don't be billy and i'll explain exactly why you should never be a billy soon but first let's
talk about adding our twitch bio and our social media now if we head back to our channel and we
go to the about section again there'll be this button right here we're gonna click on the edit
about and the links on your twitch page you'll be met with a preview of what you have and then
options to add a bio that is under 300 characters and your display name below that are a series of
social links you can add as well you just write your social names such as twitter and then you
drop the link in and hit save let's talk about your bio though what should we be writing in our
about section now we only have 300 characters which means it's only a little bit bigger than
a tweet so we need to make this nice and snappy anyone who reads your bio should get an instant
and fairly solid grasp of the type of creator you are just by reading it as well for myself i
start by introducing myself and my experience i do this because i do these types of youtube videos so
it helps to establish i'm the same person from my channel i make this very short and then i use the
rest of my bio to tell a short and embarrassing story from when i was a kid about how i stole my
brother's game boy color and wasted his master ball on a dratini my bio is relatable it shows
that i'm a gamer and it shows that i'm not above poking fun of myself now before i show you exactly
what types of panels you can add to your stream i have to cover a kind of awkward conversation while
i was researching for this video i was clicking on a lot of community members from this channel
and while doing that i found out there's a lot of you who have just copied and pasted my exact bio
and then swapped lj for your username but kept the story about me and my brother i don't really
know how to feel about this but i just want to throw it out there and give this advice if
you're trying to grow as a content creator don't pretend to be someone else just be yourself no
one's going to watch you long term if you're just pretending to be someone else because you can't
capture the same style as them so if you're one of the people who has my story in their bio maybe
consider removing it okay let's add some panels to our stream and also cover why adding just this
one big old donation button right there is such a massive mistake if you go ahead and add a donation
button and nothing else to your panels just like billy has here and you get a potential viewer who
wants to find out a bit more about you maybe check out your twitter and they scroll on down and they
see there's only a donation button then honestly you come across as greedy you come across as
only in this for the money you're not even willing to write 300 characters to tell someone hey this
is what i like and this is what i'm about no you're just there to say hey donate to my stream
it's not a good look if we're going to add a panel let's head to our about section and let's click on
the edit panels button this will open up your editing section where you can upload images and
write out what goes beneath them if you don't already have panels downloaded then don't worry
there are thousands of different designs out there that you can grab you can either buy them
from owned like we said at the start of the video you can grab some freebies from our website over
at streamsteam.com it's linked in the description or you can grab the freebies from our discord as
well but once you have them what do we actually add to our panels well the about me section is
probably the most common one that you would add as a streamer for my about mini section i added
the same bio from earlier on but i also expanded it to add a little more direction so people can
find more information such as where my schedule is and what my goals are as a streamer next up
you absolutely have to add a rules section now i will be entirely honest with you guys i will give
you some advice that a much larger partner gave me people like billy don't read the rules you put in
your bio or even your chat rules no they're not there so that people read them and know what not
to do they're there so that when billy spams links or just generally spams and you ban him or warn
him ah he can't turn around and say well you don't have a rules section so how am i supposed to know
i know it sounds depressing to have a bunch of rules written out that no one's gonna follow
but they're not there to help people follow them no they're just there so you can point at them
next up is an optional panel but personally i really like to add a subscribe panel now this
panel will cover everything that a viewer will get for subscribing and i'll even turn
the panel into a clickable button if you add a link to the section that i show on screen right
now it means that when someone actually clicks on that image it'll open up the link it's a really
good way to have extra little call to actions if you're like me and you have custom alerts
for certain bit amounts or donation amounts or you have channel point commands or generally some fun
track commands i really recommend adding a panel that lets people know exactly what all of those
are if you choose not to add it well you need to find another way to inform people and teach people
about exactly what they can use to have fun on your stream a frequently asked questions or faq
section is good but absolutely not mandatory i use it to tell people when i reached affiliate when i
reached partner and some of the games that i have played or will be playing soon so don't constantly
get asked hey what are you playing next or hey have you played this game you'll absolutely want
to add panels to pretty much all of your major social medias such as discord twitter youtube or
wherever else and i absolutely recommend adding the link in so that these become clickable it's
very common knowledge you can click on these images for most people who are viewers of twitch
and it really helps of course you'll want to add a donation panel no you won't don't add a
donation panel if you really need to add one add a tips panel if you have tips it is much easier to
avoid people charging back against paypal and two for the love god please make sure you set
up a stream labs tips or stream elements tips system don't just attach a random paypal to it
also if you do choose to use a paypal please set up a business paypal so you can hide your full
name your date of birth and everything else don't just add your personal one it will dox you and
you'll give out all of your personal information if you currently have your personal one connected
do a one dollar test donation to yourself you'll get a receipt sent to you and you'll be able to go
oh my full name date of birth phone number and email address is being sent out to every single
donator finally the last panel on mine other than my extensions is my specs now the reason i have
this is so i constantly get asked and every streamer constantly gets asked what equipment
they are using now i've set my specs up so that someone can click it it'll take them to my kitko
which gives out all of my equipment and the best part is these are all affiliate links
which means for no extra costs i get a little bit of a payment whenever they buy something on amazon
there is an extension which does something similar called amazon blacksmith but at the end of the day
that doesn't work in every single country and the amazon associates program is a
bit weird with it so i recommend it said set yourself up with an amazon affiliate account
and then create a bunch of links in your kitko it also just looks nicer and is easier to handle
a small bonus tip that i stumbled across as well is that in my about me and my general panels are
some spelling mistakes nothing massive just some small ones like a forgotten word here
an apostrophe not put in just things that people notice and they come into
chat and they go just give me a heads up there's a small grammar error there
and the best part about this is i could fix them but did you know if someone comes to your channel
and they chat even once they are much more likely to return and chat again even if
it's a small spelling error i'm willing to take that as a reason to get engagements
if you're looking for other ideas about what to add in your panels of course feel free to check
out my bio or check out the stream scheme article linked in the description i have to show you guys
how to add all this custom bowling and all this formatting as well as how to add extension panels
but first i want to throw it out there guys this video helps you out at all consider subscribing to
the channel we have videos that come out weekly on everything you guys asked me about and at the end
of the day it's free and you can unsubscribe later so you want to make your panels and your text
stand out with emphasis and formatting it is so easy to do you'll do this with a system called
markdown this just means you add symbols in certain places to tell twitch hey this text
needs to be bold italic or embedded for example if we add two asterisks at the start of a sentence
write the sentence and then add two asterisks and hit save that sentence comes out in full bold
now if you actually click the edit panels button you'll see that there is a guide
for markdown right there on every single panel but nobody ever clicks this because why would you i've
included in the description as well so give that a click and let's look at the text emphasis which is
showing on screen right now as well you can see that by adding a asterisk before and afterward
it'll become italic as i said two asterisks before and two asterisks after will be bold
now there are other things here as well but i want to keep going let's check out the formatting rules
so if you were to add an arrow pointing to the right it adds the purple line and pushes the text
to the side further down the page we have a list now if i use the arrow to add the purple line and
then i use a dash to add a dot point in my lists it comes out looking like this and i know all this
sounds daunting and i know it all looks daunting but there's the guide in the description and if
you just have a read and play around you'll be fine billy okay let's talk about adding extensions
now you can only have three panel extensions on your twitch page so it's important to pick wisely
personally i'm using the streamlabs leaderboard the streamlabs schedule
and the emote showcase now the streamlabs leaderboard is for tracking top emotes top
chatters top gifs and all sorts of other things and then the emote showcase is to show everyone
what bttv francoface z and subscribe remotes i have on my channel and yes before you ask billy
all the streamlabs extensions i show in this video will work for obs because it doesn't matter this
is entirely just on twitch streamlabs just are a brand who made the tool now to add an extension
you're gonna go to your creator dashboard and you're gonna go to the extensions button in the
bottom left of the list once you're in you'll be able to search up whatever you want to use
for example let's add our schedule search schedule select stream labs stream schedule
and you'll click install in the top right and then select configure you can actually select
the days your lives at the times and the time zone then customize the extension color you'll
click save now go to the my extensions button and make sure the schedule is in the activated section
is set to either panel one two or three as i said you can only have three panel extensions active
at a time personally i would love to remove this schedule extension because at the end of the day
there's a really good one built into twitch now but people are still learning to check that people
are still learning to use that tool so i'm still using this for now until i can completely change
over now you can also search up the other two extensions such as the emote showcase which i
really recommend and the streamlabs leaderboard or whatever leaderboard you want to use but if
you're looking to add a little production value and a little flash then you can also search up
owned and check out the owned animated extensions tab it's free if you want to try it out
and it just looks really cool now i have a massive bonus tip for this entire video which i'm pretty
sure a lot of you would never even suspect but you absolutely should be checking out and that
is switching between light mode and dark mode on twitch to make sure that your panels look good
now my panels don't actually look good on light mode and i'm not going to change them so they do
because i want people to come to my channel and say hey there's a weird effect on your panels
so i can make fun of them for using light mode at the end of the day you shouldn't be doing that
if you watched it now make sure you comment down below i'm not a billy
and i'll probably believe you because you watch the whole video so good on ya