i give you guys a lot of advice on this channel i constantly point out
the places you could be better and the mistakes you're making so to be
fair to everyone who watched this i wanted to point out the five biggest mistakes i've made
one of them actually almost ended my entire streaming career
that's right so these are the five things i wish i had known before i started streaming let's go
hey my name is Eljay with streamscheme.com i'm also a variety streamer over at twitch.tv/eljayem_
links to both those in the description and if you do happen to check out streamscheme.com
there's actually over 400 fully free guides and information for you if you don't have
a video on this channel covering something i promise there is a guide over on streamskin.com
as always with these videos before i jump into the meat and potatoes of it all i have
a question for you what is the biggest mistake you have made on twitch seriously go down to
the comments and be honest with yourself with me with all the other commenters because
you could really help someone you could stop someone making the same mistake so go have a
look at those and of course there are time codes down there as well in the top comment and the
description so if you want you can jump ahead to any part of this video but other than that let's
get into it the first mistake i made when i first started out could be seen as a blessing or a curse
for me it very much leaned more into a curse though i was obsessed with my analytics after
every single stream i would stare at what time i got followers my go lives how they did
how many chatters i had unique active everything i broke it down intensely ripped the streams apart
and then i decided whether the stream was good or bad based off those analytics but this was very
very wrong i went through a section of playing a game that i absolutely loved on stream
minecraft everyone does there's no surprise there and it was great i had huge followers coming in
every single night i was playing hardcore we had a server it was honestly a fantastic time for growth
for the stream every single night that we played we would get more and more followers coming in
more active chatters the stream was on the rise it was fantastic but i stopped enjoying it but does
that mean i stopped streaming it no because the analytics to me said these were good streams and i
was doing good work the chat was still having fun they couldn't tell anything was different in fact
they said it was some of the most fun they'd been having in ages it was going really well
it just wasn't fun for me needing a break i switched games and everything dropped hard
my unique chat has disappeared my active chat has disappeared my followers gained per stream tanked
really hard when i say everything dropped i really mean everything dropped i was playing subnautica
and everything about the analytics said that these streams sucked but they didn't in fact
to this day my chatters tell me how much they enjoyed subnautica the people who stuck around
for it think that some of the bits the jokes the things that happened and the way i acted
was the most fun they'd ever had on stream sure all those people who followed me from
minecraft and were really enjoying it didn't turn up to subnautica but the people who did
loved it and i was having a really good time with it i think this actually saved
my streaming career you see your analytics don't decide if a stream has been good or bad
you do that with your content and your chat does that with whether or not they enjoy it
obviously you can use your analytics to determine if a stream was good for growth from like go lives
or followers gained but at the same time when i played subnautica back then i was getting 11
followers a night that's great sure it wasn't 55 followers a night i was getting from minecraft but
i don't think i'd want 55 followers from minecraft if i wasn't enjoying myself when i did that stuff
i haven't told this to my community before but i have to be honest if i'd kept playing minecraft
and kept doing it purely for the growth i probably would have quit streaming i wasn't having fun with
it at the end there sure i was enjoying hanging out with chat but it wasn't bringing in the type
of demographic and i wasn't enjoying myself and creating this type of content i wanted to create
so yeah this mistake almost ended my entire streaming career the takeaway from this
is to find enjoyment in what you do try and balance the growth aspects and the enjoyment
because streaming is a marathon not a sprint you're gonna burn out if you try and rush it
pay attention your analytics sure but don't let them trap you in something that sucks okay
on to the next tip it's something a little less somber than me trying to quit streaming because
of minecraft but this one is a doozy and i think a lot of streamers do this as well in fact i've
heard from a lot of streamers who i've started networking with say they all did this as well
holy balls stop announcing things stop announcing giant streams stop announcing big sub goals stop
announcing new alerts stop it stop it i kept hyping up these big streams that i wanted to
do or these games that i wanted to play or all these things but sometimes you just can't deliver
on that stuff sometimes you don't feel like playing that game when it comes around sometimes
you just don't have enough time in the day to create those brand new alerts that people ask for
so stop announcing it please and worse than just letting people down if you keep announcing things
and then not delivering on it in fact you're gonna lose the trust of your community and that
is very detrimental thankfully my community still trusts me because what i was hyping up were just
some brand new alerts that i was gonna make myself or if i was gonna do a particular game on stream
or now with you guys when i promise to do a video but it takes much more work so it gets delayed
sorry about that i'm working on everything i say i am it's just
projects take time guys okay they take time stop asking for videos
thing is if none of the stuff that i hyped up the streams the certain games the videos
if none of those things got delivered there wouldn't really be any sweat on anyone's back
however there are streamers who do donation goals and sub goals and now if you don't deliver on
those that's when things get bad i'm going to talk more about sub goals later on and how i used them
very wrong and how i see a lot of streamers using them wrong but essentially if you set up that if
you reach a certain sub goal you're going to play chat's favorite game or you're going to do this
big special stream and then you don't deliver or you only deliver for one stream and then move on
to something else without really completing it people will stop supporting your sub goals
because they're not special you haven't actually achieved it as i said i'll cover sub goals and
how i use them wrong properly in a second as well as tell you something that is very very dumb and
you're all going to shake your head but i think anyone who's grown a bit on twitch will understand
this next one i'm going to talk about but first i have to throw it out there if this video helps you
out at all maybe consider checking out the rest of the content on the channel we've got all sorts
of things we've got videos about how to grow what the best games to grow are what time is the best
time to stream how to set up cloudbot we've got free overlays in our discord as well as over 4
000 members who all help each other out no go lives just pure advice and helping seriously
i'm really proud of that discord everyone on the stream team team has done a great job with it
jump in there check it out i hope you enjoy it so what did i do that was incredibly stupid that
you're all going to shake your head at well the thing is when you first start getting your viewers
maybe you get to that first five viewers or that first 10 viewers maybe even the first 25 viewers
you get really nervous that you're going to lose those viewers so much so that you start trying
to keep viewers that you probably don't want to keep in the long run and might actually be
hurting your growth i've received a lot of direct messages on twitter and other platforms about this
and honestly i did it as well if someone rocks up to your chat for the first time it's
active starts talking but it's making people uncomfortable or maybe crosses the line easy
ban them get rid of them you don't know them they're not there very often you're good to go
but what happens if it's an active chatter what happens if it's someone who's been in
your community for a while and they start acting odd it's entirely case by case but
in small streams small communities where you're around maybe 25 even 100 people
depending on how fast your chat is one bad vibe or one bad egg as some people call them
can ruin your entire stream in fact it can make it so people don't want to actively
talk and chat or people will leave or they won't follow just because the vibe isn't quite right
so if that happens with an active community member what do we do do we ban them i didn't and it
really escalated so my advice for this the people who reach out to me i'm sorry i haven't replied
ever on twitter there's a lot of you in my dms right now and i can't open it up to everyone but
don't be afraid to put your foot down it's your stream it's your community
they're your rules lock them in and get rid of the people who don't understand that and can't
fit those vibes banning a dozen people who are toxic or trolly or make others uncomfortable
is worth it for that one person who's the right fit who's a good egg to make the stream feel
nice i promise some of these mistakes you might be thinking well i'm never gonna have
to deal with this but in the future i think you probably will this is why i'm covering them now
but for everyone no matter what size stream you are the final mistake is something that i'm sure
every single person here has done at some point so don't worry there will be something for you
as well but first how did i mess up using things like sub goals donation goals and follower goals
well it's pretty simple when i first started playing with the idea of goals i really used
follower goals and i would put up on screen 0 out of 100 followers and we'll do x
but my core community people who watch me that whole time can't really help with this
they can tell people about it ask people to follow but that's a bit pushy
and i wanted them to be the ones to feel like they were the driving factor behind this stuff
so i got rid of follower goals and started using sub goals so in the same vein as the follow goal
i set it up so that if i got x subs i would do y thing usually it was a special stream for example
i had a painting stream that i organized if i reached a certain goal but i really didn't like
these either but i'm glad i tested them out because i actually learned something pretty
powerful from this i learned that you actually get more subs on a big special event stream
than you do from the sub goal building up to it you might hear that and you might
think well you should set a higher goal 50 subs instead of 25 to do a painting stream
i hear that and i kind of think i may as well just make the high quality
content the content that makes people want to donate and want to support the stream
the sub goal just felt like i was pay gating content that anyone else could do
why would they watch me play a game and ask for subs when they could just go watch someone do a
fun painting stream it's why you'll never see me do sub gated streams ever again at least for the
time being i'd rather just make the fun content and let people enjoy themselves the other problem
with subgoals like this is what if you set yourself up that you're going to do a special
stream and then you can't deliver on it that's what i was talking about earlier in this video
for me i set up just gonna do a cooking stream and despite the fact that i even set up the entire
cooking stream tested everything and made sure it worked before i even told anyone i did that goal
something went wrong and i just couldn't deliver on it so i had to do something else and
people seemed okay with that but i could tell there are a few who are let down or another
problem is what if you set up this big sub goal to play a game or do a special stream but it ends
up being a really lackluster night what if it goes wrong or it's scuffed or the game is boring
all these people helped reach the goal might feel like it wasn't worth it
my takeaway for sub goals is i'd rather just make entertaining and good content that makes
people laugh and makes you want to support the stream i probably won't ever use subgoals again
because at the end of the day i just don't like them my next tip is for
everyone whether you're an affiliate not an affiliate partner doesn't matter but lj you're
a variety streamer right yeah that doesn't mean that you play a different game every single night
stop playing a different game every night stick to something if people find you through one game and
the next night you're playing something different they won't come back play something for a week or
two and let people get invested in who you are and your community not just what the game was if
someone comes back for five streams watching you play baldur's gate or raft or anything like that
they're probably going to come back next week if it turns out you're going to start a pokemon
stream or something like that unless it's a hard genre switch they'll probably come back they're
invested in the community by that point stop switching every night stick to something and then
switch after a few weeks after people have been invested you'll see a few drop off
but you won't see everyone drop off like you have been by switching every night i saw okay growth
when i first started i was playing whatever game i felt like and then doing community
nights on the saturdays but i saw real growth kick in when i stuck to playing stardew valley
tuesday to friday and then community night saturdays people were getting invested in
the community throughout the week and then coming back to play party games on the weekend
seriously that's when i truly went from like 7 to 10 viewers to 35. from there it was easy to grow
in categories but it was that first segment of 35 viewers that came when i started being consistent
in a good category with community events so stop swapping stick to something grow bond and then
swap speaking of swapping why don't you click off this video and go watch something else by
us here at stream scheme or consider subscribing before you leave maybe like don't forget to write
your mistake you wrote anyway guys i'll see you next week how do you do outros apparently like
that