42 Twitch Streaming Tips Every Streamer Should Know

[00:00] grow, but once I started, I simply couldn't stop. Don't panic though, I only ended up with 42 tips every single streamer should know about, and I want

[00:13] of the 42 tips you already knew, but for now, let's get right to it. Most streamers have no idea that their microphone sounds bad, and that has

[00:25] have, it should be as close to your mouth as possible. Stretch your fingers like this, and then place your thumb against your chin. Your pinky should be able to hit the microphone, else you're going to have to move it closer. Handy,

[00:40] isn't it? People will only hang out on your Twitch while you are live, so you need to make sure there's a place where your community can hang out whenever. and share news by creating a Discord. There are some amazing Discord templates

[00:57] out there, and I can recommend this one by Gill level for an easy setup. I will link to it and the how-to video in the description below. When you are just starting, it is important to find a community of like-minded people who you

[01:10] can talk to about streaming and content creation. That way, you can learn together, avoid mistakes, and become part of an epic community. Three ways to recognize a good community is no go live channel, no self-promotion, and

[01:24] especially no support for support systems. Discord is a great place for this, and if you want to join our community of content creators, then go live without a plan. Before every single stream, make sure you have a

[01:41] little notebook with a little rundown of what your stream is going to be like. On your rundown, you need to have written down what games you are going to play, when you are playing them, and the three talking points you can bring up if your

[01:53] during your stream and have planned for success. An amazing technique that separates the top streamers from the rest is the yoink and twist. Let me explain. Top creators are not just winging it. They figured

[02:09] out the best way to improve their streams. Here's the trick. Watch other streamers. It doesn't matter if they are big or small. See what they are doing and what you like and don't like in their stream. Take what works, the

[02:22] yoink, and make it your own, the twist. If you know how to do that effectively and not just copy them, you are on your path to quick growth. Just checking your stream quality in OBS is not good enough. By only checking in OBS, you're

[02:38] not seeing what your stream is seeing because it never goes through your internet. To make sure your stream looks amazing, you need to make a second channel no one knows about and stream to that. Do what you would normally do.

[02:50] Talk a bit, play the game a bit, and do some of your effects. If it all looks good there, you can be sure it will also look good to your viewers. Every streamer should be using this OBS plugin. If you want to include people

[03:04] that are hard of hearing or deaf into your stream, or you just want to provide subtitles for people that can't have audio on, then you need the closed captions via Google speech recognition plugin. To install it, simply Google

[03:17] closed captions plugin OBS and follow the link. Click download and extract it into your OBS folder. Once rebooted, a new dock appears. Open the settings and set it to your microphone. Now, whenever you go live, there's an extra button in

[03:33] your Twitch player for PC and Android users, so they can see the subtitles when you speak. Are you bored of the simple fading or sliding animations when you switch scenes? You can set up your transitions exactly how you want using

[03:47] stinger transitions. You can find them online and they are included in many overlay packs, or you can make your own. Find the transition stock and click the plus. Add a stinger transition and find the video file. Once you've done that,

[04:01] change the transition point so that your screen would be completely covered by the transition. Then set your audio to crossfade and you are done. Enjoy the flashy transition. Having trouble keeping up with chat? Sometimes it can

[04:14] be hard to keep up with chat, especially if you only have one monitor. But there's a free tool that can help, restream.io's chat overlay. We are not going to use the multi-stream features, but we are going to use this. Head to

[04:29] restream.io/chat and download the client. Once you've logged in, head into the appearance settings and scroll down. Enable click-through mode, always on top, and set the background opacity to 0%. Now

[04:43] just drag it on top of your game and there you go. OBS hotkeys, you need them. Use control or command F to instantly resize a source to full screen. Use control or command D to center whatever source you have

[04:57] selected. Holding the control key while dragging stops source snapping, meaning you can get close to the edges without it locking on. If you hold the alt key and drag on the bounding box for sources, you crop them instead of

[05:11] resizing. Are you having trouble filling the silence when talking to your chat? It is one of the hardest skills to learn for new creators, so make it a little easier on yourself. Whenever you are not playing a game, have some stream-safe

[05:25] music playing very low in the background. This is called a sound bed, stream is completely silent. And if you want to learn how to talk to your chat, you can do that right here. I will also leave a link in the description. You've

[05:40] heard it before, consistency is key on Twitch, but that doesn't end with a schedule. Sure, having a schedule is important because it makes sure that they sit down with their dinner and the other day you stream at a different time

[05:56] while they are hard at work, then they can't tune in. But there is so much more to this. You need to be consistent with the content you produce as well. Don't play Resident Evil one day, Mario Party the next, and Stardew Valley the day

[06:10] after. When you find a game or niche that you love and want to build your audience around, then stay there and play similar games in that niche. When you are just starting, don't spend money on an overlay. You can grab amazing and

[06:24] easy to install free overlays from places like Owned, Stream Elements, or even the Content Delta website. Don't waste your money on an overlay until you have settled on a design and branding for your stream, and then get a custom

[06:38] description and there are discount codes to get it for free in the Discord. The only way to grow is to improve every time you stream. You don't know how you

[06:50] can improve, however, without knowing what you do right and what you do wrong. And the only person that can judge you for that is you. So that means you're liked and disliked. Do this twice a week for 30 minutes and you'll become a

[07:06] better streamer in no time. Nine out of 10 starting streamers make this mistake. They set a title and go live message for their stream once and then forget about it. Don't do that. You need to update your title and go live notification

[07:21] every single stream. You can include a question or if you are doing a challenge, what challenge you are doing that stream. That way when a new viewer sees you on Twitch, they can get excited to see you do that challenge or answer

[07:33] your question. Oh, and if I see you with a title that is come hang or let's chill, I will frown and I will be disappointed. As a content creator, it is hard to pay attention to chat, the game, and being entertaining at the same

[07:48] time. The multitasking requirements are sky-high. So, ask some of your friends or most loyal viewers to be your moderators. To make someone a moderator, go to your Twitch chat and type {slash} mod followed by their username. That

[08:04] followed. If you have no friends or family that can or wants to moderate your stream, don't worry. Twitch has a built-in automod feature, which you can

[08:16] set up to your heart's content. To find it, go to your streamer dashboard, head into your settings, and open the moderation tab. Click on the automod rule sets and choose the level of moderation you want. You can even

[08:28] fine-tune it exactly to your needs without any issue. Enjoy. Are you getting follow bots on your stream? I used to get follow bots every single week, and removing them was painful. But, after I did this one thing, I had

[08:43] zero. Go to your streamer dashboard and head into the moderation settings. Scroll down to the channel privileges and set the chat verification to these settings. Then, set the follower verification to unverified followers can

[08:57] only follow if their account is a week old. And now, you are protected against follow bots. Streamers, don't accidentally leak your private information. If you have a nasty viewer that believes they found your real name,

[09:12] phone number, or address, and they say it in your chat, that would be terrible. But, what would be worse is if they try and say it and can't because you put your private information in the blocked terms. You only put your private

[09:26] information in the blocked terms. So, now they know that the information that they have found is correct. Instead, when they say something in your chat, quietly ban them and continue your stream. Don't make a big deal about it.

[09:40] Then after the stream, handle it with your moderators. One of the most annoying things for any content creator is when you finally start to get some viewers in or you get a nice rate and then poof, your internet drops out or

[09:53] your OBS crashes and you see your viewers go down from 10 to two. Twitch happening. Disconnect protection. Every time you disconnect, your viewers will

[10:06] be shown this beauty and if you reconnect within 30 seconds, then your stream will not just end and you get to keep your viewers. To turn this on, head tab. Now toggle the disconnect protection on and you are done. The

[10:24] number one reason starting streamers stop growing and quit is simple. They get super obsessed with growth and wanting to attain that next viewership level that they forget to have fun. I'm guilty of this myself. I love tracking

[10:38] every single number that I can for my streams, but I had to stop myself from doing it. It is a sure fire way to demotivate yourself and get into your own head about it. Stop tracking your statistics for every single stream. Only

[10:52] check your stats once a week, once a month, or even once every three months. One of the most common questions I get asked when I'm live is how do I grow on Twitch? And as you know, Twitch has a very little discoverability. So the

[11:07] chances that you are going to grow just by being live is almost zero. If you really want to grow on Twitch, you're going to have to make content on other platforms and bring those viewers with you to Twitch. You don't have to be

[11:20] everywhere though. You just need to pick two. One for long form content such as YouTube and one for short form content such as YouTube shorts or TikTok. Now create dedicated content for these platforms every single week and remember

[11:35] to have fun. Stop streaming for 12 hours per day every single day. While it can be tempting to do this at first, after a few months you will burn out. I can almost guarantee it. On Twitch, people can only find you if you are live. So

[11:51] the moment you stop streaming, all your discoverability is gone. Instead, stream three to four times per week for three to four hours if you can and spend the time you saved making content for other platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.

[12:05] The best way to get better at talking to your stream is by practicing. You practice every time you go live, but you can do better. After this video, sit down and turn on your camera. Open your OBS and press record. Now talk to your

[12:20] camera for 10 minutes about the topic of your choice. Once you're done, put it all away. The day after, open up the video and watch it without distraction. That means no TikTok, no food, no games, nothing. Write down two lists. One of

[12:36] the things that you say that you like and dislike and one of the things that you do that you like and dislike. Then choose a new topic and record another 10 minutes with those points in mind. Do this every day for a month and you will

[12:49] master talking to your chat. The easiest way to create short-form content is right at your fingertips and it is free. If you are streaming, you will want to aim to create one short-form piece of content every hour you are live. This

[13:05] could be a funny clip, an epic play, or something cool you and your community were talking about. And the easiest way to create these shorts is with Atom Vertical. Download the plugin from atom.tv and install it. This will give

[13:19] you a whole new canvas, source dock, and scene dock, which you can use to build your short scene. Go into the settings and turn on backtrack recording and set a hotkey. Now when you have a funny moment, you can hit that hotkey and it

[13:33] will automatically create a recording of it on your PC in vertical format, so you don't even need to edit it. Did you know that certain platforms punish you for pointing to Twitch or YouTube? Whenever you post something on TikTok, it is best

[13:47] practice to avoid saying the name of other platforms. And when you post a clip on Twitter, make sure to download the clip from your Twitch dashboard instead of posting the links. Twitter's algorithm boosts videos by much more

[14:01] than it does links to other websites. That way you are sure your video has the highest chance to be seen by other people. If your Twitch channel isn't growing, then stop making this mistake. Popular games are popular because many

[14:15] people like them, but that also means that there are many people that stream them. These are called saturated games. The more streamers that there are in the category, the less likely you are going to be behind that category with only a

[14:29] few viewers. So if you want to grow on Twitch, you need to play games which aren't saturated, so your competition is lower. If you want to figure out if your game is saturated, go to twitchstrike.com and fill in the name of

[14:43] the game to see how your competition really is. Can I give you the best advice to grow your stream? And I know it might sound a little obvious, but it's true. Press the start streaming button in OBS to actually stream. So

[14:59] often I hear from people that they are learning everything they can before streaming or that they will start streaming in a month or 3 months. Streaming is a skill and the best way to learn it is by doing. So why wait? Press

[15:13] that button. Is your game running fine, but your OBS is lagging? Here's how you diagnose the three different forms of OBS lag that you can encounter. Go to the view menu and open the stats page. If you get dropped frames, then your

[15:28] internet is struggling. Check your upload speed on speedtest.net and set your bitrate to at most 10% under the max. If you get missed frames, then your GPU is struggling. You need to lower the settings in your game and especially the

[15:43] shadow settings can make a big impact. If you get skipped frames, then your encoding chip is struggling. Limit the FPS to 60 or even 30 FPS and that should fix it. Do you want to record content from your stream like pro streamers do?

[15:59] You need to set up a separate recording OBS. Download OBS and extract it into a new folder. In that folder, make a text file called portable_mode.txt

[16:11] and now boot up your OBS. You can immediately see it's completely fresh because it gives you the prompt to do the system check. Now, in the video settings, set your canvas size to 3840 by 1920 to make a double-wide canvas.

[16:27] Put your game on the left side and your camera on the right so you can record them completely separately. And for a full video on recording settings in OBS, check out the link in the description. It looks like this. Okay, so far we've

[16:41] not been spending any money at all, but you're starting to make a little bit of money from your streaming or maybe you have some extra from your day job. So, what should you invest in to improve the quality of your stream? First, make sure

[16:56] you have a decent microphone. You may have heard it before, audio is 80% of your stream quality. You need to make it sound great before it looks great. After that, spend it on lighting. A good camera with bad lighting looks so much

[17:12] worse than a budget camera with actual good lighting. Besides, cameras are expensive and the best camera for the price is already in your pocket. So, that means the camera comes last. Triple your discoverability on Twitch by

[17:27] running 3 minutes of ads every hour. There are two types of ads, pre-rolls and mid-rolls. Pre-rolls play whenever an unsubscribed viewer clicks into your stream and they are immediately served up to 3 minutes of ads. However, when

[17:43] somebody new is hit with ads, there's a 70% chance they don't sit through the content. Mid-rolls play during your stream for 3 minutes every hour to

[17:56] everyone that isn't subscribed. But, doing so turns off the pre-rolls for new viewers. That means every new viewer that clicks your stream won't immediately get hit with ads. And if they like what they see, they'll stick

[18:09] around. Do you only want three out of 10 people to see your content when they find you? I don't. Streamers need to learn to take a break. When you stream, you are sitting down for hours on end and don't get to move a lot. Make sure

[18:23] to build in small breaks for you to stretch and go to the bathroom and make sure to normalize them to your viewers. You can even make them fun by game by Pixel Plush. You can simply import it as a browser source and

[18:40] whenever you toggle it, your viewers can X space point drop to see if they can land in the pool. The basic pack is free, so why not give it a try? The link is in the description. I became a Twitch partner a year before I expected because

[18:53] of one simple technique. If you are a streamer, you should be setting goals for every month, quarter, and year. However, most people set goals wrong. Things like get 75 viewers, become Twitch partner, or get 100 gift subs are

[19:09] terrible goals because you as the streamer have no control over them. Instead, make your goals so you can have control over them. Make one video this week. Stream every Friday for a month. Make three pieces of content out of

[19:24] every stream. Set goals you have total control over and you will actually achieve them and grow your channel. Okay, time for the lightning round. Audio is 80% of your stream quality, so make sure your mic sounds amazing.

[19:38] Whenever you plug your mic in, it is not going to sound proper. You need to adjust the gain, noise reduction, compressor, limiter, and equalizer. I've made a video all about that and I will leave a link to that in the description.

[19:51] Twitch allows up to 10 tags to be used for the channel. Use them to give information about your channel such as the language you stream in, if you are chatty and interactive, or any special interests. I've even added the not my

[20:04] birthday tag because it is not my birthday. In your Twitch settings, go to your VOD settings and turn them on. VODs are the only way new viewers can see what your stream is like, so make sure you make them

[20:18] available to everyone. While you are there, never put your stream in follower-only mode. It doesn't give you more followers and usually just has with you. While we are on the topic of Twitch settings, go into your stream

[20:33] settings and set your stream to low latency mode. This reduces the delay interactions and way less silence in conversations. You, yeah, you, listen to

[20:47] me. Clean up your stream background. Make your bed, put your laundry in the hamper, and take away all the empty bottles, plates, and snack bags. Then play, hobbies you enjoy, or some cool artwork. Your viewers like looking at a

[21:04] well-cared-for space. When you stream games, don't use window or screen capture in OBS. There's a source that is optimized to handle highly dynamic screen spaces like games. It's called game capture for a reason. And finally,

[21:19] the biggest mistake that every streamer eventually makes at least once. Streaming is a hobby for many, a passion for some, and a business for a few. But we all have one thing in common. We do this because we love what we do. Every

[21:36] stream is a part of your streaming journey. Some will be good, some will be bad, but the only thing we can do anything about is how we approach them. So, have fun walking this insane journey. YouTube thinks you are going to

[21:52] like this video next, and as always, so long and thanks for all the fish.