Streaming has become a popular and profitable profession. Streamers engage thousands of viewers and earn decent money through subscriptions, ads, and other integrations on their broadcasts. And the best thing is – there is no need to have advanced equipment to get into the streaming world. You can stream any game or activity from your console.
To do this, you only need to have additional peripherals such as a web camera, or a gaming headset. And if you are planning to go into a specific niche like console racing you might also want to get a PS4 steering wheel or its alternative. But how do you become a streamer? This article will go into detail about what steps to take before your first broadcast.
Table of Contents
Live Streaming Platforms
Before going online, you must first select the platform on which you will broadcast. At the moment, there are three main sites for streamers in the English-speaking segment. These are Twitch, Youtube, and Facebook. Some bloggers even stream on Instagram. But we won’t talk about them today, since this is a new slightly different genre of broadcasts.
Why is it so important to choose one online streaming platform and not broadcast your game to all of them at the same time? There are three main reasons.
First, platforms don’t like it when their partners work with their competitors. They give less priority to such bloggers when it comes to contract or support terms.
Secondly, the broadcasting rules for each site are very strict and can vary significantly. Content that is allowed on one site may be strictly prohibited on another. You need to be an expert to know and to follow all the rules and not get a lifetime ban.
Thirdly, it is very difficult for one person to actively interact with several chats from different platforms when broadcasting to several sites. And poor contact with the chat will lead to bad quality of content and a decrease in the number of views.
All platforms support major formats and are easy to use. But each platform has a few distinctive features. Twitch is considered to have the most user-friendly chat. Youtube is convenient for analytics and post-production. Facebook makes it easy to interact with your audience offline. There are other old and new platforms, but they have a much smaller English-speaking audience.
New Audience
It is very easy to start your broadcast. But you need hard work and luck to become a successful streamer. It is a trend, and everybody wants to make money by playing his favorite game and by interacting with the chat. You need to have something unique about your page to be memorable. It can be your appearance, stage image, IRL reputation, skill, or connection with other streamers.
Start your journey by focusing on your advantages. Ask yourself: “Why would a viewer want to watch my stream and not another popular streamer? How does my content stand out? ”. For the first few years, you will need to build your content around these answers. Only by gaining a stable audience can you try to adapt and change the type of broadcasts.
Most likely in the first months, you will have to stream online for yourself or a couple of friends. To gain the first dozens of followers, you should constantly look for opportunities to make yourself famous. This can be streaming contests, esports competition, the gameplay of new products from the gaming industry, or an opportunity to attract the attention of popular streamers. Anyway, word of mouth remains the most reliable way to gain good online.
Final Words
You can find many tutorials that will tell you how to go online. But there is no right formula for success. The only thing you can do is to analyze the success of popular streamers and create something new based on that information. The only things that we know are that anything might work and that you need to be patient at the start. Hard work, luck, and intuition can help you to become a streamer.