Perfecting Your Post-Stream Process

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 208 - Perfecting Your Post-Stream Process

In various past entries I’ve made the case for all the automated processes I love to use on my streams. In Creating a Pre-Stream Checklist I helped you to keep your streaming tasks organized. The entry Setting Up Pre-Stream Automation went even further into preventing setup mistakes by making a plan and sticking to it. There’s more to be explored outside the pre-stream process, however. After your show is finished there are also various tasks that need doing, whether that involves creating clips, making social media posts, or downloading your episode for archiving purposes. What’s the best way to keep track of everything so you don’t forget? In this entry, we’ll talk about how to perfect your post-stream process. 

As I always say in entries like this, experience is always more valuable than mistake prevention. If you haven't done at least ten official broadcasts on your channel yet, get out there and start streaming. For more info on breaking into the craft, see the entry Surviving Your First Ten Streams.

➢ SAVING FOR POSTERITY

If you’ve been following The Twitch Playbook, you’ll know about how I use YouTube as a Twitch streamer. When I was a Twitch Affiliate, I would post my full streams to YouTube 24 hours after they had gone live. After canceling my Affiliate contract, I now simply go live directly to YouTube at the same time as Twitch. This makes it even easier to archive my content, as there are fewer steps involved. But whatever your Twitch situation looks like, using a solid post-stream process is a great way to archive your shows. 

For some reason, episodes I did of the 
first Yakuza Kiwami 5 years ago
still get viewed today.

The above-mentioned entry Setting Up Pre-Stream Automation went into detail about some of my process in setting up a YouTube video. Since I go live directly to that platform along with Twitch, it means I do some of the archiving steps before my stream, rather than after. But once the show is over, there are still a few things to do. I find a nice moment from the just-finished stream and take a screenshot. I then add that screenshot to a templated thumbnail I’ve created in Photoshop beforehand, adding a little unique title about the episode and the episode number. I then add that thumbnail and descriptive title to the previously broadcast Twitch and YouTube streams. Once this is done, I add a little green check mark ✅ emoji to the end of the episode title. This is a signal to myself that the formatting step for this episode is complete. 

The ‘check mark’ step might seem redundant, but considering the lifestyle I lead, it’s proven itself to be one of the most critical elements on my shows. On a day I’m traveling across the country for business, I may do a Duolingo show from the airport terminal. On another day I might be going live from Tokyo. Or I could be home, but need to run out to a restaurant immediately after the stream. The day after that I might still do my shows but be so pressed for time that I don’t have time to format them yet. So now it’s two days later, which means I’ve done six streams, none of which have been formatted. Until I had a system in place to make it very easy to see which shows are completely finished being archived, I would often lose track of which ones needed to be worked on. 

But why archive your shows at all? I’ve spoken in past entries before about how many things you can do with your old streams, but we'll go into it a bit here too. You can learn from them by seeing your old performances, you can pull clips for highlight reels or channel intros, and of course it can allow viewers to discover or rediscover your old content if they didn’t see it live. I’ve found that old VOD archives of my streams on YouTube would sometimes gain a good amount of popularity out of nowhere. When a game’s sequel gets announced, a stream I made of the previous game might rise in views, or a certain type of food I ate on stream in Japan would garner a huge amount of interest in the corresponding video. Sometimes a stream in which I played an old PS2 game gets attention, presumably because there aren’t many other videos showing that rare game to be found. These spikes can happen the next day, or sometimes years after I released the video. You never really know how or when stream archives will affect your channel, but I’ve always found that these comprehensive, nicely formatted, and well-organized archives have been a major benefit to my streaming experience. For more info about how to archive your own shows, see the entry Archiving Your Twitch Streams. 

➢ MAKE IT YOUR OWN

Archiving is the primary purpose for my own personal post-stream process, but there are many useful things you might want to do after your show. If you like to grab clips of your shows, or even edit those clips into highlight reels that you show every Friday on stream, it’s useful to become disciplined about grabbing those once the stream is finished. In the entry Clipping and Highlighting Your Streams, I talked about my process for marking clippable moments during my show, so I could take the time to properly save them later. If you like to clip your streams, this technique will help to make your post-show process much more efficient. 

Shoutout. Get it?

Many streamers also like to make social media posts after their show is off the air. I personally do this in a barebones way, writing a Tweet that simply describes what happened on stream and posting an embedded link to the finished episode. In the past, when I used to raid other streamers after each broadcast, I would also give a shoutout to the person I raided, as well as any other streamers who raided me, in my post-stream Tweet. This is great for networking on Twitch, as it helps others as well as yourself. Some streamers even post shoutouts to viewers who cheered a particularly high amount, or repeat subscribers who reached a major milestone. Social media is a great benefit to a Twitch streamer who wants to grow, and you can help your channel a lot by making this into a regular step in your process. 

There are all sorts of useful things you can attach to your post-stream process, and they don’t always have to be related to the episode you just finished. You could say that you’ll make one small fix to your stream each time you end a show. Or you might want to make one new Instagram post after each episode. You can even use this habit as an excuse to start another habit, like going for a quick run after each episode, or doing some pushups. But no matter what you add to your routine, I’d be surprised if you didn’t see positive results pretty soon after enacting this kind of organizational technique. So give it a try. With a solid pre-stream and post-stream process, you’ll go far on Twitch.

Read Between the Lines of Your Twitch Chat

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 205 - Read Between the Lines of Your Twitch Chat

Comments from viewers are a big part of the Twitch streaming experience. In the entry Up Your Showmanship on Stream, I spoke about how you can always give a dynamic response to even the least dynamic chat messages. This is a subject worth exploring a bit more, however. Many streamers take chat messages too literally in my opinion. Just because the question someone asked only really warrants a one-word answer doesn’t mean your answer actually has to be one word. It’s your stream, and you can talk about whatever you want. This person’s question is merely a jumping-off point for whatever you want to talk about. In my view, questions on a livestream aren’t really meant to be taken literally, but rather as a suggestion for larger conversations. In this entry, we’ll look into how you can read between the lines of your Twitch chat.

Many people aren’t naturally very talkative, and this applies to Twitch chat as well. Sometimes they can’t express what they really mean. I often try to see the intention behind whatever the person said, and instead of responding to the question they asked, I respond to the question they wish they asked. Even if someone asks what you think of as a stupid question, it’s always within your power to lift them up, instead of pointing out their question’s flaw and knocking them down. The entry How to Flesh Out Stream Ideas touched on how standup comedians use the philosophy of ‘Yes, and…’ to ensure they’re always building on the jokes of others, rather than shooting down ideas. This is a hugely helpful mindset when dealing with comments on a Twitch stream. 

➢ SPINNING NEGATIVITY

I got a lot of hate when playing 
this one. 

In the past, when I used to work for another company and each broadcast would have anywhere from 100 to 1,000 concurrent viewers, the comments would fly very quickly, and they weren’t always very nice. From early on however, I decided that I would try not to shut down even the nasty remarks. I was trying to help grow the company’s brand, and I wanted to ensure that everyone felt like a part of the show. I also knew that when people say mean things, they aren’t necessarily mean people at heart. So I’d take a comment in which someone said, “You’re horrible at this game. Please stop trying,” and instead of reading the comment word for word, I’d say something like, “[viewer username] sees room for improvement in my playstyle. Definitely let me know if you have any tips!” Not with irony or condescension, but with real genuine interest.

For some reason, people would also get really mad that I had a job where I played video games for a living. They’d say, “This guy is terrible. He’s so annoying. Why did [company] ever pick him to do these videos?” and several much more vitriolic versions of the same idea. This of course hurts to hear, but I’d try to take it in stride. I recognized that these comments often had a deeper unspoken meaning, and I’d respond with something like, “[viewer username] has a great point, I’m lucky enough to get to do what I love each day and get paid to do it!” And then I’d go into a story about how I was able to build a body of work and get hired by a company to make these kinds of videos. I’d give tips for other viewers who might want to start a career doing the same thing. I wouldn’t brag, preach or put down the original commenter, but would actually thank them for bringing up such a helpful subject. 

➢ SPREADING POSTIVITY

These kinds of responses would usually have one of two effects. First, they would often get the original commenter to turn their attitude around. Many people on the internet don’t really consider the consequences of what they say, because they feel anonymous. But when you put their comment in the limelight and give them a bit of attention, they quickly realize that they’re having an effect. Believing the best in someone is also a strong motivator for change. Notice that in the above examples, even though the original comments were pretty mean, I wouldn’t treat the commenter like a mean person. Rather, I treat them as someone nice who maybe asked a question they didn’t intend to be hurtful. I ask the question hidden within their question, rather than the question itself. And psychologically, if others see the good in us, we want to meet those expectations. This causes the chatter to come around, start posting other more positive comments, and sometimes even apologize, even though I never said they did anything wrong. 

Paint the chat however you want. 

The second effect of this kind of response is sometimes even more important than the first. Because of the way I phrase my answer, the chat becomes flooded with a higher volume of positive comments than negative. In the first example, I asked for the commenter’s tips for the game. This often gets other viewers talking about their own strategies, in addition to the person I asked, and populates the chat with more constructive comments. In the second example, by talking about my own tips and tricks for becoming a professional livestream producer and video host, people are more interested in asking about how to get into that world themselves. People in the chat are suddenly engaged in talking about something far more interesting, and might even begin to police themselves. If the original commenter persists in being negative, other chatters (who are now more interested in the new topic than the previous negative one) would actually ask the negative person to stop. By creating a topic where positivity is more engaging than negativity, you’re turning that negative person into a minority within the chat. And it’s much more difficult for that negativity to gain a foothold when nobody else is on their side. 

The way you respond to a comment is kind of like planting a seed. If your most recent response is negative or dismissive, negativity is going to grow. But if you plant the seeds for interesting conversations, you’ll soon see the positive effects of that choice.  

➢ POSSIBLE AT ANY SIZE

Since starting my own personal Twitch channel, these kinds of mean comments very seldom come in anymore. The amount of viewers and chatters is much smaller, and I don’t really have to go out of my way to please everyone watching either. But the same principles often come in handy for me, even at a smaller scale. Whether someone asks a question that only really requires a one-word answer, or they make some unintentionally cruel remark like ‘You look/sound really tired,’ I’m always able to spin it into something more interesting. Don’t forget however, that just because something can be spun into a better topic, doesn’t mean that you have to spin it, or deal with it at all. I put up with a lot when I was working at that high level of streaming, and I found ways to make the job easier to take. But that kind of constant negative bombardment still takes its toll, even if you spin it to make the show itself better. In my personal streams, I don’t care as much whether every single chatter stays around. If someone is being intentionally mean, I will often timeout or ban them. Like I mention often throughout this podcast, stay true to the priorities of whatever kind of show you’re trying to make. And if you want to raise engagement on your streams, try keeping this subject in mind. It’s always better to read between the lines of your chat. 

How Long Does It Take to Master Streaming?

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 198 - How Long Does It Take to Master Streaming?

As Twitch streamers, many of us aspire to reach a point where our streams no longer need to be changed or worried over- where there are no more problems occurring, and there are no more additions to make. Maybe we’re making enough money from going live to pay our bills and quit our jobs, or we’ve leveraged our streams to start a larger personal brand. The dream looks different for everyone, but the general idea is the same. It would be a point where we’ve found the ultimate final product for our content- a point where we’ve finally mastered streaming. 

In my opinion however, this is an unattainable goal. Yes, we can reach the objectives we set out for ourselves, but doing those things won’t really make us masters. There will always be something more to do, something else to fix or change, and new ways to interpret our content. Streaming is a lifelong craft. Like with any long-term pursuit, whether it’s in health, education, romance, craftsmanship, or anything else, you may start with a goal in mind, but by the time you’ve reached it, you’re at risk of losing what you built if you don’t keep going.

➢ THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE

In George Leonard’s book Mastery, he quotes a martial arts student studying aikido. “How long will it take me to master Aikido?” a prospective student asks.“How long do you expect to live?” is, as Leonard puts it, the only respectable response. This book, which I’d recommend to anyone trying to pursue excellence in what they do, goes on to explore how true greatness requires one to remove their focus from arbitrary goals and instead simply keep exploring their craft. As he says, those with aspirations to reach a certain point typically burn themselves out before reaching them, whereas those who take pleasure in the everyday act of pursuing the craft itself surpass all expectations. 

Masters learn to make the act itself into
a habit.

I’ve noticed a similar concept while learning Japanese. Most of the time, those who try to learn the language do so with a specific objective in mind. They want to be able to watch their favorite anime shows without the subtitles turned on, or they want to be like one of those YouTubers who surprises natives by speaking perfectly. But in my experience, I’ve found that such objectives don’t take people very far. They’re such far-off goals that they aren’t even practical to consider when starting out. Typically, once these students pass the beginner stage and reach the point where they’re skilled enough to recognize how long the journey will really be, they lose interest. Personally, I’ve been lucky to avoid the demotivation of long-term goals in my language learning, though it wasn’t from careful calculation- I just sort of stumbled onto a style that worked for me. I set out merely wanting to have conversations, and as soon as I could string three words together I began talking to Japanese speakers. Whether in person or online, I forced myself out of my comfort zone and constantly made a fool of myself. Every time I could say something a little bit better, it became another motivating factor to keep going. These small victories really defined my experience in learning so far. George Leonard quotes a zen saying in the book I mentioned above: “When you’ve reached the top of the mountain, keep on climbing.” In my experience, little victories are the key. If you love what you do, then every time you engage in that activity you’ll be accomplishing your goal in some small way.

➢ CONTINUING IS MASTERING

Twitch streaming is much the same for me. I started out on my personal channel being more traditionally ambitious, planning out and projecting everything with certain growth goals in mind. But after a while, I realized that if I want to do this for the long term and be happy doing it, I had to remove myself from the rat race. In the Twitch Playbook entry One Must Imagine the Streamer Happy, I compared the act of streaming to the Greek character Sisyphus pushing his boulder up a cliff. He’s doomed to never finish his task, only keep pushing. But in that entry, I spoke about how the endless pursuit is something we need to come to terms with if we’re going to truly love streaming. Even if you’ve reached a plateau where nothing on your shows is changing anymore, there’s nothing wrong with simply continuing without improvement. You never know where your journey might take you. There’s no end point, short of giving up, so why not learn to find enjoyment in the act itself? 

Those who love the climb can also 
benefit from removing focus from 
end goals.

If you’re someone who does genuinely find joy in the climb, there’s nothing wrong with that either. I’m certainly not saying you have to conduct your streams in a particular way to be happy. Be careful not to mistake the moments when I say “I didn’t like streaming this way” for me saying “nobody should like streaming this way.” And this philosophy of learning to love the craft without focusing on goals doesn’t exclude those who love reaching for higher and higher targets. For two years before starting my current Twitch channel, I worked for a major streaming brand for a living and found genuine joy in helping to build it into an even larger network. Even during that time however, doing multiple shows each day with hundreds or thousands of live viewers per episode, I knew I’d never be finished. I had targets to hit, but I realized that none of them would ever be the finish line. I had to learn to love the pursuit itself, constantly creating and passing checkpoints, not thinking about any particular end goal. And though I later didn’t end up liking this style of creation for my own personal Twitch channel, I had a blast doing it as my 9-5 job. Essentially, all of this to say I’ve been on both sides of the fence and can sympathize with either perspective, whether you like to take it easy or push as hard as you can. 

No matter what kind of streamer you are, or what kind of content you make, your channel will always be evolving. Even if you can’t see how, there are things shifting under the surface. Allow yourself to embrace the changes and small victories, without worrying too much about where you’re going in the end. Only where you’re going right now. None of us should aspire to master our various fields in streaming, only to keep pursuing mastery. In this case, the destination lies in the journey itself. In other words: How long does it take to master streaming? How long have you got? 

Pay Your Streams Forward

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 196 - Pay Your Streams Forward

So you’ve streaming for a while. You have hundreds of broadcasts under your belt, and the amount of mistakes you make on stream has dropped significantly. You’re in a pretty comfortable place with your shows. If this is the case, it might be a good time to pay back the goodwill you’ve received throughout your Twitch journey by helping others. 

Whether you create YouTube tutorials, write hardware buying guides, interview other streamers on a podcast, or just answer questions about how to stream in your Twitch chat, there are many ways you can use your experiences to help other streamers create better content. Almost four years ago, I created this podcast. It’s gone on to help more streamers than I ever could have imagined I’d reach. I’m glad to know I’ve brought so much value to so many people. What you yourself are interested in talking about, and what form your own helpful content takes may be different, but I think you’ll find a similar gratification from helping others no matter how you choose to do it. 

➢ WHAT TO SAY

If you were going to teach others about streaming, what happens if your lessons don’t all resonate with people? The first thing to understand is that they won’t. Not always. There’s no way for all of your teachings to apply to everyone. But then again, why should they? We all learn a huge amount of lessons when we stream on Twitch. Many of them can only truly be internalized when we’ve experienced them for ourselves. Some lessons you’ve learned may be too advanced for beginners, but will come in handy for more seasoned streamers. And in the case of streamers who have done it even longer than you have, certain lessons might no longer be helpful at their level. In many cases, you may simply have different goals in streaming than someone else, and one of your lessons may not apply. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for example, think about how many episodes have really spoken to you. It’s likely that number isn’t close to 100%. You probably felt some entries were more useful than others. Certain ones may even seem to make no sense at all. Maybe you feel I contradict myself, or that I take a weak stance on certain issues and too strong a stance on others. And yet, you’ve hopefully found something of value in hearing my stories and the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Everything I say is true to my own experience, and it’s true to my beliefs about streaming at the time I write it. But it’s not necessarily all true to your experience or beliefs. And that’s okay. We’re all different. We all go down different paths. But there will always be certain points where our paths intersect. 

Everybody has a different approach 
to their craft.

If you choose to make some helpful content of your own, I suggest embracing that idea. What you want to teach will never be 100% applicable to the next person. But just because they don’t take all your advice doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from some of it. Rather than just advising, I also try to focus on sharing my experience. I think it’s useful to be as candid as possible about what I've done on Twitch, both good and bad. I try not to focus too much on the positive or glamorous aspects, but really show the times when I’ve failed, or felt bad about what I was doing. This hopefully helps others to get a realistic impression of what it’s like, without being overly preachy. I also try to explain complex concepts, both technical (like setting up a greenscreen) and spiritual (like losing motivation when overpromising) by using examples and stories I personally find inspiring. I can’t know what others will respond to, but I can know what I would respond to if I were listening. And I try to go by that. If I start getting excited about a metaphor or anecdote in an entry, I know I’m on the right track. 

Whatever you choose to make, you don’t need to approach it from a solely altruistic point of view either. You’re choosing to sacrifice a chunk of your time making something outside of your streams, after all. Yes, it’ll help other streamers, but you will also find it helps you just as much. In the entry Chronicle Your Twitch Progress, I spoke about how you can better understand streaming by writing about streaming. What’s going well on your streams? What’s not going well? Where is there a specific issue? What might solve it? You’ll find there’s a lot of power in writing, or even just talking openly about things like this, because your own thoughts become more lucid when you clarify them. In addition, this educational side-project can help your Twitch channel if you want it to. Plenty of YouTubers and Twitch streamers have made names for themselves by helping up-and-coming creators get off the ground. If you want to make this educational project part of your brand, it can become a powerful source of growth. 

➢ WHAT NOT TO SAY

You can take whatever approach you want when helping other Twitch streamers, but I would advise against a few particular avenues. Denigrating other streamers is not a very nice thing to do. It’s certainly rude to do this to someone’s face by mocking their content in their own chat, but it shouldn’t even be done indirectly. You’ll notice for example, that I take care never to use the content or styles of other specific streamers as negative examples in this podcast. I may talk about paradigms in streaming I don’t like, or traits to avoid, but I simply don’t believe in talking badly about someone else’s work. Everyone is in this together, trying their best to create whatever content is meaningful for them, and we shouldn’t be putting each other down. After all, the whole point of this project would be to lift other streamers up. It wouldn’t make much sense if you were making someone feel bad in order to do it. 

Even if you think you're being helpful, 
don't offer advice where it isn't 
specifically asked for.

I also strongly advise against offering your advice where it isn’t asked for. Many streamers, especially new ones, feel the need to criticize other streamers in their live chats. This unhelpful kind of advice typically only serves to grate on the recipient, and make the advisor look bad. If someone asks you what you think, that’s one thing. If they didn’t ask you, it’s rude and presumptuous to try to impose your own will on them. If you find the line between solicited and unsolicited advice difficult to manage, you can’t go wrong with simply creating content instead. When you make something pre-packaged of your own, like a video or podcast that’s intended to help others, people will come to it specifically because they’re looking for guidance. Like you did when finding this podcast. I’m offering my opinions and experiences here, and telling you what I think is good or bad, but you signed up to hear those things. I’m not entering your stream’s chat and rattling off what I think needs to change about your channel. For more of my thoughts on giving unsolicited advice, see the entry How to Learn from Other Streamers (And How Not To).

➢ SHARE YOUR WISDOM

If you’ve been streaming on Twitch for a while, you’ve had all sorts of experiences. You’ve faced challenges and you overcame them. You’ve started projects, abandoned others, changed your channel’s course and revised ideas. All of these things have taught you valuable lessons. Why not share those with others? Who knows who you might help by doing so? You might even help yourself. Pay your streams forward. You never know what those seeds of positivity might grow into. 

Choosing Communication Methods on Stream

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 182 - Choosing Communication Methods on Stream

There are several ways to communicate the same point to your viewers on a livestream. No method is inherently wrong or right, but it’s more about what you want to get across with the method itself. In this entry we’ll explore a few different styles I’ve used on my stream over the years to communicate the same specific rule, and how each has helped in its own way. 

➢ PLAYING ON YOUR OWN TERMS

To set the scene, let’s talk about the rule I was trying to set up, and why I needed it. As I’ve mentioned in previous Twitch Playbook entries, I like to play games without hearing spoilers. But that description is a bit of an oversimplification, which I’ve used for the sake of writing these entries more clearly. In reality, I like to know literally nothing when going into a game. I don’t look at trailers or screenshots, I don’t watch other streams of the game, and I don’t read anything about it. I enter with as few pre-existing notions of what to expect as possible, and I like to preserve that ignorance throughout the time I play the game. In my opinion, this makes the playthrough more exciting. I may miss an entire section of an open world game if I’m not paying attention, and I could lose my favorite character in an RPG because I didn’t know what was best to do to prevent that outcome. Because my play habits for a game will form essentially in a vacuum, it can make a playthrough much more unique. In 2018, there was a popular story about how the Twitch streamer negaoryx played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for 95 hours, beating most of the major bosses, before ever finding the tutorial and learning to do certain basic moves. This is the kind of thing that can’t happen when you’re receiving help, and it’s the type of thing I aspire to in any playthrough of a game. 

Now, there’s not really a tag on Twitch, or a pre-existing term in existence, to describe this specific kind of playthrough. Most people would hear about the way I like to play and equate it to the closest concept they’ve heard of before: no spoilers. And that’s true, I don’t want to know what’s coming up in the story. But the term ‘spoiler’ is very limited in scope. I also don’t want to hear anyone’s tips for how to get through an area, or hear what weapon they think is best, or even know what kind of choices they made for their own character. All of those things would seem to be okay if someone thinks that I want to play without spoilers, and it’s understandable if they make the mistake. But I needed a better means of communication for my own streams. 

The Souls games have a great community,
but it's not so great for the way I like to
play video games.

There are certain kinds of games where people are much more likely to come in and tell me things, and it can become a big problem. FromSoftware titles for example (Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and most recently, Elden Ring) have the largest and most aggressive community of people entering a stream and offering unsolicited advice. I guess it’s because those games are so difficult that many people who have finished the game just take it for granted that other players will want any tips they can get. Certain Twitch tags, like ‘First Playthrough’ or ‘No Spoilers’ only attract this kind of attention even more, like throwing chum into shark-infested waters. Some streamers I know, who play games the same way I do, actually refuse to stream FromSoftware games, because it’s nearly impossible to prevent the game’s community from constantly trying to influence the experience. I adore those games too much not to play them on stream, and have gone through many methods to try to communicate my channel’s rules in the past few years. Some with more success than others. Below are a few of the communication methods I’ve tried, along with the pros and cons of each. 

➢ ALTERNATE PATHWAYS

The first, and clearest, way to communicate anything is to simply tell it to someone. This involves verbally saying what you’re trying to say to the chatter in question, and explaining what you’re trying to get across. Assuming you’re being nice about it, this way is most likely to get them to understand your meaning, and it’s least likely to offend them. However, this doesn’t necessarily work at scale. When I play a Dark Souls game for example, someone like this comes in several times every episode, and having to intricately explain the rules every single time someone breaks them can get old very quickly. Plus, this method also requires that the person break the rules before you explain them. Depending on the rule itself, you may not want to wait. 

Second, you can use your preferred chatbot software to set up a command explaining the rule. This would merely require that you or a moderator enter the command in your chat, and then the new viewer would be able to read it for themselves. This saves you the trouble of having to explain the rule every time you want to communicate it, but it also feels less personal. Depending on the chatter, they might even feel like they’re being singled out and attacked. For this reason, you’ll want to use rules commands delicately. 

The unsolicited tips got so bad while I was 
playing Bloodborne that the auto-responses 
were going off all the time.

Third, certain chatbot software can actually auto-respond to flagged terms and instantly spit out a message of your choosing. So in my case, I noticed that if someone heard my rules and responded with, “Got it. I won’t say any spoilers,” that usually meant they were still likely to break my rules, because they thought I was only asking them not to post spoilers. So at one point I had the word ‘spoiler’ and all its variations flagged, which would spit out a “It sounds like you read our rules and thought we’re only asking for no spoilers” message, which would then further explain the rules to anyone who said the offending word. This got messy really quickly, and didn’t make people feel very welcome. I don’t recommend it for arbitrary rules like mine, but you could certainly imagine this method being very useful to auto-ban anyone who says actual bad or hurtful words. 

In addition, you can set up a message for anyone who joins your chat, which they have to agree to before entering. This is usually just white noise to a Twitch viewer, and I don’t think people read them very often, but it may help in certain cases. On top of that, there are tags you can set, which I find are most useful when helping people find a community of like-minded people, rather than telling them what not to do. 

➢ MY CURRENT STYLE

Luckily, the number of people entering my chat just to tell me how to play Elden Ring this year has been much smaller than the amount of chatters who would do the same when I played Bloodborne or Dark Souls a few years back. The way I communicate my rules has changed accordingly. When I was playing Bloodborne and new viewers would almost vindictively come in every few minutes trying to tell me their protips, I had all the strictest tools in place. The automod would instantly warn them if they talked about spoilers, and my human moderators would often have to time out and ban repeat offenders. 

These days, there’s a simple message for anyone who enters my chat, which says, “Hello! I like to play games and know absolutely nothing about them. Here, the only thing we DON'T talk about in chat is the game itself.” I figure this pretty much covers all the bases. When someone does come through and offer help, I try to be diplomatic. Even though they’re breaking my own rules, I thank them for their enthusiasm, and explain calmly about how I like to play without knowing anything. I also tell them I’m aware that’s not how everyone streams, and I know it’s not how everyone likes to watch streams, so I understand if that’s not their thing. However, if they do choose to stick around, I’d love to get to know them. This usually gets its point across, and using this method I’ve found a much higher rate of people who initially came in to offer help actually staying to join the show. When someone does try to offer help even after the explanation, that’s when I’ll post the chatbot message explaining the rules (and the consequences for breaking them again) more fully. Typically, when someone sees this after we’ve explained the rules, they understand where we’re coming from. Plus, seeing there’s a whole command for that specific scenario, they realize how big a problem it must be for us, and they join the chat normally.  

I’ve worked hard to come up with clear communication about my channel’s particular playthrough rules. Even now it’s still not perfect, but I’m proud of its evolution. You may not have the same interest in playing games without getting advice on your own streams, but consider anything you’ve struggled to communicate on your channel. How can the various communication methods I’ve mentioned help you in getting your point across? Are there scenarios where you could do more personal one-on-one explaining, or are there some things that would benefit from the colder strictness of a chat command? No matter what you choose to do, remember that there isn’t just one way to communicate the same idea on stream. You could be just a few revisions away from perfection. 

Successfully Streaming Without Self-Promotion

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 176 - Successfully Streaming Without Self-Promotion

When you watch a Twitch broadcast, it’s par for the course to hear the streamer ask you to do things. Whether that involves following, subscribing, buying merch, or just becoming more active in the chat, you’ll quickly find that the occasional commercials aren’t the only things advertising to you during a stream. Nobody really likes watching a streamer constantly remind them of the fact that they can subscribe, and no streamer really likes having to do it either, but promotion is typically considered to be a necessary evil. But is it really? Are there ways to be successful as a streamer without doing any (or, at least, as much) self-promotion during your streams? 

➢ REMOVING CONTROL

If you played David O’Reilly’s incredible surrealist video game Everything, you’re probably familiar with speaker and self-styled ‘philosophical entertainer’ Alan Watts- he’s the guy whose audio tidbits play throughout the game. When Watts did speaking engagements, he had an interesting way of giving his presentations. He would explore deep themes and offer really profound advice, but he never considered himself a ‘self-help guru.’ 

In the game Everything, you can play as,
literally, everything.

When someone is selling the promise of personal improvement, they usually want something from you as well. To unlock the full secrets, you’ll have to buy their books, attend their seminars, and join their followings of like-minded devotees. But Watts thought of his content in another way. He described his business model as that of a physician, who he said, “is always trying to get rid of his patients.” For him, it was simply about putting his thoughts out there. When someone found value in those thoughts, that was enough. They didn’t have to come back for more talks or buy all his merchandise- if they found something to help their lives then he had done his job. 

Here’s a quote of his that I love: “I am not trying to help you or improve you; I accept you as you are. I am not out, therefore, to save the world. Of course, when a stream or a bubbling spring flows out from the mountains, it is doing its thing. And if a thirsty traveler helps himself, well that’s fine. When a bird sings, it doesn’t sing for the advancement of music, but if somebody stops to listen and is delighted, that’s fine.” This kind of content creation- modeled after a bird that sings purely for its own sake- has gone on to inspire my philosophy on making Twitch streams. I’ve spoken in other places about how this applies to the enjoyment of streaming, but here, we’ll talk about how it relates to selling your streams. 

➢ CREATE VALUE 

From the smallest electron to a massive solar 
system, all of creation is encompassed 
in this game.

How are you leaving people after they watch your broadcasts? Are you asking more from them than they are from you? Many streamers get carried away with the business side of their channels, constantly pushing others to subscribe, donate, buy merch, or support in some other way. But not everyone is going to want to do these things. And even if they did, the constant reminders could hurt more than they help. Put yourself in the viewer’s shoes. Would you rather subscribe to a channel you love after being prompted to do it by the streamer, or out of genuine appreciation for their content? In my opinion, it’s best for a streamer to first think about the value they’re putting into the world, and let the benefits come naturally. If viewers really like what you’re making, they’ll show their support. To return to the example of Alan Watts, many people did end up buying more than one book, or returning to hear him speak again. Heck, there was a whole video game created after his death, which was narrated entirely by audio clips from his public appearances. Clearly, he became well-loved for his ideas, but he didn’t need to pressure others into doing it, in order to make it happen. 

In various entries, I’ve spoken about the importance of always offering more value than you ask of others. This principle doesn’t apply only to increasing your view count or making money, it can be put into effect anywhere. This kind of ‘no expectations’ philosophy can be a major help when trying to network on Twitch, for example. Many new streamers think only of themselves when meeting other channels. They wait in the other streamer’s chat like a coiled viper, saying one or two token comments before jumping on the opportunity to mention their own channel. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen users who either directly ask for followers, or casually drop comments like “I’m about to do my stream now” to let others know they’re going live. This is not only tacky and completely transparent to the reader, but it’s also very rude. It’s an attempt to siphon viewers and attention from the other streamer’s channel into their own. You wouldn’t go to someone’s small mom and pop store and post a sign that customers could visit your own similar store instead (unless you’re Larry David, I suppose), so why do it on someone's Twitch channel? In the entry 3 Easy Tips to Network on Twitch, I went into detail about how you can create true connections with other Twitch streamers by simply enjoying their content without asking for anything in return. In the style of Alan Watts, benefits can come if they come. And if not, you made a friend along the way. But of course, friends are more likely to help each other out in the end. 

So no matter what you’re doing on Twitch, consider simply being. Create your streams, make real connections, and don’t think too hard about your bottom line. Sometimes that lack of pressure can be exactly what the viewer comes to appreciate about your content. You might just find that removing some of the promotion from your streams brings you better results than you had before. 

How to Recover from Twitch Mistakes

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 174 - How to Recover from Twitch Mistakes

Every streamer has made mistakes. It’s a natural part of the content creation process, and there’s really no way to get around it. In addition to the usual joy, excitement and companionship you’ll get from Twitch streaming, you’ll also find embarrassment, dejection and confusion to be constant companions throughout your journey. But as I mentioned in the entry On Twitch Failure is Your Friend, you should actually be welcoming the opportunity to be wrong. Making mistakes can feel bad in the moment, but the act of failure is precisely what makes us stronger. We learn lessons, and the embarrassment of failing causes those lessons to stick in our brains much more strongly than if we had simply read about them in a book. When a channel gets larger however, it can be very difficult to identify individual mistakes. Unless you make some huge blunder, the mistakes on a more seasoned stream are typically buried under years of features, graphics, and set-in habits. So if you’ve noticed a downward trend on your streams over time, but you can’t figure out what’s causing it, we’ll explore how to identify the issue and get on the path to recovery. 

➢ CLEAR YOUR MIND

Yoda would tell you the same thing.

As I’ve spoken about in many Twitch Playbook entries before, going back to basics is a great way to solve any problem. Are you having technical glitches? Maybe you can’t come up with a good style for stream graphics and layouts. It’s possible you’re becoming more forgetful in the setup process. Or you could even be seeing a dropoff in viewership. No matter what the problem, it’s usually very helpful to get to the root of the issue first. When something becomes overcomplicated, it’s difficult to trace where the issues are coming from. But if you strip your stream down to the barest essentials, all the problems suddenly become very easy to see. In the entry Simplify Your Streaming Problems, I spoke at length about this subject, and how taking your show to ‘first principles’ can help solve issues much more easily. You don’t need to keep the stream this way forever, but it’s a good way to flush out any detritus cluttering up the show while you figure things out. 

Once you have your stream simplified, try getting yourself back on track with that more basic show, before introducing anything more complex. Use the techniques I mentioned in past entries like Fix One Thing About Your Stream Every Day to help you break your larger problems down into small, easily solvable tasks. Everyone’s problems will be different, but if you come at the issue with an open mind, you’ll always have an easier time finding the solution. Let things play out slowly, get a feel for your simpler setup, and pay attention to the differences between this and your more advanced shows. If you work at this for a while, you’ll begin to notice the issues melting away, one by one. 

➢ BUILD YOURSELF BACK UP

Whenever you feel you’re getting back on track, you’ll be able to think about adding advanced features back into your stream. But don’t be too quick to restore everything that was in your original show. After all, depending on the problem you’ve been having, some of the more complicated aspects of your broadcast could be part of the issue. Re-introduce elements slowly, from the simplest to the most advanced. Keep track of the reaction to each part over the course of several streams. Does it impact your audience response? Does it make your show harder to prepare before going live? Do you feel it adds to the overall quality of the broadcast? If you feel it’s hurting your shows, consider removing that feature for now. But if it helps, you can keep it and move onto adding the next feature. In the entry Revising Your Streams from the Ground Up, I spoke about the merits of a strategy like this. On my own shows, it’s helped a lot to rebuild my content from scratch every once in a while, just to make sure I’m not losing my way.

Unless you're playing Spider-Man 2 for the
PS2. Then you really will drown by falling
into the Hudson River. 

The Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho once said, “You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.” The fact that you made a mistake on your Twitch channel isn’t going to ruin your streams. But letting yourself be dragged down by that mistake will. Many streamers are too proud to admit they’ve made mistakes, and will let the flaws eat away at their content rather than fix them. Don’t let your ego get in the way of your dreams. As long as you actively try to get yourself out of your streaming predicament, your channel will eventually end up right where you want it to be.