 I often think to myself, if I deleted all my social medias, deleted my Twitch and had to start over from the ground, could I do it again? Let's talk about streaming. I'm excited to start this series because I know it's something I've gotten very good at and something I can help you guys get better at and that's streaming, helping build your stream, helping become a better streamer because it is a booming business right now and I know a lot of you guys have a dream to essentially play video games for a living. So these are the first five initial tips I can give you. If you have any individual questions, any other concerns, any other thoughts as far as streaming is concerned, make sure you put that in the comments below and make sure you like the video. This series is going to be something that takes this YouTube channel to the next level and going to help all you guys become better streamers. So let's get into the first five initial tips. The first tip to being a streamer is pretty much a basic human quality and that's humility. He plays video games, millions of people play video games and tens of thousands of people if not hundreds of thousands of people are streaming video games on some platform in the world. So for anybody to take time out to watch you play video games, the gratitude you have to always have whether you have one person watching you or a thousand people or 10,000 people watching you, the gratitude you always have to show has to stay the same and I feel like that's just a social skill and it's something that I mean, I don't know if you can build on that, but it's always an important thing for me and always treat that one person that comes in your chat, that one person that's watching you play video games, treat them like they're super special, man. And the biggest way you can do that, I promise it sounds like a small detail, use their name, call them by their name. Now this is not only a streaming thing. This is a social, this is a social quality, it's a social skill if you're out at the bar, if you're at some high school reunion, wherever you are, use people's name. It makes them feel happy, it makes them feel welcomed, it makes them feel appreciated. So the biggest way I can tell you guys to show this humility while you're streaming is call your viewers by their name. I think it really makes them feel at home, makes them feel welcomed and it will take your viewers in your chat to have a better experience and that will ultimately make your experience better. Alright boys, number two, building a brand. Now it's kind of overwhelming when you hear that, you don't have to be Nike, you don't have to be Apple, you don't have to be Tesla. Sometimes that's what you think of when you hear brands. It's more about your identity on the internet. And there's two things you can do to make that more viable. And the first one everybody should agree with, that's brand unity. For me, I want to make sure you have the same name or at least a similar name on every social media platform because there's so many people that come to my Twitch chat and say, you know, I messaged you on Instagram, why didn't you answer me? Why don't you follow me back on Twitter? Well, if you're Dark Knight 14 on Twitch and then you're Mike Smith on Twitter, how am I supposed to know that's the same person? So I would go about making sure all your social medias are the same name, at least similar. I don't have the same name on every social media. I would love dub dot w on every social media, but Instagram is dub underscore dot so on and so forth. There's a little variations, but it's the same identity. And you got to carry that throughout all your social medias. And that that's super important. Now the second one, I believe this is my philosophy. This is my, my thoughts. Now you can agree or this may be somebody else would disagree, but I feel like your face, your voice, who you are is, is super important. And it's ultimately what's going to make you successful as a streamer. Nobody's going to watch you because of your gameplay. Be honest, I don't know, no matter how good you think you are, nobody's really going to watch you because of your gameplay. It could be a start, you're good. It could be something that boosts you up, but you're not going to make it a job by just your gameplay. It's just super hard, super rough. I mean, your personality and your face is what's most important, man. So I've always felt like your face has to be the forefront. Your face has to be your profile picture. Your face has to be part of your Twitch stream. Face cams, so on and so forth, because that's what makes you identifiable. It makes you relatable to the people watching you. It makes you feel like another human. It goes back to that welcoming feeling. Kind of like the first one I talked about, humility, calling people by their names, having your face, the forefront of your brand, I think is super important. And that's why I would always make yourself your profile picture on Twitch, on Twitter, everything like that, man. You have to be different from everybody else. No one else has your face. Nobody else has your personality. You are the reason people will tune into not because you play Madden, not because you play Fortnite, but because you're you. So that's why I always think your face should be the cornerstone of the brands you're building. Number three, this is probably the most important thing. It's a big realization that everybody should have streaming. Streaming is a job. It is not playing video games for eight hours. You have to use every single social media platform to get your content out there. If you sit on Twitch for eight hours with eight viewers, you have not built your Twitch at all. You know, you had fun, you played video games, you might have got some subs. You might have got some more followers, but did you build your stream more? I've always equated the stream to kind of a lake, right? Your stream is your lake. How can we get some tributary little ponds, creeks and rivers going into this lake, right? And your other social media platforms are those tributaries, are those rivers and creeks going into your stream. They will build your stream up, whether it be Twitter content, whether it be Instagram stories, whether it be TikTok, whether it be YouTube, which is probably the most important one. You have to put your content on those other platforms to funnel the water into your lake. That's pretty much what I've always equated to. If you sit on a boat in your lake and stream for 12 hours, it's really not that beneficial if you're sitting there with five or six subs. In fact, me, who's going to get, you know, 1500 to 2000 people watching me play Madden when the game drops, it's almost not beneficial for me to stream for eight to 12 hours. So if you're out there with, you know, 10 viewers, 20 viewers, something like that, it's definitely not beneficial for you. Use those other social media platforms to funnel people's eyes to your stream, to your content. Those are your biggest tools. Those are your biggest rivers and tributaries into your lake that is your stream, man. And that's when you realize, okay, um, playing video games for eight hours, sitting on the video game all day, even though I'm making money is not as beneficial as sitting down and putting some work into my content and really pushing it out on every platform I can to attract more viewers. And that's something I realized. I get paid a career's worth of money to play video games, but video games still stop me from reaching my potential. Playing video games still kind of hampers me from being the best I can be. And that's something you realize the further you get down. Of course you're excited to get paid, you know, to sit on Twitch and play video games, but you could be benefiting yourself better by putting out more content on other platforms. So make sure you're utilizing other platforms. So for me, if, say you, you a lot eight hours a day, I'm going to work on my stream. I'm going to work on my content, want to work on my gaming career. I would venture if you put in two solid hours of streaming and you've got to schedule down and let people know. I'm going to 6pm to 8pm every night. The other six hours, I'm going to make a YouTube video. I'm going to edit my videos and find some highlights from last night's stream. I'm going to work. I'm going to spend some time on Twitter replying to other people. I'm going to spend some time in some other streams, getting to know viewers, getting to know other streamers. I'm going to spend time moving my brand and getting my brand on other platforms would be more beneficial than you sitting on Twitch for eight hours playing video games. And it's a hard realization. It's one that I'm still making now and I have to improve on. So most definitely you do as well. And that's number three, man. Use all these platforms available to you. All right, boys. Number four, this is something I see people kind of make an excuse to why they're not streaming or what they're waiting on equipment. Equipment is super overwhelming. It is super confusing for regular people. I was a guy that just liked to play Madden. I didn't know a microphone from a mouse. I didn't know a capture card from a video card. I didn't know, you know, HDMI cables, all these things that are super overwhelming for a regular person that has a regular job, that lives a regular life. Now, now I'm kind of tech savvy, equipment savvy, of course, but it took me four or five years of being in this field to really get to where I'm at now. And we're going to do tons of videos about equipment, what you need to use as far as camera, microphone, capture cards, computers, everything. We will do it. But I want to make sure in this intro to tell you guys, don't let that be the reason why you're not streaming. And also, say you don't have a computer, you can put work on on social media with your identity, with your brand that you built, you can put work on. You can reply to people's tweets. You can hop in people's chat on Twitch. You can spend time talking to other people. I would tell you, even if you don't have equipment, you can go and reply to gut foxes tweet about Madden. You can go reply to Nick Marks tweet and about call duty. You can go to reply to somebody that replied to somebody replied and you know what? Hey, maybe you made a met a new friend on social media. Now this guy will tune into your stream and you can do all that from your phone. You don't need equipment to do that. You can build your brand. You can build those rivers to your lake without equipment right away, man. And another thing I want you guys to understand, you don't just snap your fingers and have a streaming setup. You know, I don't do I didn't just wake up and say, boom, I have a $10,000 streaming setup. Let's go. I'm ready. Day one. That's not how it works. You build this stuff over time this year. You know, I might get a new camera. Oh, this month I might get a new microphone. You know, I might get new overlays. I might get something looking good on my stream. In fact, I want to show you guys what my stream looked like throughout the years. Now the bottom right is where I'm at now with this camera, this overlay, these lights, this background, but you can take a look at my other years, the other years of Madden from Madden 17 in the top left, where I think I was on a laptop camera I had. I will tell you, I started streaming on a 60 inch plasma TV and it was through Xbox one. And my chat was literally embedded in the screen of the plasma TV. I streamed from the console. That's how I started streaming in Madden 16. And I believe I would probably get up to 20 to 30 viewers streaming directly from the console. So equipment should never hold you back and you build it up throughout the years. It is not something you have to buy all at once. Don't think a stream set up is going to cost you $5,000. Maybe when it's all said and done, but you got to get little things at a time. You're not going to get it all at once. And this is something I'm obviously want to do tons more videos about as far as equipment is concerned, helping your streaming setup get better, but don't let it be the reason you're not putting work in to build your brand and build your stream right now. Number five, the last tip in the most important one that has helped me become a better streamer and really elevated my performance, elevated my mood, elevated my overall entertainment value, everything about it. This has helped me the most in my streaming career because I'll be honest. This field, it is a constant comparable field where you're always looking at somebody else, how am I doing compared to them? Can I do better than them? Oh, such and such a streaming right now. This is going to hurt me. I'm not going to get as many viewers if they're streaming. I don't want to compete with them. And you're always comparing yourself to somebody else. And the worst part about it is you're always comparing yourself to somebody that's doing better than you. And it's a constant thing that weighs on you while you're streaming. And it really kind of depresses you. It doesn't allow you to have fun. It's something you're always thinking about. You're always counting viewers. You're always counting money. And this is what I did. And this is something that has helped me immensely. It cannot be it cannot be counted. It cannot be imagined how much this has helped me. But this is what I look at when I'm streaming. This is my Twitch dashboard. As you see right here, I see my followers. I see my subs on the right side. My chat is over here on the left side. But as you see the top, you see your session, you see your total follower number, your bit rate. Make sure your stream is operating well, your subscribers, sub points. And what's not up there is viewers. I removed viewers from my dashboard. When I am streaming, I have no idea how many people are watching me. I don't know if it's a thousand people. I don't know if there's 10 people. And this has allowed me to just focus on the people that are actually in my chat and not the ones that are somewhere else. It has helped me not compare myself to other people. It has helped me focus on giving that humility we talked about earlier to the people that are currently in my chat. So that is the number one thing that I decided to do, probably going into Mad 19 and really elevated and really allowed me to focus on my performance as a streamer, as a gamer, and not get into that comparable field where I'm like, I haven't been getting as many viewers the last couple hours. Maybe I should get off and it hasn't made me depressed. It hasn't made me compare myself to other people. And on top of that, I don't care who else is streaming. I don't. When I first started, you know, man, if problems on, maybe I shouldn't stream. Maybe I should try to work my way around his schedule because he's the biggest man streamer. Same with gut fox, man, these guys are going to take all the views if I'm on. If you're going to allow other people to dictate when you work, you won't be successful. Period. So just go ahead and go after it. Keep a schedule. Stay committed, man. And I removed the viewer count. If you want to do that, I would suggest doing it because it removed all of that all of that stress of how many viewers I'm getting. And it really allowed me to focus on my performance and not compare myself to other people. I never know who else is on Twitch. I never know how many viewers I have. And that allows me to just give back that humility. Be appreciative of the ones that are in my chat and are watching me play video games because at the end of the day, when you step back from the streaming stuff, the fact somebody is watching you do anything is pretty cool.