When I launched StreamBig.net, the goal was always to give smaller streamers the tools they needed to grow their stream. Over the course of the past few months I’ve gotten a lot of questions regarding networking opportunities through StreamBig. These thoughts have led to the launch of “Featured Streamer Fridays”

Every Friday, I will be spotlighting a smaller streamer who is doing their best to Stream Big! How do you get your stream spotlighted? Send an email to streambig.net@gmail.com with the following information!


Twitch URL: 
Twitter:
What You Stream: (Examples: Speedrunning (what games), Variety Streamer, League of Legends, CS:GO, etc.)
When You Typically Stream:
Highlight of You Streaming Big:
Article on Streambig.net that has helped you out the most and why:
Elevator Pitch:

I’ll be going through the submissions and choosing one to two per week! I’ll typically be looking for streamers that have less than 2,000 followers, but on occasion ill make some exceptions! I’m excited to see how you guys are streaming big, and I’m looking forward to showcasing some new streamers!

Today's Featured Streamer: Grav

Twitch
twitch.tv/grav 

Twitter
@graviton29

What do you Stream?
Speedruns of Doom 64, Blast Corps, Pilotwings 64, and Bubsy 1.

When You Typically Stream
Evenings or late nights on unscheduled days.

Highlight of You Streaming Big

I love 24 hour marathons. Over my three years of streaming, I’ve completed many 24 hour streams. I’ve even been crazy enough to attempt and complete a 48 hour marathon. 24 hour marathons have great potential in helping grow your stream. With how great long marathons are, streamers need to know how to effectively do one without putting their health at risk. Today I want to cover the steps in preparing for a 24 hour marathon so that you not only survive one, but successfully grow your stream from one!

Planning and Prep

Not doing any type of planning is one of the first mistakes people make when doing a 24 hour stream. While some streamers will randomly decide to do a stream like this out of the blue, I would not recommend it.

The first thing you want to plan is what you’re actually going to do during the 24 hour stream. If you’re a speedrunner, maybe you want to play through a lot games that you know how to speedrun. If you’re a casual/variety streamer, maybe you want to marathon through one whole game in a day, or play through a bunch of new games that came out recently! Whatever you decide to do, make sure that it’s actually something that you WANT to do for 24 hours. People forget how easy it is to get bored of playing the same game for 24 hours straight! Don’t make that mistake!

You’ll also want to plan when you’ll play each game. The last thing you want to do is play a game that requires a lot of thinking like a puzzle game at the end of the stream when you’re extremely tired. Playing games with viewers/subs for the last few hours is always a safe plan if you’re just looking for something relaxing to finish out the marathon.

If you’ve been around the block on Twitch you’ll probably notice a certain trend that seems to be happening more and more these days: giveaways. Let’s be honest, everyone loves getting free stuff. If you promise me that I have a chance to win a free game of my choice and all I have to do is show up to your stream at a certain time, I’ll most likely show up. But as a streamer you have to ask yourself, is the investment of a giveaway actually paying off in growing your stream? Today I want to look at how effectively these stream giveaways attract a new audience and also how streamers can go overboard.

How They Work

​So let’s break down how the giveaway process works. A streamer decides they are going to give some sort of prize to anyone who is following their stream at an unspecified time during the stream to anyone who is in the chat and following. Usually they are going to use a bot such as nightbot or moobot to randomly choose someone from the chat once the time has come. The goal here is to keep viewers in your stream as long as possible so that they get a chance to see what your stream is all about. By having it at a random time, it means that people have to come early and stay late. How big the prize is will determine how likely they are to stay. Streamers will usually include info about the giveaway in their stream title to grab attention for those looking through the directory.

But how effective is this method in actually bringing people back? Remember, you could have 1,000 people in your stream for your giveaway, but if most of them leave and never come back, are you really accomplishing what you want? I recently polled close to 200 users on how giveaways affect their likeliness to stay. Here were the results:

Whether you like it or not, when you choose to mod someone you are basically saying that those chosen viewers are now representatives of your stream. These are hand-picked individuals that you deem worthy to keep the peace in your chat at all times. When they over-extend their power and go on a banning spree, you will take the blame. In today’s post I want to show you why having mods that are too strict or too loose could be hurting the future of your stream.

No-Fun Zone

Let’s be honest, you didn’t come to a Twitch stream to feel like you’re in the library of your middle school again. I always had the worst librarians in my school, who made sure I suffered and squashed any idea of fun as soon as it materialized. In so many chats that I’ve been in, it honestly feels like that with the way mods swing their mod hammers around. Now I get it, you want to keep trolls out and you want to make sure everyone can enjoy themselves. But this does not mean you need to ban every single person that slightly trolls or asks why people are getting banned. I see so many mods that ban at the very hint of sarcasm, a joke, or asking a legitimate question that might come across as trolling. This trend needs to stop. We are talking about someone playing a video game, not going to Church on Sunday.