Before I begin, Id like to say that some of these topics are from people on twitter and their names are omitted just in case they did not want to be part of this but wanted their 2 cents to be added in. I will be sharing my views on them as well since chances are Ive probably encountered them as well too!

1) FOLLOW FOR FOLLOW WILL NOT HELP YOU GROW
The only time that I have ever seen this being MAYBE okay is when someone is nearing 50 followers.
“But Stacey, It does totally work you know”
No. It doesn’t. When I first started streaming I was in a community that was just this. The main person would go live and they allowed  people to legit follow for follow folks regularly in their chat. Sure this sounds great in theory BUT here is how it doesn’t.
For example: Say I’m in this chat for a few hours when said main person is live. Say I do this a few times during the week and one week I follow between 250-300 new people. And say those same people follow me back. GREAT! Right, Now I have an extra number of followers. Its starting to look like I have a handle on this streaming thing! WRONG! You need to ask yourself #1, How the heck am I supposed to support 250-300 people and make myself seen by them in there chats enough to be impactful and them wanting to actually visit my streams. #2, How are these people supposed to come to my streams if they also followed the same amount of people? They don’t. All that follow for follows does is inflate your follower number and then when you have about 4000 followers and average maybe 3 viewers they wonder why this is the case when there was never actually ANY real connection for people to want to enjoy your content.
++ THIS INCLUDES THOSE TWEETS LIKE:
” Lets grow together,
1. Follow me
2. Post your link
3. Follow everyone back.
4. SUPPORT FOR SUPPORT”

This does NOT work either.
The only thing this is actually doing on twitter for example, is inflating the amount of impressions that a tweet is getting. The chances of that person who first posted the tweet for interactions will never be checking out your stream, however will be reaping the benefits of so many people seeing their post and following them blindly.

2) When using twitter, Stop using TOO many hashtags
Contrary to what people may think. Twitter is not Instagram. Instagram is designed for hashtags. You fill you’re posts up with as many as you possibly can. That’s the goal after all. Twitter? Not the same. According to the majority of people as well as some algorithms anything over 3 hashtags will slowly but surely hide your tweets. It also depends on the context of your hashtags. If you are using #SupportSmallStreamers or tags along those lines it a) Makes you look like you are stuck in that mentality of only being a small streamer (Don’t worry, I also was stuck in this mind set as well too) and b) If someone has this hashtag muted/blocked (Maybe the tag made their home page super cloudy and they were no longer seeing tweets that they were interested in) Then your tweets are hidden and thus limiting who potentially sees your tweets. Using hashtags based on the games you play ie: #Fortnite, #BR, #Dbd, etc and or Tagging a profile of the game you play work a hell of a lot better then using random ones in there. Remember to try to change it up and if you have to research which tags are popular for games you play do it! If you only ever use the same tags you will still be reaching the same amount of people and you want to be reaching new people as well too! Also, STOP using irrelevant tags. If you are playing Fortnite, Dont use tags for different BR’s or popular games. ie: #Fortnite #Overwatch #EscapeFromTarkov .. It makes you look silly and that you don’t know how hashtags work. It can also be seen as false advertising when you want to promote 25 other games which you are playing one of its competitors.  If you use too many hashtags to the point that people have to ask themselves while looking at your tweet “I wonder which game they are actually playing” Then it might be time to clean up your tags.

3) Support for support is overrated
From a Tweeter: “Support support and support was the advice given and I did that for almost 4 straight months when I was unemployed and people supported me back. Then I got a job and couldn’t support as much and everyone stopped helping me so ya support is way over rated.”

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These types of communities can be extremely difficult to be successful. The fact is unless you are giving a whole lot of support, You will not get much back. People want to do something when they get something in return. This is why all these “Point” communities and “Lurk” communities are super unsuccessful. When twitch changed the algorithm to prevent this from happening people were no longer getting the gratification they felt they needed from this. The short of this, Support who YOU want to support. Don’t support because you expect anything from the streamer or in return. If you enjoy someones content then just support! And you never know what will come back in the process. Streaming is a very difficult career to get into. You will be doing a lot of live hours for little to no justification in the beginning, and especially if you are not working on other socials and are only clicking the go live button.

4) You don’t need to be oozing positivity to be successful
From a Tweeter: “A positive attitude everyone always talks about how you have to stay positive and how positive attitude makes all the difference. The truth is it doesn’t. Yeah you can’t be mopey while you’re live on stream But Being positive itself doesn’t make a difference”
This is completely relatable. Sure having positive vibes is great. But if you are only projecting this type of mentality and people sense that it is fake they wont stick around. It is a great attitude to have being positive by everything that is for sure true, BUT if you have no weird/wacky/sad times people will think that it is just a show and a facade. Positivity is great, But so is being real too. I actually have an entire blog post written about Fake Positive People, If you want to check that one you are are more than welcome to read it here!

5) Being unique will make you successful
From a tweeter: “Be Unique.
Nah.. don’t worry about being unique, worry about being yourself. There will always be people out there that vibe with you. You don’t have to have a gimmick or a schtick or a special thing.”
You will not be the next Doc, Shroud, xQc or even Lirik. Don’t try to mimic someone else and their success. Be who YOU are. Whether that is thinking of a new personality, just chatting with viewers or being yourself in general. You do not need to have a “fake” personality in order to grow. Doc created his personality, Want to do the same? Do it, But don’t try to BE Doc. It will not work. You will find viewers are more genuine when you are genuine with them.

6) Streaming more means better success
From a Tweeter: “I’m just starting to stream myself, and already I have been amazed with all the conflicting advice from pretty established #Streamers .
Worst Advice IMHO: Make your whole life about streaming.
Best Advice IMHO: Be yourself and enjoy the experience. 🙂 “
Streaming more does NOT increase your discoverability. Fact is if you are streaming 12 hour streams multiple days a week to maybe 1-4 viewers that could be time way better spent streaming more consistently, for less time, and focus on different platforms. The hardest part is to bring in new viewers from different places. Then it is completely up to you to keep them coming to your channel!

7) STOP SELF PROMO THIS INCLUDES VEILED PROMOS!
One of the worst things that you can do is self promote in SOMEONE else’s channel. DON’T EVER DO THIS. This includes the veiled comments like this:
– Hey, Whats up
– Oh not much here, Okay, Going to start my stream here, Have a great time!”

THIS IS STILL SELF PROMO!
Change your wording, I’m heading to get some games in, I have to run and get things done. It shows a lot more class. If you go into a stream and the streamer asks you how your streams are going or opens the door for you. Sure, talk about your streams (Modestly of course) And don’t go on about them entirely. Mention it and if the streamer keeps the conversations going do it. but don’t keep the subject. Focus on the stream that you are in, not your own. That’s what you do on your own channel!

Hopefully this is informative for anyone who might be new. I’m sure I missed a bunch but this was also based on the community when asked my twitter! If you want to be part of these keep an eye out for my poll tweets to better be able to vote and participate in future blogs!