Tag Archives: Help

How I Write My Blog Posts

Life, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When I first started seriously blogging I had nearly no idea what I was doing. Literally none. I just wanted to be a blogger and I kind of did it however it was more rants and totally sporadic. There was no rhyme or reason. That is until I though blogging could be a serious way to make some type of footprint in the world of writing.

I started blogging seriously in preparation for my son. I was a streamer and would stream pretty heavy hours. I wanted to branch out into more than just streaming. I always loved writing and thought this could be a great way to still produce some type of content while waiting for my son to be born. Though the schedule was a bit tricky I could still schedule posts and pre-write them so I was still putting out content even when he was still a newborn and I had little to no sleep.

I first started with goals for blogging. That would be to try to have some growth and see where it goes. I knew I wanted to see if i could eventually make some kind of income though I still have legit no idea how to make that happen as of right now but I am working on growing followers as well as my email mailing list. I think that is good starts for it as well. I had dabbled with the idea of starting a blog in the past however I had no idea where I wanted to start or how I would go about it even. I had done a few posts but never really knew or understood how I would go about growing it, continuing, how often to post or anything. When I became pregnant with my son I knew that I wanted to take it a big more seriously and try to get something happening.

When I first decided to blog, I believe I posted on a few different days, still two days a week though but it was all about streaming. I thought because I was a streamer that I had to write about something that I knew. Which was streaming. I wasn’t really a big streamer by any means just one that was around a long time and felt like I could offer some tips and tricks to people if they wanted to see what it was about. I would strictly post about streaming like that was my niche. I know it seemed like a good idea. I was posting it on twitter when I was publishing posts and then I was seeing how it would go. I never really posted it anywhere and didn’t do anything to push them out. I just “hoped” that people would read them. They didn’t. After about the summer I realized that it was time to change it up. I started to write about my life, different aspects like parenting, funny stories, little rants. And well, here we are if you are familiar with my blogs you will see I don’t really have a “niche” per-say but I still do quite well I think!

Since I don’t really have any specific subject that I write about, it can be challenging to narrow down something to actually write about. What I normally do is if I am away from the computer I will save the title in my phone in a notepad and when I have a handful saved Ill save them into word press as a draft. It can be the weirdest times that something pops up. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes it has to do with something on TV or somethings it has to do with food or life or parenting in general. You can see that I kind of have a random amount of topics in here and to be fair, I just cant really narrow it down though!

I structure paragraphs after I figure out the title. I typically have an intro and outro which is standard I assume, and questions at the end of the post. In the middle I try to if I can write in subject words for the paragraphs where I can just start writing. Just words to break down what I am thinking and to help the flow with my train of though. For this I had the words “Paragraphs” and the next was “Googling Occasionally for idea jolts” to help with what I need to write about. I find it helps prevent me from having a writers blog mid way through a post, however if that does happen I have learned to leave the post and then come back to it at a later date to finish!

Sometimes I occasionally will google “blog ideas” and see if anything triggers some ideas for myself. I don’t like writing the standard posts I want to put my own spin on them. Sometimes when you google topics it can give you a very generic idea and I like to hone in on something more specific. Is that good or bad? I am not entirely sure since it can be maybe a little too specific. But I don’t want to write blogs full of fluff or rainbows. I want to write about real life subjects even if they are a bit tough too.

I would say my first year blogging I did OK, I went too hard on one subject but overall I think it could be a lot worse and I STILL could be writing things about streaming and going no where. But instead I changed my focus and here we are nearly at 200 followers and working on getting more daily/weekly/monthly views.

My goal by the end of 2021 would be to have about 500 followers on the blog. And hopefully in the process grow my email list which I think could be a great tool to use as well too. I think the hardest part is admitting that something I started might not be the same as when I finished. If I knew or thought about changing subject I would have done it a lot sooner. And to be fair, I have a lot more fun and enjoyment talking about subjects randomly instead of the same things about streaming and gaming all of the time.

How did you find this blog?
Are you a blogger yourself?
If so, What do you blog about?

Let me know in the comments below!

– Stacey

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What channel bots to use?

Streaming, , , , , , , , , ,

Choosing a bot to stream with can be daunting due to the fact there is really hundreds of bots that have different features and levels of skills required to use them and set them up. Ill be going through the few bots that I have used since I started streaming and ones I am really not a fan of to hopefully help you in making a decision in which to use in your streams!

When I first started streaming (As mentioned in so many blogs previously) I didnt have the monitors or bells and whistles so to speak. I had a TV and my playstation. I had the chat pop up on my screen for a while then switched to having my laptop open with my stream so that I could see what was happening. I started using Vivbot because while I was able to stream from playstation and unable to use overlays (I never got a capture card till way later!) I wanted to use this as it was easy for me to see who was following me so that I was able to thank them for supporting the channel. I also wanted a main bot like Nightbot to put majority of commands that viewers could check out and use when they needed as it wasnt really required to have a PC for it but a lot of streamers seemed to have their stuff and timers there as well too.

Fast forward now, I still use nightbot and the amount of commands it has grown to is INSANE! I try to add the commands that i want to be there forever as it is so versatile. There are commands that are there since my streaming from a playstation day and there are also some that i have added recently. The amount of things that you can do is incredible and whenever i see a cool command from anotehr chat I just take it and put it on my channel. Nightbot, in my opinion has to be one of the most used bots across twitch because it really is user friendly as well too. Now that I am on a PC I also use streamlabs chat bot. I use this for my timers, temporary and perminent as well, and I also use it for my hcat games like heisting and betting too. Its a bit more complicated to set up while I have had a friend do that due to the fact that it had to be connected to an account which I made TheSocietyBot to represent my community that I have. Some people connect them to their own channels and it will post certain things on their behalf, I thought this made the channel a bit better this way!

While finding a bot you should ask yourself what you would like the bot to do. Do you want it to just put out timers or also commands. Do you want it to have games or interactive things as well. Finding a bot that is for you can be challenging however if you know what you want it can narrow down the search. A good practice too is if you notice a bot in someones channel that you watch a lot then you can see the different things that have set up for it also too. I knew I wanted timers, some games for chat and also some commands. Thats why I choose nightbot and streamlabs chatbot which I still use in my streams today. one feature I had no desire to see was the one which shows you every so often the amount of viewers in your chat through the chat. No one wants to see it consinutesly update to 1 or 2 viewers. I also do giveaways quite frequantly on my channel and was looking at something that could be easy to use for giveaways and make it fair for others. I use mainly streamlabs chatbot but nightbot can also do this feature if needed too.

Popular bots that I have seen across twitch is for sure Nightbot, as well as Streamlabs Chatbot. I always still recommend Vivbot as well if someone is unable to have another monitor to have them or overlays to be abel to see alerts rigth on the screen.

As a new streamer I would suggest this: If you choose a bot MAKE SURE it does not post you are live on twitter. If you start this you will feel lay and soon your profile will be the filled with the exact same posts which will be a major turnoff from new potential followers. As mentioned above a particular one I know Wiebot has something that puts in your chat how long you have been live and viewers whether they go up or down every so often. Remove that feature. You do not need to see how your viewers flucuate whether you are new or old at the streaming game. It can be a really big moral boost watching it post you are losing viewers every half an hour. Make sure that you are also aware of what features that the bot you do choose has. If you can choose a bot with more features that you want it will save a lot of time than setting up multiple bots with one feature on each one! I only have had 2 bots going at once and I cannot imagine having more. You also will need to make the bot a mod in your chat in order for it to do certain things. Not to mention as well, If you are new and are not sure who to mod or make a mod set up an auto filter on a bot so that it can help if you only have yourself managing chat or the person or people you have modded arent around!

Regardless of which bot you decide to add to your stream, there really is endless possibilities on which you would like to use for whichever purpose. And if you get sick of one or it changes chances are there will be another that can do all the features you like and more!

-StaySeeJ08 xo

Twitch, They continuously miss the mark.. Time and time again.

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I think its safe to say that people who know of the streaming community can agree that twitch is dropping the ball in terms of their many misses in recent months. From their emote add ones to running ads in the most absolutely wrong way, here is some specific things as well as suggestions from the community. Just because Twitch is the biggest streaming platform whose rival appears to be YouTube gaming OR Facebook who recently worked to get their Partners free from some DMCA claims, the way Twitch is NOT handling situations is really making them stand out for all the wrong reasons.

First let’s begin with their ever so invasive ads that would essentially force the streamer to either run them on their own or be forced for a picture in picture experience for the viewer. Why is this bad because they happen at the most inopportune times for the streamer, From beating a boss or an epic kill in a battle royale game, it really is not helping the viewer experience in any way, shape, or form.

A particular streamer is also not happy with these ads and rightfully so. Quiltoni is a quilter and educator on the platform. While streaming and running a family friendly PG stream twitch decided (Or whatever the algorithm is) to run a Trojan (Condom) Ad during this time. This is a detrimental part of their stream due to the fact that it can and is broadcast in quilting supply stores as quoted by;
Quiltoni:
“They also may have just killed my relationship with a store that has me live.”
Quiltoni also mentioned that their channel does not have the 18+ (Mature Audience) Filter on either. However by having that type of system in place Twitch can use that to help filter ads that can be damaging to a streamers channel. And I couldn’t agree more. If Twitch is going to force ads on the streamers we should at least have a say in what type of ads are shown on their also. An 18+ channel would be better suited for the beer and condom ads instead of a family friendly stream for other types of things.
( You can find their twitter here for all links: https://twitter.com/quiltoni )

Then there was the emote add-ons by twitch to celebrate the Hispanic Community on the platform which was met with IMMEDIATE backlash due to their extremely stereotypical designs. Now, I myself am a White Female and have never been met with racism before therefore I obviously am not going to speak on that. However I will say this, Why is it that it took a community backlash to prevent/remove these from being released? How many people did this particular change have to go through in order to have them approved? I feel like as a company as large as Twitch or even Amazon that there are some obvious marks about cultural appropriation that have been missed here. Why are people not informed on these particular issues OR better yet, why was the community not all asked on what they think could be a great way to start in terms of adding content to the platform that showcases this.

I also would like to mention that after year and year and year on the platform why has the support system not been updated? The ticket system is flawed at best and there is 0 live support for something that might be needed such as the hate raids that have been popping up in streams more and more frequently. This is where particular streams are targeted with bots or actual people and spamming hate speech where the mods are banning and constantly trying to rectify the situation and making chat safe again. There still are MANY MANY user names that are coming out and “beating the system” so to speak with their way of being written so that they are still allowed in chat. I feel like as a company there should be better ways to make this change happen to prevent so many names from being allowed on the platform. This would go along the lines of why are people who are banned from the channel still able to search and view the channel? (This was mentioned by a tweeter saying that Mixer when it was live actually had a feature that you could not see a channel had you been banned from it). Let along do we need to talk about view bots and how they are still around the platform CONTINUOUSLY!

I think the most frustrating thing from a streamer perspective is that Twitch as a company appears to be a) all about money (as most large company’s do), b) They appear to be more and more about “Smoke and Mirrors” in terms of trying to make it seem like they want the community involved when they really arent involved at all. Case and point would be when they wanted to bring a diverse group together as part of this Safety Counsel however all it was doing was to protect the company by creating policies, Oh and did I forget to mention how one prominent member thought they would go on a bit of a rant about how they were protected from anything and were near “God-Like” due to being on this counsel.

As for streaming asking for things something as seemingly simple as discoverability for the content creators on the platform Twitch doesn’t really do a whole lot their. They took away the “Communities” feature and decided to go with tags which is still again, extremely challenging to find up and coming creators. Why is something that could greatly benefit the streamer community as a whole something on the back burner or not even thought of?

Should we even mention the Sub-tember that focuses on new subscribers and not old ones. I get it, From a marketing perspective you want to bring new viewers in to subscribe for you to make money, And the people who continually sub already will keep doing so, But why not please both? Is that a difficult task to do? Or is it still about money here?

Not to mention, Kudos to Twitch for doing SOMETHING among the sexual abuse accusations that are happening. My only thing is I believe they should be more transparent with what is happening here. They are banning permanently people who have a lot of evidence for them and the crimes that they have committed. They have taken the accusations towards people seriously. I do believe that people are slipping under the radar because they are “bigger” streamers and pulling in viewers. Not to mention their viewers are also harassing the people who have proof and accusing them. The fact they are doing things I will say is progress for sure. Especially for such a delicate issue.

I guess as you can tell there really is some major flaws with Twitch and the direction that they are going. When it comes to listening to the streamers across the platform they really aren’t doing a whole lot to keep them around or offering anything more that other platforms are now. I hope that they do see this and the suggestions and work towards trying to make Twitch a safer place. Also Twitch, Remember, Just because you may be the leading platform in streaming currently, Doesn’t mean that you are going to stay there OR that you can and should slack on what the greater community would like to see.

-StaySeeJ08



YouTube Adventure.. Send Help!

Life, Streaming, Youtube, , , , , , ,

YouTube can be stressful. From thumbnails to clips to help promote your video on twitter, editing, recording, etc. For someone like me I felt it was something I would hold off on. Though I know that to grow on twitch you have to plant the content seeds on other platforms to drive traffic to your channel. I’m slowly figuring out with the help of some reading and thing from a streamer AshnieChrist that it is important to go into! Here is my thought process to taking this plunge.

What do I make videos of?
I have a 6 month old so something easy would be great. I wanted to start with 2 types of videos. One more of a help or thoughts focused on streaming where I take blogs I have written here and bring them to video in a series I’d like to call “Backseat Blogger” Things I have learned or things that I have thought about the industry. I will be going more into games once I start doing more gaming or dead by daylight blogs. That will be one type of video. The next type of video will be something I like to call “baked beauty” where I smoke weed and do funny makeup videos and things while baked. Thirdly I was thinking about doing a video when I have enough clips a series in Dead by Daylight where I am jump scared multiple times, this is more of a “when available” basis because I need to have enough clips per killer to make that. Plus the occasional fun games like no headsets which can be used on my channel for redeeming channel points.

When do I want to upload?
I want to upload at least 2x per week Mondays will be my backseat blogger videos. And then the “Baked Beauty” will be coming out on “Fr-HIGH-days hahaha.. see what I did there. Then the dead by daylight content will be out on Wednesdays when Available. Same with compilations for The Society, they will be once a month as well when enough clips get put in discord.

When do I record?
The Backseat blogger ones are easier in a sense. As soon as my son has a nap I can hit record and have a blog turned video entry ready to be edited. That is the simple part of recording. However what I did last time was I recorded about 4 videos in the span of an hour or so one evening and then I have them ready to be edited which I can do on the fly when I am free of housework or when the little fella is sleeping for a nap. Baked Beauty I normally record on Fridays or Thursdays or even Saturday night after my son went to bed because I am able to have puff. Before there are judging eyes since I am a parent there is one person sober in the house (My Boyfriend) who is able to take care of things if things happened. Those are harder to edit because I am hilarious and I don’t know what to cut haha.

How the heck do I edit?
Slowly. I edit slowly. I have never edited videos IN MY LIFE! Seriously, NEVER! I use a program called Divinci Resolve. It is a free software with a paid version as well and I edit them on that. It is a lot to learn from someone like me but with the help of YouTube tutorials I am able to do a quick search with a step by step process on how to do what I want. I typically also edit when my son is sleeping. And as I do more videos it is getting a bit quicker or I will be editing during Community Hangouts on Thursdays as a bit of downtime to connect with other society members!

What is the hardest parts so far?
I would say editing and recording. I knew that I wanted to be fully prepped for when I started youtube. One of the hardest things I think in any content creation is having the ability to plan and schedule things while being consistent. No one really follows someone who has never posted or when they do it is all over the place and not consistent. My boyfriend and I used to watch someone named Ray William Johnson, He had a show called Equals 3 when he would go through a few youtube videos per week or every other day or whatever. We watched him religiously. Then he stopped. Just like that. And we never looked back. Unless you can be consistent you cannot or will not see growth in my opinion. I think I have a pretty good handle on this to be able to do it properly AND even maybe bank some youtube videos so that I am able to have some relief. I dont want to spend a lot of time editing and recording and things but with the plan I have in place it seems to be going well.


Before I finish I will say this, AshniChrist (I know I talk about her a lot!) recently has had a YouTube FREE training session in her discord. She has VOD links and a few other things in there. I will be adding the link here so you can feel free to check it out. She is even offering a course in how to do YouTube better. She basically solidified that I am on the right path for my plan for YouTube. If I didn’t have a son and was regularly working I would be probably signing up for the course but due to limited funds I just am not in the financial position to do so. Discord here: https://discord.com/invite/ashnichrist

When it comes to investing in education to make yourself set up for success or learning new things about an industry that you love, DO IT! If you are financially able to of course, You would if you were trying to become a doctor or nurse, the same applies for content creation too!

Happy Creating and Good Luck! (Myself included!)

-StaySee xo