Is It Too Late to Become a Twitch Streamer?
A quick answer. No. It’s never too late. Let’s discuss the reasons why and how you can stand out in a noisy, busy streaming world.
We’ve broken this guide down into six sections:
- How do you stand out?
- Growth mentality
- Find your niche
- Work hard & ‘grind’
- Time-management
- Are you too ever too old?
There are so many opportunities and so many new ways to approach something that may seem ‘too hard’. Don’t let the fact Twitch is popular, or you think you’re not good enough to be the excuse in stopping you from living your dream and passions.
How do you stand out from the noise?
The simple answer is…
As long as you are making entertaining, authentic content that is somewhat different from everything else out there. You’ll stand out from the noise.
But honestly, not all streamers need to find their own unique niche — a lot of people are going to find incredible success doing something similar to others — just being themselves! That could be engaging enough for all the wins.
Now I’m not suggesting you go and copy everything Ninja does, because if that’s not you, it won’t work. And let’s be real, everyone is trying to be Ninja.
But maybe you’re a dad, you love Battle Royale games, you’re talented at gaming, you’ve got a lot in common with DrLupo and he’s not online… who is to say a portion of his audience is looking for somebody just like you?
Find your own niche
Be sure to find your own niche too — if there is a gap in the ‘YouTube or Twitch market’ that you feel viewers would want, then fill that gap! What is the value you bring to viewers?
Are you an amazing chef? Why not do a live stream of you cooking a curry on Twitch while teaching others to do the same — I bet nobody else is doing that.
Once you have built up a community, you could start moving those live streams onto YouTube and start creating the best curry cooking guides in the world. Then learn to write and design the best curry recipes, then you can make a blog, write a book and sell it on Amazon. Then you become the biggest curry chef in the world and people are paying you to help them became better curry chefs, buying your book, subscribing to your cooking shows and paying to go to your curry schools.
I believe there are three ways to find your niche:
Who are you?
- Be yourself. Yes, you can fake a character or a personality but it will never truly be you and never be authentic. Being yourself has an added advantage in that it is a niche in itself. Nobody is you, nobody can do the things you do, the way you do them, and nobody can think of things the way you do. Be yourself!
Research everything
- Read, watch, listen to everything that you are interested in. In this case, watch a ridiculous amount of Twitch streamers to understand what ‘niche’ they are working on, see which streamers are standing out on Twitter, on YouTube and in the press. Critically think while you watch then, what made that funny? What is their branding like? What makes them stand out from the other people on Twitch? How do they run their social media accounts?
- Where are the gaps? Is there a streamer who speed-runs Diablo? Is there a creator who paints while they play Sims or Pokemon? Is there a hilarious streamer playing pranks while streaming Battlefront 1? There are always going to be gaps, and there are always going to be ways to stand out by doing something better. There are thousands of PUBG streamers coming top 25 every game, but do you win nearly every game? That is a niche in itself.
Test it!
- You can only find out if all your ideas, your personality and your research was right. I started my idea writing guides for Twitch Streamers because I was passionate about the subject matter, kept teaching myself everything I can and because I spotted useful help was lacking. Ultimately I put out a couple of articles which did well within a few months and this showed me that my research and intuition was right.
- This project became The Emergence and now I’m helping thousands every week.
- By the way, notice that I said I waited months to see how this worked… Patience is incredibly important if you want to be successful at anything
Looking for more ways to become successful on Twitch? Here’s an in-depth guide:
How To Be A Successful Twitch Streamer — Seven Real Tips
Keep a growth mentality
There is always something new to learn and improve, whether it’s improving the quality of your stream commentary, your Nightbot !commands, or engaging with your followers on Twitter, the only thing stopping you is time.
Why not learn how to edit, learn how to run Facebook Ads and spend a spare $10 a month on reaching potential fans. Why not better learn how to commentate and try commentating on some esport games? Everything will increase your understanding of content creation and give you some learnings you’ll be able to use for the next 10 years.
With a growth mentality, you can see opportunities everywhere. Just because there are 127 streamers doing better than you, doesn’t mean there is no room for you to become successful. There is always another angle, another space in the room that fits you perfectly. Keep working, only use comparisons to learn, and keep updating your content to make sure you find it.
Focus on you, not somebody else.
Working hard & ‘grind’
Simply put, get ready to work your socks off. Working hard on your stream is the baseline for success now. If a thousand people are all doing that then you need to do more, do it better or do it differently.
Consistency is everything, but it’s about working smart as much as hard. Focus on one what works for you, and become self-aware on how much you can work on your content without neglecting other parts of your life.
But don’t work too hard… A Guide to Health and Well-Being While Streaming on Twitch
Time management
I get it, I work 43 hours a week in a full-time job, I commute back and forth, I’m in a relationship… it’s not easy to balance something like streaming or content creating on the side of all of that. Time must become something you plan for, not something you use when and where inspiration strikes.
Giving yourself time to plan and strategize your content is extremely important.
Use a calendar or to-do list app to create a list of priorities, then start scheduling them in where you are likely to be free. It could be that you should be spending LESS time streaming and more time creating content to promote it — especially early on.
Make sure to give yourself some free time to relax and spend time with friends and family, but be aware if you are willing to drop 5 hours a week into a Netflix binge, that’s 5 hours you could have spent creating or improving content…
Am I too old to start streaming?
While I answered this on Quora, I thought it was worth repeating here for anyone that finds it:
You are never too old to stream on Twitch, you’re never too old to do anything you want to do! There is no age limit to streaming on Twitch, and you’d be surprised by the amount of 30, 40, 50+ year old viewers watching games they played when they were younger or still play today!
You may want to consider the games you play and your audience. It’s unlikely a 14-year-old is going to want to watch you play Fortnite because they’ll want somebody shouting excitedly, but a 28-year old watching you play Rome Total War isn’t going to care about your age.
Hey, I could be wrong — rules are made to be broken and maybe you’ll stand out playing a game like Fortnite. Some of the biggest YouTubers are middle-aged dads who teach people how to play Minecraft or play city-building games.
What is The Emergence?
We are a gaming and streaming education website. We are dedicated to telling the stories of how your favourite gamers and broadcasters got to where they are and providing guides to help you start your streaming journey.
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