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Are you looking to get into Twitch Streaming as a personality talking to an audience and building a community? Or maybe you’re already streaming games but want to do something different. Here’s some of our best advice for those wanting to stream ‘IRL’ content.

Just Chatting is currently the 2nd biggest type of content on Twitch (which isn’t shocking if you think what the biggest type of content on YouTube or Instagram is…)

What was once known as IRL split into over 10 different categories across Twitch in late 2017, with the most popular being ‘Just Chatting’. Other popular categories include:

• Music & Performing Arts
• Talk Shows & Podcasts
• Art
• ASMR
• Travel & Outdoors

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Tips for IRL streams:

While the category is known as ‘just chatting’, it is unlikely you’ll have hours worth of things to talk about non-stop unless you have a huge audience. So you need to consider what you are going to do to fill in the gaps, get people to join and get people to talk.

You need to consider that the niche you choose may not be incredibly popular on Twitch, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible to grow. You just may need to look outside the box and create content for other platforms where that audience spends time (be it Instagram, Twitter or YouTube).

By growing a particular community on Twitch, you will become the default ‘name’ that people recognise and will also help you in your path to partner challenge.

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Build a show around your stream

• Create your live stream as a TV show – create different segments so it isn’t just you sitting there for 5 hours talking about stuff that has no structure
• Consider the structure and schedule of your stream, plan things in advance (these can change when you are live depending on what works best!)
• Branding will be crucial, make sure everything is consistent with the tone of voice of your content/show. Be it the logo, banner, BRB screen or panels below your stream

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How to stand out in the Just Chatting Category

• What is your stream title, does it explain what you are doing and does it intrigued people enough to click?
• Get friends and family to judge your thumbnail image, is it strong? Does it stand out amongst others? You want brand new eyes to analyse it
• Whether it be asking questions, telling funny stories, educating people, discussing something amazing that happened during your day or talking about something you truly love… always be talking.
• Embrace lurking – the majority of your viewers will probably just chill & lurk in the background while you talk, or play games. Don’t feel like you need to force them to chat or follow… they’re lurking for a reason, leave them be!

Even if somebody doesn’t click on your stream when they are browsing through one night, it doesn’t mean they won’t the following night or the following week. Awareness is as subconscious as it is conscious, and the more your stream… the more you’ll build it.

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Promotion of your Just Chatting stream

How you are going to promote the show to get new viewers in? Remember, Just Chatting streams are all about the person streaming than the content they are streaming.

• Consider how you can use interesting, funny or clever moments from your stream to promote on social media
• Use Twitch Clips to highlight these best moments, or download the clips as MP4 videos and share to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
• Share the behind-the-scenes of your Just Chatting stream on your social media and community channels off-stream
• Spend time in other streams with similar content, formatting or values – build friendships with these streamers, their viewers and moderators, you may entice some to join your stream the night time you go live, or follow you on Twitter
• Speaking of Twitter – use social media to promote your stream, but don’t spam the URL and #supportsmallstreamer hashtags, get more creative than that. Use imagery, short videos and ask open questions that are relevant to your content
• Oh and reply to every single person that replies to your tweets – spark a conversation or just make their day with a funny reply or GIF
• Continue conversations and discussions in a Discord or Twitter after the stream ends, you want to be as engaged as possible for your viewers when you are available pre and post-stream. If this means cutting 10 minutes off your schedule every week… so be it.

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Creative Streaming ideas

Are you a gamer looking to get into creative or just chatting streaming? Here’s a bunch of ideas

• Do you play any instruments? Why not have a mini music show on a Wednesday evening? You don’t need to be a professional nor do you need to show off your guitar skills, maybe you learnt trombone in high school so why not show off a few songs. Maybe you can’t even play an instrument, you could watch some amazing YouTubers alongside your community instead
• Photoshop, drawing and Illustrator skills are always in demand, why not make some funny community photos and show people how you are doing it in the process – challenge your viewers to draw or edit with you and share the amazing hilarious results in your Discord
• Quizzes and tests are great fun to do with your viewers, get them to guess locations in Google Maps Street View or ….
• There are already Twitch streamers doing something totally random like having discussions with spammy cold-callers, creating a dating show or having online dungeons and dragons sessions
• Movie, book and album reviews – this is a classic from the early days of radio, TV, podcasts, blogging AND vlogging, but one that hasn’t transitioned into live content – can you fill in the gap for your favourite niche?
• It is recommended that to grow your channel you create some pillar content outside of Twitch, whether this is a YouTube channel or Podcast. Why not do a few special live-recording versions of this content?

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Do you have any ideas?

If you have any ideas for a Just Chatting stream – let us know via Twitter! If you have ideas and you want to talk about them in private, you can email us or DM us on Twitter or Instagram.

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The Emergence

The Emergence is a stream education, guides & tutorial website. You can find out more about me below:

• Website — ​​theemergence.co.uk
• Twitter — twitter.com/emergencegg
• Twitch — twitch.tv/theemergence
• Discord — discordapp.com/invite/VxFA7Xc