So, I’ve recently picked up streaming as a hobby, but honesty my channel is hot garbage. The only people who watch it are people I play with, friends and family.
Every streamer I’ve ever watched, I’ve found out about through word of mouth. What’s a good way to get the name out there, and what’s a good way to carry a conversation with no one talking?
What would you tune in for on the regular?
Humor, kindness, and passion in my opinion.
Seeing funny people enjoy and talk about the game.
Clickbait rage video work too for sheers numbers but I don’t enjoy those and avoid watching them.
Interesting information, a reasonable voice, and a genuine personality.
Most streamers have no idea how annoying they are because other annoying people will pay them to validate themselves.
WoW is one of those games you can get away with not having to be good to be a good streaming.
That’s kind of my angle. I’m the Everyman gamer. I’m 35, kids, full time job. I weave in career advice and answer questions about networking/programming/taxes etc when people ask. Probably not that riveting, but I’m going for the “real people playing games” thing.
My first couple of videos people get to watch me fail 3 and 5 mask runs from pulling stupidly lol.
I’ve seen people offer carties for views in LFG, no idea if that works though. For successful wow streamers the answer seems to be either have been around and putting out content for years across various platforms or be really good at the game. Even then, the GMs of Method and Limit both get 1k+ views while many of the guild members themselves are typically <300.
Be consistent bro. Don’t have any expectations just do it with love and the people will come.
For me personally, I like short videos edited on YouTube or guides. Kaif, I think, is a great example and the only one I go back to keep watching raid videos of WoW. I am weird though because I don’t like watching the live streams with all the sitting around waiting for raid to start, or someone sorting through their bags while they decide what they want to do for the duration of their stream.
Oh and I think having more than just the streamer is the key.
To be fair, Kaif and the whole SR team is absolutely hilarious. 
Exactly. Which is why I have watched their WoW videos (and a lot of the others) quite a bit. Maybe not all of them yet, but THAT is what I want to see when I am watching WoW stuff for fun.
Even when they were power leveling for BfA it was hilarious. Honestly never thought I would see a creator that could make leveling entertaining.
From my perspective, there’s two kinds of extremely successful streamers. (This isn’t just WoW applicable)
The extremely skilled. These kind of streamers could not say a single word the entire stream, and they’d still rack up viewers due to how good they are. People watch them purely for the gameplay. Most of these players are either professional or ex-professional players, with names like Shroud and Faker coming to mind here. Some of the WoW World First race streamers would fall under this category. Probably the hardest category to actually succeed in, since you basically gotta be the best of the best to interest people. Simply being extremely good isn’t good enough.
Players who are extremely entertaining. These players can (and occasionally are) godawful and far worse than the average player. But they still get views. Why? Because people love watching them, either because they play a character, or just because they’re inherently interesting and engaging people to watch. Players like Ninja, Asmongold and Disguised Toast fall into this category.
You don’t have to be one or the other though. Personally my favourite streamers are a mix of the two.
I personally enjoy Bebe (Autobattler streamer) for his chat interactivity and willingness to explain the decisions that are made at high end play, Firebat and Zalae (Pro Hearthstone players) for the banter the two often share, and even streamers like Purple (another HS streamer) simply because he always has a great music playlist.
This is pretty much the advice any streamer gives. Streaming isn’t something you do to get big, it’s something you do because you enjoy it, and to maintain regular viewers, even if it’s only a few non family/friends watching, you gotta be consistent to keep them.
That doesn’t mean that you have to do 24 hour streams, but if people genuinely like watching you, they need to know when they can find you.
You have to be entertaining AF, people watch WoW streams for the personality not the gameplay, the very few exceptions are world first level raiders, MDI competitors and R1 arena players. If you’re not one of the best players in the world you better be insanely entertaining.
I’ll be real with you about the entertaining part too, it isn’t something you can really force, you either have it or you don’t. Some streamers try to force it and it’s just hard to watch.
Casual streams are more attractive to broad audience than sweaty m+ and arenas. Just look at asmon or madseason
probably interacting with the audience. though, that’s more of an in-general streaming thing.
It really depends on if the streamer is charismatic enough to hold an audience no matter the topic.
A buddy of mine did a stream back in legion of just him fishing. He later found out folks working at blizz listened to it while they were working because it was nice background noise for them.
You need at least two things to be a captivating streamer.
Streamers get successful not because of the content (WoW) but because they are a personality. Look at the reasons Asmon is successful: he is funny, quirky, and holds a conversation with his viewers about the game and its theory. He does all forms of content, including mog competitions, charity giveaways, reaction videos, etc. He is a good reflection of the modern gamer: millenial, nerdy, funny, and enjoys gaming for the sake of it.
Thanks guys! Lots of stuff to think on here. I started doing it because I like it (and to have an excuse to be on the pc at night that my wife would agree to).
I’d read stories about people starting out and I was worried I was doing it wrong. Personal insecurity.
My general benchmark for a streamer is “can I watch them while doing stuff like farm content or leveling alts”.
If I actually have to pay full attention to their stream to be entertained, they better be damn good at the game.
Kaif was good but was good because of kaif alone it was a guild just being a normal guild like your or mine that you can relate too and enjoy listening too