5 things no one tells you you’ll need for streaming (2024)

In the last few weeks, I’ve been spending a lot of time learning about the world of streaming—and if I’m honest, there’s been a lot more learning involved than I thought there would be. It’s been a little intimidating, since I haven’t always known where to start, but all in all, it’s been fun.

Through my adventures, I’ve learned there are some things that can be super useful for streaming, but that aren’t always very obvious to those just starting out like me. So I figured I’d share for anyone else who’s wondering!

So what will you need?

Once upon a time, gamers could make it as streamers simply for existing, back in the days when it was relatively new and there weren’t many in the space to compete with. Nowadays, though, it’s a competitive field.

In some fun data from Statista, I learned that in 2018, which wasn’t even that long ago really, Twitch had around 3 million active streamers. Now, this year, the number’s up over 8 million, and that’s not even the peak number. And never mind other streaming platforms, too.

All this to say that if you’re going to stand out in streaming, you’ll need something memorable. You’ll need some sort of spotlight that attracts the kind of viewers you want to bring in.

Ultimately, this isn’t all that different from the idea of needing a niche when you’re working on a blog, and I can see the planning being pretty similar. So if you want my take on that, you can find it here.

Yes, you’re going to need specialized software to stream—but it also goes beyond that. While you’ll need something like OBS Studio to organize and broadcast your stream, you’ll also need to look into things like Streamlabs and StreamElements to cover all your bases.

Personally, I’m still learning those two, but so far, here’s how I use them:

• StreamElements is really good for managing visual elements of your stream, like if you have an animated overlay or something that you need to work with. It takes a lot of the loading weight out of OBS, which helps your stream run faster. It also has options for setting up fun commands for your viewers to use in your chat, which keeps people engaged with your stream—and helps you with Twitch’s recommendation algorithm.
• Streamlabs focuses more on extensions for your stream, including things like interactive widgets for your games and alerts that react to specific actions. It also looks like it gives streamers options to set up their own merch stores that fit into a panel on their Twitch page, which is something that I haven’t played around with a ton but will probably investigate!

I had no idea about this originally, but one thing that streamers typically do to make the stream look more professional is use multiple different layouts depending on context that they can switch back and forth between just like a proper show.

I use OBS Studio for my stream, so I have it set up using OBS’s scenes function. It’s a little tedious to set up because you do need to remember to carry core sources to your different scenes, like notifications and your webcam. But once you’ve got it set up, it makes a huge difference in how your stream will look.

Currently, I have scenes for when my stream is booting up, when I’m taking a break, when I’m playing a fullscreen game, and when I only want to show a smaller window like the League of Legends client. Then when I’m streaming, I use studio mode to switch between them quickly!

I still need to investigate different transitions aside from the default fade, but it’s also kind of nice that you don’t have to do anything with it for it to work.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a starting streamer, it’s that people will come into your chat randomly and blast promos for their follower boosting or spicy services. It’s…annoying.

Your best friend for these situations is setting up automoderation for your channel—which can be either through your Twitch creator dashboard or through a service like Nightbot.

Your list of banned phrases will grow over time, so don’t worry about getting them all at first—but if it helps, I focused on things like service, guaranteed, mutually beneficial, and things like that. Try to look for phrases that they use often that wouldn’t really come up in normal conversation.

This one may not fall into a “need” for everyone, but hear me out. I’ve always been a firm believer in social media as a way to build any sort of online presence, because well, if people don’t hear about you, they don’t know you’re there.

And while traditional social media platforms do work for streaming, a Discord server is a beast all on its own because it goes beyond presence and gives your community someplace interactive, where they can talk to their friends, share big moments, learn, and grow.

They can be a little intimidating to set up, especially if you want to get into all the bells and whistles, but from what I’ve seen, it can be worth it to have that space for your community, even when your stream’s offline.