Twitch is a live streaming platform run by Twitch Interactive which is a part of Amazon. It is most well known for being the place where gamers will stream themselves playing. Though you will also find musicians, digital artists, programmers and even people just talking into a camera and having a conversation with their audience. A lot of these people make a living doing this, though it's very unlikely you will achieve this success over night. However, if you feel like this is something you would have fun doing, here is my advice.
When you make your account, I actually recommend taking a day or two, maybe even more to get a feel for the community. Go and find a streamers who does something you are interested in and start a conversation. I recommend visiting a smaller channel, like below 50 viewers because big channels are really crowded and it's very hard if not impossible to have a conversation with the streamer. These are entertaining people of course, but the point here is to make connections. I often peruse Twitch for small streamers and start talking to them and some of them even became really good friends. These have to be genuine connections. If you're just trolling for attention and trying to farm followers, it won't work. People catch onto that pretty fast and it's just not worth it.
After you have an idea how streamers behave and what they do on a regular basis, it might be time to start streaming yourself. A good thing to do is find a niche, something that you like doing and that you will be doing on a regular basis. Of course, you can also be a variety streamer, though it might be a bit harder to gather an audience that way. For that, you have to rely on having more of a personality that will attract viewers. Next is picking your streaming software. There are a few different options, but in my opinion the best one is OBS Studio which is free. There are others like Streamlabs OBS, Twitch Studio, XSplit etc. But OBS Studio seems to work best as far as performance goes. Not to mention it now has built in Twitch chat and Creator Dashboard so it's really convenient. I won't talk about the technical side and setting up right now cause that warrants another article but there are many tutorials online on how to set up your stream. As far as using microphone and camera, you don't have to do any of those but most successful streamers use both. People like to have a person to connect to and it's much easier to have a conversation if you have a mic rather than stopping what you're doing to answer questions in chat. You can also use just mic for example but I wouldn't recommend using just camera without mic. I've never seen anyone do that and it's just plain weird.
Next thing is, well, to start streaming. When you start, you won't have some options that affiliates or partners do, but you will be able to make a Streamlabs or StreamElements account and receive PayPal donations that way. At first it's likely you will have no viewers, but don't be discouraged. Yes, it can be awkward an boring to stream to nobody but if you stick with it, eventually someone will come to your stream. Even one person makes a difference so make sure to make them feel welcome and talk to them frequently.
Your next goal is to reach affiliate status. There are certain requirements. In the previous 30 days you will need to have a certain amount of hours spent streaming, you will need to have streamed on a number of different days, you will need 50 followers (you don't need to reach 50 followers in 30 days, you just need to have at least 50 at the same time you reach your other goals) and you will have to have 5 average viewers which is the hardest thing to do out of these. This means you will need to have people watching you consistently over a period of time rather than just dropping into your stream. I managed to do this thanks to some friends I've made over my time on Twitch. That is why I said in the beginning that you should make genuine connections.
When you complete the requirements you will receive an invite to become an affiliate. This will mean that you will have to fill out an Amazon form. It is a bit complicated and I personally can't instruct you how to fill it out cause things may differ from country to country. This mostly so they can tax your earnings. When you fill out your form and officially become an affiliate you will get access to certain things. First, people will be able to subscribe to you. Tier 1 subscriptions cost around 5$, Tier 2 are about 10$ and Tier 3 are 25$. These are monthly subscriptions, though people have the option to subscribe for a longer period if they choose to do so. You will get 3 emote slots, each one corresponding to a subscription tier. As you get more subscribers, you will get more tier 1 emote slots. As far as the emotes themselves go, you can hire artists to make them for you or if you have some graphic design skills you can make them yourself, which is what I did. Though they can be something as simple as a meme. The reason people put work into their emotes is because they are an incentive to subscribe. As an affiliate, you will also be eligible to receive cheers (bit donations). Bits are the currency of Twitch and 100 bits are worth 1$. When you buy bits to cheer other streamers they cost more. This is how Twitch makes money from bits. For example, where I am bits will cost 1.40$. You will earn half of the money your channel generates from subs minus the tax. So for a tier 1 sub you will earn 1.50$ to 2$.
After this, you are on your way to becoming a partner. I can't tell you much about being a partner cause I'm nowhere near there. You need a big audience and a lot of patience and consistency. It is not something that you automatically get like with affiliate status. After you reach partner requirements you will have to apply for partnership. This doesn't guarantee that you will get partnered, in fact it's likely you will be denied on your first try. But don't get discouraged. I have seen friends reach partner status after being initially denied, so don't worry and don't take it personally.
That is about everything I can tell you about the Twitch experience without dragging on anymore. There are a lot of things to talk about when it comes to Twitch but these are the basics. If it sounds appealing to you, why not give it a try. It might become a part of your life. I know I spend a good chunk of my time on Twitch and have made great friends there, which for me is the bast part about it. The community.
