So you want to be a streamer, eh? Anyone can boot up a camera and start dunking on kids, but to get noticed it'll take more than tea-bags and massive plays.
So let's talk about branding; one of the foundational steps to building a presence. Branding not only sets you apart from the masses of other gun toting, platform jumping, speed-running entertainers out there, but galvanizes the community you've garnered, your community, to an identity. Proper branding is no easy feat, and you could take an entire master-class on this, so to keep things short we'll go over 5 key points from a very high level view.
Step 1: Find a Theme
Find something that you identify with. Something that you could talk all day about and makes you "you". It doesn't matter if it's been done before (everything's been done before), what matters is it's something you can find passion in. When you're truly into something, when you're in your element and you don't have to fake it, that's when you shine brightest. People can tell. This will let your community know who you are and always give everyone common ground to communicate about.
Step 2: Put a Name To It
Give a name to both yourself, your channel, and your community. This will, of course, follow your theme for brand coherence (so please don’t call yourself Kevin and the Kevinites unless your theme is for some reason just the name Kevin or you're trying to make some weird 90s band). Having a home, a group, a tribe that you can reference by name brings people together and forms an identity. You'll find those who are like minded and more likely to come back, rather than random viewers who may never care to show again.
Step 3: Choose Some Colors
This may seem silly, but visual recognition of color patterns is huge for identifying a brand. So choose two or three colors you want to be yours! These theme colors will be just as recognizable and synonymous with your stream as the community name you gave yourself (again, hopefully not Kevin and the Kevinites). This will also bring cohesion to the art done for your channel, marketing deck, merch, and other promotional opportunities. I'm not saying you can only ever use those colors of course, but they should be easily tied to your brand through your logo and other methods.
Step 4: Get Art
Just by investing a small amount in art for overlays, a logo, possibly some emotes or panels, bumps the quality of your presentation up drastically! Now you may ask, "Hey magical stream guru writing this, where do I go to find art?!" Honestly by just googling "stream overlays" or "influencer art and logos" you'll find so many great ideas on what you might be looking for, along with several sites that can provide intro art for a very low price. However, you'll always find the best quality by just putting a call out on Twitter. That's right, Twitter. There are tons of artists on Twitter and many do commissions on a regular basis.
Step 5: Claim Your Name
On every social media, on every streaming site, on every content creating outlet you need to claim your branded name/handle. Even if you don’t intend on ever using those avenues for outreach and creation, it’s important to claim your brand on each so that no one else does. If everything goes well and you become the next Ninjavalkyraeshroudpokimane, you don’t want others to pose as you under your branding. In fact, who knows what opportunities other social media platforms hold.
These quick steps can all be done in less than a day, and will dramatically increase your chances to stand out. Not everything is set in stone either, so play around with what you feel is right, use this as a guideline, and make your brand yours!
Article by -Tachyon
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