Creating a timeline for planning your next game stream can be very helpful to make sure that you can hit the targets you have set yourself. It will also allow you to estimate how much time it will take you, which is important if you want to create a timeline for streaming. Let’s get started.
Step 1: Create a Timeline Of Events That Is Suitable
This sounds simple, but before you start thinking about how long it will take to create your next streaming schedule, you need to find a time when you can stream. If everybody knows that on Tuesday and Thursday you are going to be live from 20:00 – 22:00, there won’t be many viewers on those days. Find a time when your audience is most likely to watch you.
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It is also worth checking the streaming schedule of other big streamers; you might be able to ‘steal’ their audience by simply choosing a different time than them. If you want to learn more about this, check out our article on how to steal viewers.
Step 2: Give Yourself Some Extra Time To Create A Timeline Online
Game streaming is not a part-time job; you should probably spend at least 10 hours on average preparing for your stream. The preparation itself does not take that much time, but it will often require you to fix bugs or glitches in your game before you go live. If you want to be able to work on this for 10 hours, you need to add a few extra hours for the stream itself. This will also allow you to get some rest between your streams or spend time on other activities such as moderating your chat.
Game streaming is not a part-time job; you should probably spend at least 10 hours on average preparing for your stream.
You also need to leave some time for the things you are not prepared for, which can happen very frequently. Maybe your heroic pose is bugged out in Fortnite or maybe there was a bug in LoL that caused half of your face to disappear. These kinds of bugs will certainly happen!
Step 3: Give Yourself More Time If You Are Covering Multiple Games
If you are planning to cover more than one game in your stream, take the time it takes for you to prepare for all of them into account. You should also add some extra time if you are streaming different games at the same time. For example, when I am live on Twitch playing League of Legends and talking about Fortnite. If I want to stream LoL and Fortnite at the same time, I need about four hours for preparation as well as three hours of actual streaming.
Step 4: Advertise your next stream
Give people a chance to plan ahead!
If you tweet that you will be live from 20:00 – 22:00 next Wednesday, make sure you follow through with that. You can always postpone your next stream, but of course, not everybody will see the tweet and your audience will be annoyed if they check on Twitter and see that the time of your stream is different than advertised.
Step 5: Create A Timeline Template For Streaming
Now that we have figured out how long individual streams take, we can create a checklist for streaming. If you want to stream five days per week and spend four hours on preparation and three hours on the actual stream, this will result in a total of 35 possible hours. You obviously won’t be able to stream all of these hours, but you must be able to hit these targets on most days. This way you can create a schedule for your streams.
If you tweet that you will be live from 20:00 – 22:00 next Wednesday, make sure you follow through with that.
Step 6: Find The Best Way To Create A Timeline
Now that you have found a suitable time that fits your schedule, it’s time to create a timeline. In this example, we will be creating a simple 1-hour stream on Sunday at 15:00 (3 pm for our non-Dutch readers). The steps in the timeline are based on the assumption that this is your first game(s) and that you want to start at 3 pm sharp. Depending on the game you are streaming, you might have to shorten this timeline.
Step 7: How To Create A Timeline For The Stream Itself
A common mistake is to start your stream right when it is supposed to go live. This will result in a lot of viewers leaving your Twitch channel because they were not able to find you and you won’t get many viewers either because nobody will be able to find you.
Instead, you should start your stream at least fifteen minutes early; make sure you still have the same amount of viewers before and after the beginning.
Venngage offers a wide selection of timeline templates for your scheduling and game stream planning. Don’t forget to check it out!
Step 8: Ask For Donations
Donations can be very helpful, but they are also time-consuming. Try to avoid asking people to donate during crucial parts of your game because this will result in a lot of viewers left.
Also, if you ask people to subscribe during your stream, make sure that the subscription button is visible on your Twitch channel and only ask for subscriptions at the beginning and/or end of your stream.
Conclusion
The best way to prepare for a game stream is to have a plan. Creating a timeline will help you stay on top of your schedule, especially when it comes to the competitions that are happening in-game. When creating your timeline, it’s important to be flexible off the bat so that if there are any changes when you’re living, you’ll have room in your schedule for them!
