Prepare for a Live Stream
Five simple tips from Meerkat’s Foodie Queen
1. Know your topic
2. Schedule your stream
3. Have a plan — Practice or act natural
4. Start talking when the stream starts
5. Save your title to a note
It really is that simple, but if you were looking for some more info, read on.
Know your topic
Having something to talk about is one of the most important parts of being engaging on mono-vocal live streaming platforms. You can talk about what happened to you that day, how your favorite sports team is doing, even about race relations or the Kardashians, and someone will be interested and want to talk with you. Just, please, don’t get on a stream and ask people to give you something to talk about, whether that be by putting “bored” in your title or saying at any point “I don’t know what to talk about.”
Schedule your stream, with a title
Unless you’re on periscope of course, but if you can schedule a stream it will give you lots of insight on how interested people will be in that particular topic. It really doesn’t seem to guarantee who will show up, but at the least they will get a notification when it goes live. That will let anyone who doesn’t follow you yet, but is interested in your title, be notified to try you out. It’s a great way to make sure you meet new people who will make plans to watch your stream. If it does happen to be a spontaneous stream, don’t forget to give it a title!
Have a plan
If you’re an introvert like me you might want to have a more structured show with notes, or even practice your opening lines or your whole show beforehand. Personally, I make a list of the topics or major events that will happen in the stream and let the conversation flow from there. That way, the conversation is very organic but it does have some structure to it. Or, if you’re great at driving conversation, just do what you do naturally. There may not be people right in front of you, but they will be talking right back to you just the same.
Start talking when the stream starts
Whether it’s an every time opener where you introduce yourself or your topic, or saying hi to the people who will soon be watching, it’s important to start strong. This will help the people who arrive early want to stay to hear the rest of what you have to say. If it’s your first stream, you can start with an introduction about yourself and what you do, or you can just start talking about your topic and people will ask you what you do. If someone says ‘tell me about yourself’ do you have an answer? I didn’t have one before I started live streaming. The first thing I said in my streams was “I’m a senior at Texas A&M” and that was about it. Now though, I have my elevator pitch. Work on a short one before you start streaming to let people know you.
Save your title to your notes app
We all know our streams crash at random times, and when that happens, we need to be prepared to pick right back up where we left off and keep going. This little stream hack has saved me lots of frustration more than once. With all the other frustrations that come with a stream crash like checking your wifi, worrying about if your viewers will come back, wondering where you left off in your talk, and just getting re-settled to be able to talk, the last thing you want to have to think about is what exactly your title was before the crash. No one likes titles like ‘reboot’ or ‘sorry’ and ‘stream crashed — let’s try this again!” because this doesn’t tell new viewers what the stream is about, and doesn’t help previous viewers easily find your stream again. Especially when there are several streams that have crashed at the same time.
I hope this info is useful to any potential new streamers out there!
