Trail Thoughts ✦ February 2021 (Patreon)

Published:

2021-02-28 23:40:21

Imported:

2022-12

Content

Happy last day of February and welcome to the first instalment of Trail Thoughts, aka. my Patreon blog! A couple posts ago, I threw out a feeler for how a newsletter/blog style of post would be received and had some interest. I think I'm going to enjoy writing these and it gives me a good break from doing school work. At this point, I'm not sure if these posts will follow the same structure or if I will just go with the flow. Also let me know if any of you would be interested in me doing these Trail Thoughts via YouTube video as that has come to mind.

February Stats:

# of Streams: 10
Avg Viewers, Incl. Hosts & Raids: 29
Avg Viewers, Excl. Hosts & Raids: 25
Unique Viewers: 1,898
Unique Chatters: 280
Chat Messages: 10,039 (avg 1,004 per stream)
New Followers: 90 (avg 9 per stream)
Subscriptions: 64 (avg 6 per stream)

February Thoughts:

February was a solid month for the stream as I not only decided firmly on a schedule (for the next foreseeable future) to work best with my studies, but I also wrapped up both Dragon Age II and Mass Effect 3 and began my Dragon Age: Inquisition Custom World State run and my first playthrough of The Witcher 3!

Despite a solid month, I am very much on a downward trend that has been happening for a few months now. This was my lowest month since April/May across a few of the data points that Twitch provides, but most obviously the viewership. My partner average hit 32 back in November which I was really pleased with, but has since been dropping.

I'm not upset by this, as this is my very first consistent downward trend since I began streaming and downward trends happen literally all the time throughout a streaming journey. It is incredibly unrealistic (and quite frankly nearly impossible) that a streamer always improves on their previous month forever and ever. I do think my recent schedule changes have contributed towards this current drop. Any time a schedule is adjusted significantly, there is going to be a bit of a period where the community adjusts. I have seen this with some fellow streamers. I made a big change from Dec to Jan and then another big change this month. Moving from nights to days means there are not as many people that can come around anymore that were present a lot during the evenings, and not everyone can lurk during the day.

I am hopeful that streaming consistently in a time slot that I haven't streamed in very much is going to be good in the long run. I'm really enjoy the day streams and it gives me a good break in the day from working on school which I do before and after stream. That being said, I would like to still continue growing on Twitch and I have to keep this in mind. Twitch has been a really great outlet for me to be creative and to cultivate a wonderful community and it's become a really good "part-time job" for me. So I am keeping myself open to the possibility that day streams might not work for me and my content. If the data shows this by the time we get to fall, I will probably end up moving back to night streams.

As for the amount of days I am streaming, holy shit I am really enjoying streaming 3 times per week again. When I first started streaming, I was doing it 3 times per week and I maintained that for quite a while. I truly feel that 3-4 times per week is the sweet spot for me and the only way you may see me streaming 5 times per week again is when I have a month off of school which means I have zero obligations (and I am planning on taking a few of these throughout my university journey to give my brain a learning break).

Looking Back:

With streaming, I am always looking at the bigger picture and reminding myself how far I have come since I started. I maintain a graph that is updated every month that shows my average viewership and the partner average viewership going back to my first month streaming. Here is how that looks:

Something that I think every streamer tends to get stuck in for a bit is that whole "this is my new normal" when it comes to the data. By the end of December, I was feeling pretty confident that the high 30s to low 40s was my new "normal". So therefore, experiencing a downward trend, even though it's not a HUGE downward trend, can tend to mess with the feelings a bit. Like I explained above, I am pretty confident that it's because of all my schedule changes, and I'm still very happy that all these people come and hang out. After all, 29 people in my house would be crowded AF and I would be overwhelmed. I keep that perspective in mind. My Discord server is also active, especially lately with movies, and that is something I want to keep ongoing and curate more engagement with, which is why I have started doing a daily Question of the Day. I've started tracking stats in Discord, but as I started a couple weeks ago, I won't be able to do a full report on Discord stats until the end of March.

Another thing that I am happy with when I do a look back is my paid sub count on Twitch. This has been incredibly consistent since September and does not correlate with viewer count. Is it a coincidence that September was when I pushed out my new emotes? Maybe, or maybe not. I can't express how grateful I feel to the people who keep coming back and renewing their Twitch subs. Prime subs is something I want to try increasing as very little of my subs are Prime subs. I don't know how to bring this up outside of creating a timer for my chat. It's something on my mind, anyhow.

Thoughts for March:

This month is going to be very busy for school. My classes all have to be wrapped up at the end of April so this month is very much go-time for getting the bulk of my assignments done, as well as a mid-term that I have booked on March 12 (right before my stream). I am going to try my hardest not to cancel any streams, but if I do they will probably be Friday streams. I still have to get February's Digital Download finished for you all and that will be uploaded later this week.

I really want to try getting a Patron movie scheduled and done this month too as I would love to watch one with most of you all. I know that it's hard to schedule all of us with time zones, but I'm hoping we can try and get something to work. Movies and time suggestions are welcome in the comments.

As most of you know, I am slowly working on my overall outdoorsy stream theme. Admittedly, I have lacked any sort of motivation and creativity to continue with that. My alerts aren't coming out exactly how I am envisioning them, so I will probably commission someone to make alerts for me instead. I had also reached out to an animation artist a number of months ago to inquire about scenes and transitions for my stream. They told me they would become free in March to chat more about it, so I'm hoping that conversation will happen this month. Hopefully their work is not outside of my budget, but I still have a backup plan in mind in case I can't afford them. For now, everything I have for the stream still works well, but I am still really excited for what is to come.

Update to Twitch VIPs:

This isn't something that I will make a formal announcement of to the community (though I do plan on talking about it a bit during Monday's stream), but I will share with you all here. I had been wanting to overhaul my Twitch VIPs for a while after there was some general talk about it with some Nook streamers, as well as fellow streamer and friend SoEverdream was also thinking about revisiting his. Every streamer treats Twitch VIP badges differently, which kind of sucks when viewers bounce around a variety of different streams. But it's important for streamers to define for themselves what VIP means for them. I hadn't really done this for myself, just sort of given the badge out to whoever I felt like, as well as having a Channel Point redemption for one, which could result in me running out of Twitch VIPs since they are limited. VIP badges can also affect how chatters feel in a stream. I've talked to people who have admitted to feeling awkward to speak in a chat when most of the people talking all have a VIP badge and they don't. I don't want my stream to feel like that for anyone.

The update that I have made for my channel is that a Twitch VIP badge can no longer be obtained with something like a Tier 3 sub, a certain Patreon tier, or a Channel Point redemption. If you see a VIP badge in my stream, that person is either: a family member, an IRL friend, or a close streamer friend of mine (with a couple exceptions). This means that I did remove a Twitch VIP badge from a number of people who are viewers in the channel. This does not mean that I value the person any less.

What it means is that for me and my community I want a VIP to actually mean something. A while back, I gave the VIP role in Discord the ability to participate in the entire subscriber space. This works so much better for my setup and is something tangible for the person being VIP'd. I hope it comes across as me saying "I appreciate you, and as a result I want you to have access to this space without having to worry about a Twitch sub." Unlike Twitch, with Discord you can assign an unlimited amount of people to a role. I think for the space I've created, it works a lot better this way. So I have adjusted my VIP Channel Point redemption to be a Discord VIP instead of a Twitch VIP.

People who were a VIP on Twitch who were removed still have their Discord VIPs. I also went through my list and gave VIP to some people who previously didn't have it who are active and valued members of the community.

Final Update:

Patreon tiers Valley and higher have been granted access to the sub/VIP space in Discord. This way, if you don't end up renewing your Twitch subscription, you can still come hang out in that space in the server.