Videos
Twitch can archive your past streams in the Videos section of your Channel Page so that viewers can watch them on demand. Very few viewers watch entire past streams and the files are huge, so the archives are only up 14 or 60 days after you went live, depending on whether you are Partnered. You can opt to not archive your streams and can delete them once they are up.
You can upload videos to your Videos page or make Clips (up to 60 seconds) or Highlights (longer) from past streams using Twitch’s video editing tools and post them here. You can also organize them into Collections (“New Songs,” “Music Videos”), sort of like YouTube. Those videos don’t expire. Users can filter what they see on this page by using a drop-down tool.
Clips
Viewers and you can create clips of your stream, which are snippets up to 60 seconds, and give them custom titles and share them to socials. Clips are usually songs or funny moments from the stream. When they are shared to socials, only a screenshot and the link to the clip on Twitch is shared, the video itself is not embedded in the post. The Videos section of your Channel Page will have Popular Clips listed. The Clips section lists all clips.
To create a clip, the viewer would mouse over your video (on a phone they would click the video) then click the director’s clapboard icon. They can do this with a live or archived video. A page will open that lets them edit a clip from that point up to 60 seconds prior and create a title for the clip.
Channel owners can create highlights from archived shows, which are like clips but can be longer in length. Clips are more popular. You can delete clips and highlights regardless of who posted them.
Followers
This is who is following you. Anyone can see this. You will always see a count and you can click on it to see a list of which users are following you. Followers are different from subscribers. It’s free to follow and just informs the viewers when you are live.
Streamers can offer perks to followers, like limiting chat activity to followers only. This is helpful when you have thousands of viewers at once and the chat is moving too fast to read. You can also program it so new followers have to wait a certain amount of time after following to post to the chat. That helps discourage trolls. You probably won’t need to do either of those things when you start out.
Follow/Heart and Bell
To follow a channel, click the “(heart) Follow” button in the top navigation.
Once you’ve followed, the Follow button turns into a heart and a bell appears next to it. If you click the heart again, you’ll unfollow the channel. You can click the bell to turn on or off notifications of when the viewer goes live. You can also go to your Account Profile’s Settings > Notifications to change how Twitch notifies you.
When a channel you follow is live, it will show in the left-side navigation of the site with a red dot next to its name regardless whether notifications are on.
Subscribe
Streamers who have Affiliate or Partner status can offer paid subscriptions to their channel and share in the revenue collected. Subscriptions have three tiers: $4.99/month, $9.99/month, and $24.99/month. The difference is mostly how many and what kind of custom emotes and custom badges you can make available to your subscribers. You can also make some streams and on-demand videos viewable to subscribers only.
If you want to subscribe to a channel, click the subscribe button in the Channel Page navigation. You’ll see the subscription options pop up.
If you have Amazon Prime, you can subscribe to one channel per month for free. Log into your Amazon Prime account, then go to www.twitchprime.com and connect your Amazon account. When you subscribe to a channel, you’ll now see the option to do it with your Prime account.
If you don’t see a subscribe option, the streamer is not an Affiliate or Partner yet.
Video Player
When you are live, the Video Player will show your stream. When you are offline, you have a couple options. You could upload a static image with information about your stream, as this streamer has done.
You could host another channel, which means that channel’s currently live stream would show in your Video Player. Streamers do this to support other streamers. There are settings to automatically change the Video Player from an showing an image to hosting. This is what it looks like on your page when you are hosting another channel. There are indicators on the video and in the chat.
SamuelTuckerYoung being hosted by another streamer
Panels
Panels are those informational blocks below the Video Player. Twitch has a module where you can upload images and text and move the Panel order around. In this example, About, Requests, and Donate are each individual Panels. I’ll explain how to create these in Chapter 4.
If your viewers are watching from a mobile device, they may not see your Panels at all because they are under a tab called Info that you have to scroll to see. The majority of Twitch users are on a desktop when they are watching, so it’s worth making the Panels look on-brand and have useful information.
THE LIVESTREAM
Your livestreams take place on
