Part 1 here.
One further thing I'm going to add (amongst other things) is within the next 1-2 weeks, I'm expecting to meet 2 requirements for Twitch Partner, those being the 25 hours milestone (I currently have 21.9) and the streaming on 12 different days (I have 9, and providing I do all my streams this week, that'll bump up to 13!), and in theory, I should be able to meet "New day, new stream IV" for streaming 40 hours over 30 days, seeing as I have a scheduled 11 hours per week from September, which means I'd stream around 44+ hours over the course of 28 days!
However, those Partner requirements are definitely a lot harder to reach than I thought (and even then I may not get accepted for it!), seeing as you must reach all 3 requirements within the same 30 day period; that said of course, overall 25 hours over 30 days isn't going to be difficult for me to achieve, even if I end up being unable to stream for about 40% of the month for some reason, I can still comfortably make that goal. However, the sticking point is having 12 separate streaming days (over the last 30), as I do 16 days over 28 days (4 weeks, though 17 would perhaps be more accurate over a certain 30 day period) over a full schedule, so I'd never be able to meet that criteria if I missed 40% of my hours; I've pretty much maxed out the amount of days I can comfortably stream on right now (taking into account I have other projects that I'll eventually be rolling out), so I'd have to meet all of my streaming commitments near-consistency (missing no more than 4 days in a month - sounds so insignificant when I frame it like that) to reach that goal! In any case, I think that it was a very good decision on Twitch's part to have the Affiliate track, because reaching Partner is one of the biggest feats to accomplish!
As I mentioned in my previous blog post (possibly - if not, it's here now, although I've mentioned it in the past as well I'm sure), you need to have (as two of the main objectives) 1000 subs and 4000 watched hours in 12 months to reach YouTube Partner. Now admittedly, that is a bit easier to reach on some level than Twitch Partner; it works out that your subs each have to watch 4 hours in 12 months if there's 1000, though if you have more and they watch more, the hours watched per person will drop, though some people will always watch more than the minimum required amount which brings down the average for everyone else and can only be a good thing for you! Of course, reaching 1000 subs on YouTube is no mean feat; I myself have 11 on my StormkeeperGU channel, and around 26 on my StormkeeperPU channel, which out of all GUN-related channels are currently the ones with the most subscribers, and that's partly due to talking about my channels to people, and/or asking them if they'd be interested in subscribing!
Admittedly though, even if of those hypothetical (in my case) 1000 folks someone don't watch the 4 hours required watching (or watch nothing at all!), I still likely would become partner-eligible within a year of hitting 1000+ subs, but the real challenge is getting there! As for Mixer, that's a fun one: account 2+ months old (easy enough), 2000+ followers (tricky!), 12 stream days per month/25 hours a month (same as what I said re Twitch above), and the standard of following rules, etc.
With regards to things, the order of getting to any sort of status (in terms of easy to hard, providing you put the effort in) are (with the biggest sticking point, in my opinion, at least relating to my situation):
- Twitch Affiliate (3 viewers average takes a while, as does reaching 50+ followers)
- Twitch Partner* (75 average views over 30 days will be the biggest challenge)
- YouTube Partner* (1000 subscribers is probably the biggest hurdle here)
- Mixer Partner* (2000 followers will take an age to reach, as that would require massive popularity!)
*Keep in mind that with the "Partner" statuses, you may not necessarily be getting it, even if you're eligible for it!
Going back to YouTube and Mixer, it's likely if you have 1000-2000 followers, you would be able to consider having a Patreon, if the situation suits you. However, you'd likely have a reasonable chance at making Twitch Partner (if you stream 3 days a week minimum, and also a minimum of 2 hours a day, although it takes a little while for viewers to join so averaging 75+ of them over 2 hours might be tricky, unless you have the right amount of people at the right time, and have a dedicated fanbase!) at less than 1000, if out of 750-1000 followers, 10% decided to watch your streams consistently, though that said however, I'm not sure of the typical follower:viewer rate on Twitch, but it seems to be that you need more than 2000 to get an equivalent rate on Mixer. That said however, Mixer recently adjusted the requirements for making Partner so they got rid of the required viewer rate, which makes it easier to reach that status, but still it's the biggest challenge as 2000 followers is not an insignificant amount!
Furthermore, you have to keep in mind that the difficulty will spike if you attempt to become both a Mixer and Twitch Partner, due to Twitch's 24 hour exclusivity contract (which affects YouTube too), meaning Twitch has exclusive rights to your stream video until 24 hours after it ends! This means that you would need to effectively do a double schedule for Mixer and Twitch if you want that status on them both. YouTube (despite it taking a while to reach the follower count) is by far the easiest Partnership to reach if you want to have more than one Partnership (providing you're able to get it) because it can work with Twitch's exclusivity clause, and also you don't need to stream in order to reach it; you can backup all your past streams from the other two without causing disruption (providing you keep to any timed clauses), although you would still have to work with the YT channel a bit in order to get it reaching the follower count.
As for what I'm personally doing, I'm currently at Twitch Affiliate, aiming for Twitch Partner, and also trying to work on YouTube on the side (for my StormkeeperGU/*PU stuff for now) so I'll eventually become Partner for both Twitch and YouTube, although Patreon is factoring for the Geeked Up Network and Stormhaven Media as a whole; I see Mixer Partner as virtually unattainable for me right now, considering I'd have to work out how to best do it, and it would likely be a lot of extra work, with having to do two schedules... it's not impossible, but for where I am right now, it's not viable, given that I'm just about managing to keep my streaming commitments, plus I'll be adding a bi-monthly YouTube video series into the mix, and also at least one other monthly non-GUN (DiggerKrew/DiggerFeast) video into the mix whilst I work out how to proceed with the DiggerFeast itself, so I really don't want to make extra work for myself, plus I there would need to be some demand for me to stream on Mixer in general, and I wouldn't consider going there (if only to casually stream) until I have a larger amount of followers elsewhere, so I'd get a reasonable amount of views to make it viable.
That said though, this is my perspective... yours may be different, but there are definitely different challenges for working on each platform; I will say however if you are aiming for Twitch Partner, you will reach Affiliate easily as part of that process; Partnership on the other platforms naturally are a lot more challenging, but it is still relatively viable to get 2/3 of the Partner statuses if you work with YouTube and either Mixer or Twitch, though I will say that Mixer will take longer to get to the position where you'll be able to have people subscribe to you, if you're looking at only making money purely via platforms; to this end, you'll want to start bringing in third-party tipping services, as you'll be able to (potentially) start making money sooner via tips (although don't expect them to come rolling in either, but it doesn't hurt to set it up either). I left that as a method out till now just to talk about if you were to rely exclusively upon the platforms themselves for some sort of income; it's sensible to set up some sort of third party tipping service when you start properly streaming, on the off-chance someone decides to tip you when you're streaming (and not necessarily via Bits), though it's good to get the system in place early, as many of the sites that allow you to accept tips provide additional functionality which you will want to help make your channel presentation or setup a lot better!
In any case, if you're just starting out, you should never be under any illusions that content creation is "easy"; it's a simple enough thing to get your head round in that it's all making videos or streaming, but neither of them are easy to carry out overall! I'm finding that streaming can be a bit tricky, although on the flipside of that, it does allow you to gain confidence when "performing" (not just in a stream), as you'll (potentially) have a live audience watching you as you play; this can transfer into when you're recording videos as well, as it becomes easier to imagine the "pretend audience" (although it should be said that people will eventually be watching it after you've published the video!) watching your video after you have published and released it to the public!
Ultimately though, this is just my perspective on things, relating to my experiences and also circumstances... maybe you'll be able to be a Mixer, Twitch, and YouTube Partner status all at once... in that case, more power to you! I on the other hand am content with working towards Twitch and YouTube Partner status, especially as I will eventually be working outside of my "SGU/PUbS" space, meaning I'll have to work to get other channels to be YouTube Partner at least, with Twitch Partner not necessarily being something I'd be considering for those outlets, though Affiliate may be a possibility down the line!
In any case, I've rambled a lot about this topic (2 blog posts off the top of my head!) so I probably should stop here; I have a tendency to get a little mixed up sometimes whenever I blog like that, so asking me specific questions about what I've covered over this blog post and the previous might provide a more definitive answer on my thoughts on this topic, though what I've blogged about isn't exactly far from my thoughts either.
In any case, I'm going to leave it here for now, as I don't think I can add anything else.
Until next time...