Because we like to challenge ourselves (maybe too much), we decided the two of us (myself and @idlebright) would put on a 12 hour livestream focused on crypto, blockchain, community, and creativity- our favorite things! We planned this very last minute, but overall, we consider it a success! Here are a few things I learned during this process:
**1. Each streaming platform is very different** We streamed on four different platforms at the same time: DLive, YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook. They all have very different features, audiences, discoverability, and uses. I think this actually deserves its own post, so I’ll just give you some highlights of our experience with this specific stream. - DLive gave us the most viewership, more than the other three combined! - Twitch was the most active in terms of chat engagement - YouTube was uneventful, probably because we didn’t have an existing following on that platform - Facebook was great for getting people onto other platforms, but not for engaging people there
**2. The setup is complicated** It took several hours and pages of notes to make sure everything was up and running and all the knowledge of how it works was recorded. We used OBS, Restream.io, StreamLabs, and SteemAlerts (mentioned in #3). DLive and Facebook had to have their own custom RTMP on Restream.io, which costs extra, and SteemAlerts had to be integrated as an API into StreamLabs. There was a lot of cutting and pasting and a specific order of how to do everything. DLive had to be setup, then Facebook, then YouTube, then Twitch. I couldn't stream on Facebook until I started streaming on OBS and I couldn't start stream on OBS until I was DLive was set up. I had to fill in all the descriptions, tags, and thumbnails on top of that. I can see why people don't stream on so many platforms at once now! In the end, we got it working, and I learned a LOT about the setup process - which would also be another great separate post to write!
**3. But it was worth it because StreamLabs and SteemAlerts are awesome!** These two services provide live notifications during the stream when someone donates. You can style the notification with custom gifs and fonts. StreamLabs allows you to use PayPal, credit, Unitpay.ru, and Skrill. And thanks to @wehmoen, we were able to integrate the SteemAlerts API and shout out our Steem & SBD donations as well. Both are very cool and very useful tools for increasing engagement and crediting people for supporting the stream.
**4. It takes a team** We are crazy people, and decided that only two of us were going to do manage this process for the entire stream. That was a challenge. The first few hours flew by as we interviewed people one after the other, but it became apparent that we were missing some important dedicated team members. We needed someone doing production, someone posting promotional content, someone focused on outreach, and someone actively playing the host role. These roles could definitely be switched around over time, but condensing it to two people was too much for such a long time.
**5. Planning ahead is necessary** When Sean (@gyrosean) came up with the idea to do a stream-a-thon, we jumped on it. We had to do it quickly though because Jason (@idlebright) would be flying to San Francisco in a few days. After deciding to give us an extra day of wiggle room, we had two days to plan before going live. Immediately, we set out blasts to our network to ask people if they’d like to participate. There was a lot of interest, but one thing we didn’t have and everyone needed was time. It was a long stream, but without advanced notice, people couldn’t plan to join us. Though we managed to gather a lot of amazing people last minute, we learned that we need to give ourselves and others more time for future streams.
**6. Sound is important** This is something we learned at our event the week before at the Williamsburg Hotel, but it translated to our stream too. Sound is the one thing you can't easily fix if you recorded it wrong. The visuals can be styled or cut but the sound is what it is. We made sure to test and adjust the sound for our different conversations and activities throughout the day. Remember, always make sure the sound is working!
**7. There’s no guarantee a DLive stream will show up in “Live Now,” even if you're live** That had to be the biggest bummer. We were the first ever stream-a-thon to be happening on DLive (that we know of, so correct us if we’re wrong), and we didn’t see ourselves show up in the homepage for most of the stream. Later in the evening, we gained traction and showed up in the “Trending” section, but still were invisible to people landing on the homepage. I don’t know if this is a bug, but I would say this is an important feature to get working on DLive or people will get left behind.
**8. There will be problems** Not everything went smoothly. Our guests had technical problems. We had technical problems. People showed up late. We got super hungry. OBS crashed at the end. And so on. But we knew something was going to happen; we just didn't know what. By preparing ourselves for inevitable fails, we were able to manage them well in the moment.
**9. Record your stream on OBS too** Our previous streams have always been under or around 2 hours, which is perfectly fine to not record on your own and just download from DLive or YouTube when it’s over. However, when you’re streaming for such a long time, you need to make sure you’ve captured it, and we had our doubts we would be able to download 13 hours straight of streaming. To make sure we got everything and didn’t overload our computer, we recorded two to three hour sessions at a time - stopping and starting recording in OBS during breaks.
**10. Have fun with it!** At first, I was stressed out because it was a lot of planning and setup to do in a very short amount of time. I could tell at the beginning of the stream that I was very antsy and Jason was very tired. Once we got going with our conversations and settled in, I could see a significant difference in audience interaction and the time flew by! And I did have fun! Thank you all who watched us and supported us last night. I’ll be writing posts and posting segments of the stream to DTube for each of our guests over the next couple weeks.
If have any tips or tricks, please comment below! l'd love to learn even more. 😊 Stream on!