3 Ways Vertical Video Ramps Up Your Streaming Game

Twitch streamers are - understandably - always trying to improve their setup and content. There are thousands of other streamers out there, and your content needs to be top-tier if you want to stand out from the crowd and grow your audience on Twitch and other platforms.

If you haven’t started making vertical video content yet, you need to know that it’s one of the best ways you can improve your platform and push your content to more people. In today’s social media climate, it’s simply a must.

So today, we’re going to leave the world of landscape and enter the exciting realm of portrait content. We’ll talk about what vertical video is, why it’s important, and how to make it so you can succeed as a streamer.

Why Is Vertical Video Popular?

We’ve all seen plenty of vertical video in the past several years. All of the videos on your TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are almost exclusively vertical videos, also called portrait videos. TikTok even rolled out vertical livestreaming with TikTok Live!

Before the rise of these popular social media platforms, most of the videos on the internet were not portrait but landscape, or horizontal. That’s because most videos were consumed on laptops and TVs, which have screens shaped for horizontal videos.

But now, we consume the most content on our phones and social media. So, creators have adapted and started to make videos in the vertical format.

The good news is that now, lots of our technology is defaulted to vertical format, so it’s easy to start making vertical content. When you take a picture or video with your phone camera, it will automatically be in vertical mode, so you don’t have to change anything.

However, when you’re streaming, whether you’re on Twitch, YouTube, or some other streaming platform, your content will likely be in horizontal mode. If you want to post your stream to social media, you’ll have to do some finagling. We’ll talk more about how to create vertical video in just a minute.

Why Should You Make Vertical Videos?

Streaming on a regular basis is incredibly important. If you want to be a gamer who makes content for a living, you should stream on Twitch or YouTube often. But if you want to find success, you absolutely must make vertical content for social media as well.

1. Grow Your Audience

Twitch is a great platform for people who already have fans. The fans get long-form content, can interact with their favorite streamers in a meaningful way, and can also support their favorite streamers financially.

But, for all its strengths, Twitch does not do a very good job of getting your content in front of new people. The algorithm for Twitch’s Browse page heavily favors creators who already have a large audience. If you’re a smaller streamer who’s still in the growing stage, it’s incredibly difficult to build your audience if Twitch is the only platform you use.

Because of that, it’s incredibly important that you leverage your favorite socials like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. These three platforms have incredible algorithms that are designed to get content to new viewers.

While Twitch’s algorithm favors large creators, TikTok and Instagram focus their algorithms on engagement. These algorithms work to fill everyone’s For You Page with content that they will love. It gathers data on people’s interests and the types of content they engage with and feeds them more of that type of content.

That’s great news for you! It means that if you make quality content on social media that can gather engagement, the algorithms will do the work for you and put your videos in front of more and more people.

2. Drive Back to Twitch

Once people like your content enough, they’ll follow you on those platforms. Now it’s time to make sure that you can convert those new followers into viewers, followers, and subs on Twitch. Make sure you put your Twitch Channel in the bio of all your socials so people can easily check you out on Twitch.

Think of Twitch as your home base. It’s where you make the bulk of your content and engage with viewers the most. Then, think of vertical videos on social media as your advertisements that drive people to your home base, where they can engage with and support you in an impactful way.

3. Diversify Your Income

On top of all that, if you do well on platforms like TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, you’ll be able to start making money off of those platforms as well. Diversifying your income is incredibly important when it comes to sustainability as a streamer — every little bit helps, especially if your goal is to be a full-time content creator.

How Can You Make Good Vertical Videos?

This task is a little easier said than done. Not only is editing these videos a bit of a challenge, but it can also be tough to make quality content that gets engagement. Here are a few tips that can help you become a social media pro and blast your content out to the masses.

Find Your Niche

Gaming content is everywhere on social media. You’ve probably seen your fair share of gaming TikToks. There’s loads of stuff out there, from clip compilations to comedy. It can be tough to decide what type of content to post.

In short, post content that excites you and that shows off the best parts of your stream. The best content shows off your authentic self and allows people to find out who you are as a person, streamer, and gamer.  

If you’re a high-energy streamer like Jynxzi who has tons of hilarious moments on your stream, single out a hilarious moment or two and clip them into a 30-second video. If you’re an immensely skilled gamer who has legendary plays game after game, post clip compilations of some of your nastiest kills.

Find some content or a creator that you really like and emulate their stuff in a way that feels more like you.

Format Your Videos

Making these videos can seem intimidating if you’ve never done it before. While uploading your entire stream into a video editor like Final Cut or Premiere Pro and trying to chop it up that way might sound like a good course of action, it isn’t always best. This type of editing takes loads of time and prior knowledge that you may or may not have.

The quickest, easiest, and highest-quality way to convert your streams to vertical format is with Powder PC. Powder is an AI software that automatically detects and clips the top moments of your stream so you can save and post them with ease. Here’s how it works.

Powder’s AI is trained to detect any kills or victories you get in your stream. It can also clip any moment you get loud or any time it detects laughter, so you’ll also have clips of your funniest and most tilted moments. At the end of the stream, Powder shows you all the clips it collected and gives you the option to group them all into one compilation with the click of a button, saving you hours of editing.

But there’s more. Powder also lets you take individual clips and make short-form, vertical videos with them. With Powder’s cropping editor tool, you can crop out the different parts of your stream (like your face cam, the health bar, and the actual game) and then layer them on top of each other so you can fit all the content into a vertical format. It’s your own customized, vertical template that you can apply to all of your clips–or just one.

Once you’ve got a format that you like, you can save that video and post it straight to TikTok or Reels. Powder saves you an immense amount of time and work while still giving you quality content that will do well on social media.

Get Engagement

A good template and a good edit are not enough to make a viral video. You also need to have some charisma and a little bit of luck. So here are some tips and tricks that can help you make content that will garner some serious engagement.

First, you need an attention grabber. On TikTok, where the next video is just a thumb-swipe away, you’ve got to get ahold of the viewer’s attention within the first few seconds of your video. TikTokers refer to it as a hook, but it’s typically the attention-grabbing three first seconds of a video that keeps someone sticking around to watch the rest. Whether that’s a high-action clip right out the gate, trending audio, or a crazy sound effect or edit, you need to get their attention fast.

Next, you can follow the trends. The algorithm favors popular hashtags, templates, audio, and more. So, if there’s a popular trend in your space, jump on it and ride that wave!

It also doesn’t hurt to throw a few hot takes in there. If you can get a heated discussion about a game update, some patch notes, or whether or not a game is good, that can help drive your content. More people fighting in the comments means more engagement for you.

Finally, be authentic. Viewers can spot phony content a mile away. At the end of the day, people want to feel like they’re seeing a real person on the other side of the screen.

Make sure you’re making content that you like, putting your true self out there, and showcasing your true skills as a gamer. Not only can this help grow your audience, but it can improve your sense of well-being while online.

Vertical Video Is the Key to Success

It might seem like an overwhelming task to regularly post vertical videos on social media, but it can be what makes or breaks your career as a streamer. If you follow these tips and get a little bit of luck on your side, you can blow up and take a step closer to becoming a full-time gamer.

For more information about streaming and helpful tools that can save you time and effort, check out Powder.gg

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