Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Um, welcome to the guide to live. It's Friday, March 22, 2024, and this is your weekly hangout to join us and our guests to talk about live streaming with people who really know what it's like.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Because let's face it, no one knows what you're talking about if you say you're a live creator.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: But we do. So, I'm Tara, and across from me is my co host, Ben. And together with our guest, we make up the guide to live team.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Wow. So this is actually the first one we're doing on video. You can look at the camera.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Hi.
So we can start putting these out. They look a little better. I like your backdrop over there.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Put a bit more effort in than me.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, we'll work on yours.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Next week.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Well, this episode is titled.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Whoa. Setting the stage for your life.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Setting the stage for your life.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Setting the stage for your life.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: And we want to really caveat this one with this is not about making it look pretty or nice.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Picture perfect or picture perfect.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: It doesn't have to be good, does it?
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Well, it doesn't have to look like. It's like, oh, it looks like it came out of a magazine.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:19] Speaker B: So what we're going to talk about is really setting the stage for your live so that people tap through and come watch it with the visuals being the primary hook, how you get someone from the for you page into your life.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: So you've set your scene with some lovely foliage.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Foliage, yes. And then the brand blue and. Yes, yes.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: There's some other stuff as well. This week you wanted to tell me because Tara is the iPhone gamer of the two of.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Is that fair to say?
[00:01:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I like to play iPhone. Well, not just, but just phone app games. I'm big into it. I'm playing one right now.
It's called the last Fortress. It's pretty fun. It's like a war game. Yeah. But yes. There is a new game on the TikTok lives platform. It's called Connect Eight.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty fun.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: It's like a wordplay game. So it'll start with one word, and then if you guess that word, the word underneath of it will start with the first letter and then you have to guess and it's tied to the first word that was just said, and then you guess what the next word is. And if you get one right, you go to the next one. And like I said, the next one is tied to the word before it. So, for instance, if you go on TikTok live us right now on the feed, there is a video that demonstrates it. And the first word is TikTok. And then the second word comes down with the l and you're like, oh, it's live. So it's TikTok live.
And then the next letter comes down to the next word and it's s. And it's like live stream.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Just like complete the word.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it's called connect eight. It's literally all the words are connected in a way.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: I see. And you play with your audience, I'm guessing?
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Yes, I think so.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: A lot of people play the pictionary game more than I initially thought.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: It's not actually called pictionary because I was looking for that and a lot of people could get confused. It's called drawn guess.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Oh, drawn guess. Pictionary is probably it's trademark. Trademark.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah. It's called drawn guests. It's fun. And if you ever want to do something fun with your especially, this is really good to do in the very beginning of your stream when you want to get a lot of engagement. In the very beginning, I would start off playing drawing guests just to get your audience warmed up.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I also have something cool to tell you.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: So this is something I think, and I might be over exaggerating, no one else has ever found this out, so I'd be.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: You said found out. Is this a secret?
[00:03:46] Speaker B: I think it's a secret. I've never heard anyone talk about it. So if you've done this, I want to hear about. So you can watch TikTok short form with your friends at the same time remotely using FaceTime.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Oh, it's almost like when you share your screen, like when you're doing a Google Meet or something. Yeah, but this is all FaceTime.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: So I found this out by accident by being on FaceTime with somebody, and then I wanted to send them a TikTok. So I opened up the TikTok app and it gave me this option to click a button and share my TikTok experience with the person I was on FaceTime with. And so then I'm scrolling short form content and it's scrolling for them on their screen and we're watching videos.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: I think I've always wanted to do that because I've always thought, I have daughters, that they're off in college, and it's like, oh, I want to watch a video with you. We can't watch it together on FaceTime. So this is fun. This is amazing.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: So there are some restrictions on it. I think because I couldn't share my for you page, it was like just a general feed.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: I couldn't share lives, which is a downer for what we do.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Right. But that should come around. Yeah.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: So it's like kind of like a watching room that you get to watch stuff with. Anyway, I thought it was really cool, and I have heard no one talk about it. I love it when companies do that and they just release. Apple does it a lot. There's just loads of things on the iPhone they don't tell you about.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I wonder if it's like a beta thing, though. I wonder if it's like, not everybody has it and they're just testing it out, because a lot of times if they don't announce it, it's usually a beta test.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
I'd use my iPhone. I don't know for how long has it been out? How long has iPhone been around? Ten years. Is that mad to say, or is.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: It more than that?
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Must be.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: Okay. 15 years ago, I had the last version. I had a BlackBerry Pearl.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: And then the next phone I got was, like, the iPhone.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: But you were slightly late to the iPhone. You were coveting the iPhone.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: I was coveting it, yes.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah. I coveted it for a while.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: I couldn't afford an iPhone back then.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: But even back then, there was that trick that I only found out six months ago where you long press the spacebar and then you can move your cursor around anywhere.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Oh, I knew that. I already knew that. Yeah, I knew that back when I first got it.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Well, maybe what I'm finding back then, I'm slow on that.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: That's okay. We all learn technology different in different speeds. Yeah, I'm really bad with some of.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Them, but we do advocate as live streamers. Definitely one of the things that I've said a lot is, like, getting in and trying to learn the platform as.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Quickly as possible, too. You really do.
If you want to take this as serious as a job, then with any job, when you start a job, you train and you learn every the ins and outs of it. You need to learn whatever it is, like the software or whatever. Well, this is the software you need to learn.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: Don't be scared of it.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Don't be scared.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: So let's get on to setting the scene. Yeah, maybe.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Where did this all start? When did people start setting the scene? Because that's a phrase people say. You got to set the stage metaphorically and literally. Yeah, but where did this all come from?
[00:07:03] Speaker B: I think you're right. It's important to look back at where stuff comes from because it makes you use it better.
[00:07:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: So I have got a little history here. It kind of comes from the starts in the 16th and 17th century. So tell me, this is the 16th century, actually. 15, is it? Fifteen, zero, zero. Up to 15. Nine.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Nine. It's the one below.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: It's the one below, yes.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: I always get that confused. But then I think we're in the 21st century and it's only 2000 and.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Right, 2000 and. Yeah, there's probably a better way to remember that. Anyway, in the 16th and 17th centuries, that was when theater started to become professionalized.
For the english people out there, that was the Elizabethan area.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: So before that, it was just people just performing. Like busking, performing, performing.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: But it seems like the monetization of theater caused set design to start to exist. And I can only assume because it gives you a better experience as a viewer.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: So you're there doing your play one day for free in front of the woods or a towel.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
You tie a bed spread from one tree to the other. That's your background, that's your backdrop.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Or if it was me, age eight, it's a cardboard box cut out, TV screen cutout. Did you do that?
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Oh, yes, I sure did. Absolutely.
Yes.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: So it started back then, and it's clearly tied to giving the audience a better experience. And then it kind of, like, grew and grew and grew. The notes here really point out how that in every era of set design or set or using sets, it's really tied to the technology of the time. So if you think about, like, back in the 80s, when things started to get bigger and fancier, that was really. When.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Do you remember what claymation was? Like, the big thing back in the.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: 80S, what was the set.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah, but I'm talking about for TV, though, they were green screening the claymation.
That's technology. The green screen was the background, but then the image on the green screen was claymation, which is terrible.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: I was just thinking of, like, the big shows. No, I'm thinking, like, the shows, the kind of like the Michael Jackson, those big and everything like that. Talk about that was like, well, I guess even think of it previously in the kind of, like, rockier era, it was like you just went on stage and you played your thing, and it was a big stage, but there was not really any set.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: It just said your name back in the day.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: The Beatles behind them or whoever it was.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Right, the doors.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah. But then as technology progresses, they add lights and pyrotechnics and stuff like that. I have a story I learned this late on, I think, the importance of set design. And we have a good friend, Dan.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Yes, I know Dan.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Dan and Ross.
And so I went to school with Dan and Dan went on to become a stage manager for TV, doing big shows. He has then grown into doing. What was their most recent thing they did the Ringling Brothers.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: They did the revamp, the first, like the comeback of the Ringling Brothers. They basically did the creative directors direction.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
And they worked on pop stars stuff and TV shows, all the Eurovision stuff, like huge show. And I can remember back in our school days Dan saying to me, oh, no. It was a little afterwards as he started to get into it. And I was working in indie music, which is a bit grungier. It's just like, it's cool to be on stage and don't do anything.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: Not even unplugged. But it's like you're focusing on the sounds, not the look. And Dan would say to me, those performers deserve. He used the word deserve to have good staging because it makes it more appealing to the audience or more enjoyable for the audience.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: And what does that do? That hooks the audience in. That's what gets them in, keeps them coming back. It's like drawing the audience in is how you get the audience.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: So I've already apologized to Dan for kind of. We would argue about it because I would say it's not important. He would say, and now, you know.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: Being in this industry, how important it actually is, it really is.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Well, and I learned it later on in music as well. It's like, as things got bigger, you needed to do more to really entertain the eyes that are there.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think back to the days when I used to do this as a kid with my mom's video camera and my cousins. It's like we would try to reenact like movies and stuff and like Peewee Herman. We'd try everything we could to get everything in the background to look like the playhouse. Right. It never really did. But why did we do that? Because we wanted it to look like we were in the playhouse.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Was setting the stage to create that space that appeared to be this thing. And that's what's really important about live streaming, because your room is a chat room, but it's also a space that you're. And it's an environment, a vibe. It's a vibe that you're creating to draw people in that want to be in that vibe.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Let's go through some classic stagings on live that you can do quickly.
First of all, let's keep in mind if the history of staging is that they followed the technology of the time, we should, as live streamers, be doing the same. So a lot of what we're talking about is not necessarily building a set.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: No.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Or doing it with lighting. It might be with digital overlays, digital backdrops and things like that. It also might be that the set is intentionally messy or looks like it's.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: In a derelict stage.
It all depends on the vibe you're trying to create.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think the franc does this a lot. So he coaches live streamers and he talks about their backdrops, looking good and feeling good. But he will also then go on live himself in his garage with, like, dirt on the floor, a weird table.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Not framed.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Not particularly well framed. Intentionally. Always well lit, because that's an important part of it.
And then he'll put it almost looks like he's been held captive.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: He has a briefcase sitting on a spinning thing.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: But what does that do?
Why does that work?
[00:13:39] Speaker A: He's setting the stage of intrigue. People scroll on that and they're like, what is going on in this scene? Nothing makes sense. It's juxtaposed. It's like a dude in a suit with a briefcase spinning around in a dirty garage with the door half shut and dirt on the floor. I don't get what's going on.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: What's happening.
He did it on a spotlight once. We'll have to ask him about sitting. We'll get him on to talk about it.
You were in your basement and you had a table and there was somebody else there. Can you talk through that stream, first of all, from whatever you remember of it?
[00:14:16] Speaker C: Yes. No, I remember this one. It was because last minute we found out that TikTok Live doesn't allow you to have multi guests during a lineup or a spotlight. And it's about the creator. But at that time, I really hadn't run my comedy bits without using people. So I thought, what a nightmare. I just got to talk by myself for that long. I couldn't do it right. So I decided I had some friends in town. So I had a couple guys over, and it was a lot of fun, really. But I guess it wasn't exactly the prettiest.
What would you say, production setup? It didn't look aesthetically perfect.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: No.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
Really well set up.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Right. It did really well.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it did.
[00:15:12] Speaker C: It drew a lot of people. Exactly. Yeah. I think people assume that if you're going to stream, you're going to need some neon lights behind you. You're going to need the gamer setup. But of course, as you guys know, TikTok live, and just like the new era of live streaming is totally different. It's much more authentic and just kind of whatever you want, which is kind of beautiful.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: You've been really playing with the whatever I want recently, even just disappearing outside and picking a spot.
And I know that you do this. You talk to streamers and you coach them, and you coach them on their setting and their framing and their setup and everything. I would say that you're a maverick when it comes to what is attractive to the viewer as a set. If we're talking about a set being a thing that just enhances your performance, your approach to it is different to a lot of people successfully.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: So, yeah. So I'm going to try not to humble brag too much as I explain this, my thoughts on this. But generally speaking, I think the deeper your understanding into anything, the more innovative you can be, down to how a scientist invents something by understanding the baseline level, physics or chemistry or whatever they're doing. So the more fundamental you're understanding, the more different you can be if you have a very shallow understanding of something which is normal, and everybody has that when they start something, but if you have a shallow understanding, you kind of have to just look around and see what other people are doing to succeed in live streaming. To apply that to this.
What are we really trying to do?
If I could distill live streaming down into two topics or two ideas, I would say it's captivating an audience and then growing a community.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:13] Speaker C: I think those are my favorite way to distill it.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Right?
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the community is very with the community, and the creator is very symbiotic. So having that community as a base, as a foundation, is very important.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: You can't build a community without people arriving in your room, first of all.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: This is always a journey.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Community trap.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah, you got to trap them by it being good.
[00:17:43] Speaker C: And with all this TikTok live stuff, we all love it so much, all three of us. We're obsessed with it, and our whole life is about live streaming.
And sometimes I get so excited explaining to the newer creators that join our agency, and it's so tempting to want to go into all the different facets, but really, it's overwhelming if you think about how complicated this really is. And it's really not just to start off, it's just that you get deeper and deeper with it as you get better. So I guess back to the point of the way that I decorate the know. I grew up watching. It's always sunny in Philadelphia. And if you think about it, a lot of my comedy is inspired by this. Not in specific character traits or jokes, but they're not good people. The people in that show are bad people. And everything is disgusting and dirty. And I was always so inspired by this. How can we laugh at something that we kind of despise and hate? And then I watch the office and like Michael Scott, he's not a good person. The funniest parts are where the relatable parts about deep down the selfish thoughts we have, he exaggerates those in times he shouldn't, and it just gets a pop of laughter. So I think that partly the biggest thing we fight as live streamers, especially in this new era of live streaming, namely TikTok live and their algorithm, where they're in a very democratic way, sending you to people and based on how they like your content, how they engage with it, if they click in, they're going to send to more people. So you are appealing to the world. You don't get to pick the niche. So it needs to transcend culture and language. And a good metric for this is, is it captivating with the sound off? Because there's going to be some japanese fisherman, whatever you want.
Any of the beautiful people around the world are going to be scrolling before you page and does something captivate them. So when I'm arrested, I'm sweating and there's a cop light going off and I'm screaming and I look crazy, everybody gets what is going on with that, right? So along with that, I like contrast. So when I have a really deranged, dirty basement, unfinished basement, which, by the way, I didn't make it dirty. It's what I'm renting right now. I like to wear a suit.
Maybe I'll have a briefcase that's spinning with a light on it because it's like, that's not right. And it adds the captivating part to it because it's okay. I get a basement that's dirty. But why is he wearing a suit? And why is he so self important about the karaoke or whatever?
I am fighting tooth and nail to get attention and something to focus on that helps your stream a lot is focusing on the thousands of people that are on the for you page counted as impressions, which you don't see currently as a creator. The number of impressions people that scrolled and decided not to click in. You want to compete with less people, but it also has to be valuable so you can be really random and novel. But if it's not valuable to the viewer, it doesn't matter either. So it has to be different and valuable.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, thank you for coming and adding that value in. I want to talk to you about something else.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Okay. All right. Well, thanks for having me.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: Appreciate it, guys.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: Bye.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: I want to bring up some group of streamers who are great to take inspiration from in terms of sets. Oh, yeah, the ASMR crew.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Kind of without fail, have spent time and effort on their sets and their lighting. Other people do great things as well. But generally, if you're looking for inspiration on how to, I think how to get a backdrop or a look that isn't just a neon light that's stuck behind you, that was good.
In a year ago, that was good. If you were trying to draw attention quickly, just stick a light behind you, warm the space up, make it look a bit punchy. But things have developed since then and ASMR is very visual as well as auditory. So the ASMR artists tend to do a great job setting this.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: It's like about setting the vibe well. They are the masters of vibes. Like, they set the vibe masters. That's all they do. They're vibe masters.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: They are vibe farmers.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: They really are. They're vibe farmers. But of course they would have to have the vibe set with the scene too. They know what they're doing. And really you're right. If you want to get some inspiration, please check out the ASMR in their live streams. They're amazing.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: ASMR Kenobi is a great one for setting the scene where there are trinkets and there are a lot of items in their backdrop that have been sent in by their viewers.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: It's community. He showcases a lot of his community in his backdrop.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: So if live streaming is about being collaborative with your audience and them taking part in your stream and impacting your stream and affecting your stream, we talk about that a lot. It's good for the algorithm that is a slow version of that, that they are taking a part in building your set as well.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: They also can go into helping you decide on what vibe like, if you're wanting to change your vibe up, they can offer up. Like you can ask them to get involved to give them. What's your idea? Should we do blue or red this month? What do you think? Should we go with a blue vibe.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Or a red vibe, blue vibe, red vibe.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Imagine if you did everything in your room was one color. It was like multiple things, but it was just all one color.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Moonstone is great for re upping their set.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Do know. And Helen also, she likes to change hers depending on the holidays or themes that are going on that are.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: I thought, I think honeybee is great as well. And they actually spent a lot of times preparing their set before they went live.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: They really did. They put a lot of time and effort into it and we worked really closely with them.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: It paid off as well. It was really worth it at the start. I would say that's one of those rare cases where we wouldn't necessarily advocate getting everything perfect before you start. Because just starting, you learn so much from just going live, even if it's in front of a white wall. But they hit the ground running. They hit the ground running, but they knew what they wanted.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: So there's something about this. We talk about intention. What is the intention behind it? Because build a set.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Okay. Well, it depends on what we're going to be doing. What's the theme?
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Yeah, these are the steps to get to the point of understanding what you want to do.
Am I trying to make this a fun space? Am I trying to make this in scary space? Am I trying to make it something that is surprising to people or is.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: This a serious space where I'm trying to educate you on something?
[00:24:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So if you have a big pink flashing neon sign behind you, but you're discussing politics, I don't think it's not going to work distracting. But if you have an 80s themed stream or you're having a party night or you're battling or whatever, maybe a big flashing pink light is the thing that's going to draw people.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: Do the pink flashing light during like speed speed. The flashing lights, incorporate that into it.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: But we can do this as like a test. I think it's a great exercise. We do it with people, but you can do this on your own. What am I trying to say in my stream? So first of all, what's the elevator pitch for your stream? And then what are you trying to say with the background? Because a lot of it is expressing things. Like at the moment, the words I'm saying is about live streaming, but I'm expressing I'm in a public bathroom.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I know what you mean. That just made me think of this and this is really off topic. It's not off topic. It's on topic, but it's a really weird memory. But have you ever been to a play? And it's not a big production, like, not on Broadway or anything, but it's like a local.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: You're talking Amdram.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Yes, Amdram. And you're sitting there and you can see some of the stages already set up and the actors aren't on yet. It's, like, dead. It hasn't started yet. But you see the set and the props, you're like.
You're already getting an idea of the vibe of what's going to happen when actors do come on. It sets the stage. Literally sets the stage. Isn't that weird?
[00:26:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. The more we've talked about this, the more I'm realizing it's, like, so fundamental to everything that we all do with live streaming, because it sets the stage, and if it's not thought about, then we're missing half of the performance.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: Exactly. And I do want to say that the stage can go out because this is another thing that some of our creators do. They like to go out into the real world.
Think about all day New York. His stage is Manhattan. Like, he's going on tours. He's showing that. But then also there's some, like, the franc is starting to do this thing where he's going out and he's, like, interviewing people randomly on the street. But that's his stage. It's like the stage is. He picks a nice backdrop of wherever he is in public, and he looks for people, and the world is his. The world is his stage at that point. But that's like, the stage can be anything you want. The world is your oyster and your stage at the same time.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Yeah, set it correctly. Set it correctly. And I think using. We talk about trial and pivot in content. We talk about trial and pivot in the games or the way that you interact with your audience. Same with the background or your staging as well.
You could be changing your content and not changing your staging, and you never quite unleash the full potential because the staging doesn't suit the content.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: You're still being held back a little bit. That tether, you got to cut that tether. You got to change that backdrop.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: It has to fit the content.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: I think I'm going to give you, like, a real life live example right now where Hazel Vixen has just found that a lot of they started talking about kind of true crime stuff, not a genre that they trafficked in at all previously. They just said, the audience seems to really like it. The room is filling up, so that's great. And obviously, whenever that happens, it's like, dig in and do more of it because they're really into true crime themselves.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: So the audience number goes up. That's great. But imagine staging something that was a bit more suitable for true crime.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Like the tape caution tape right in.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: The background, or a little blue flashing light. I don't know. These are all kind of like basic.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Things hanging up in the back.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Like a white dead body here or there.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: An outline of a dead body that had been there. They don't even do that anymore.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: But seriously, if you're going to do a true crime live stream, wouldn't it be better if it had the visuals to back it up? Wouldn't more people tap through and simply see what you were doing and find it was good and therefore you're giving yourself a higher chance of doing better?
[00:29:22] Speaker A: And this is exactly how this evolves. Like, you start in your stream, you're talking, all of a sudden you're talking about something that they're interested in. Then the room starts filling up, going, okay, this is great. Then you do it again. And you do it again. Okay, now I'm actually going to make this a thing. And now I'm going to make it a special thing that I do every so often. And I can set the stage for that particular one, set the intention for that, and let everybody know ahead of time. It's a new thing you just started. It's really cool.
[00:29:44] Speaker B: It is very cool. And then change it around. It's like, does it work better with this thing or this thing in the background?
We found this out with a DJ who was really struggling with their views. And then they had one stream which was huge. And it turned out, unbeknownst to us, the sweater that they were wearing was really trending hard in TikTok shop at the time. So it was kind of everywhere and they didn't realize and they had it on. Their stream went wild. And it took forever to diagnose what it was because their stream is exactly the same every single time. There was no other variation other than that.
So it tells you what a small thing, like what small things can impact.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Really a little minute detail.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: So I think it's time to wrap up for the week.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it's been a great week. It's Friday. I look forward to the weekend. I'm wondering if there's going to be any really cool weekend streams. I know there's some things going on this weekend. March Madness is still going on.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah, lots of march madness. So any kind of bracket battley stuff leaning into the March madness is going.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: To be good for everyone. Good luck with your live matches and have a great weekend, and we'll see you next time.
March.
