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Should You Play a Starting Screen on Twitch?

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A Starting Soon Screen is a pre-content scene that is meant to allow time for viewers to get in and get hyped for a live stream. Many streamers usually utilize a 3-10 minute timer that indicates when they’ll be starting the stream. 

However, playing a Starting Soon Screen on Twitch has become quite a controversial topic for the past couple of years, with some people claiming that it puts viewers off of your stream by having to wait a few minutes for it to start, and some people claiming that it’s a good way to hype up your viewers for the stream and get everyone chatting before it starts. 

This article will go over why you should or shouldn’t include a Starting Soon Screen in your stream. 

Should You Play a Twitch Starting Screen?

Whether you should play a Starting Screen on your stream is your personal choice as a streamer. A few things you should consider prior to deciding if you want to use one are the following:

  1. Do you have a relatively big audience that is in your stream even before you click that “Live” button? 
  2. Do you use the extra time during the “Starting Soon” screen to get ready for the stream? 

If you’ve answered yes to the first question, and no on the second one, you might not need to add a “Starting Screen” scene to your overlay. If you’ve answered no to the first question, and yes on the second one, you might want to consider putting one up! 

To make it clearer, if you have a relatively big audience that is already hyped and ready for your stream when you go live (pro tip: having a consistent schedule helps with this!), having it wait for 3-10 minutes before you start the stream might not be the most beneficial for you, as many streamers choose to put it up to get their viewers hyped for their stream. However, if you’re a small streamer and you feel like people usually come in at around the 5-10 minute mark of your stream, having the timer there might give you a little more confidence, as you’ll have a few more people chatting. 

Moreover, many streamers use the Starting Soon screen to avoid the awkward few minutes at the beginning of the stream. You know, when you’re checking to see that you’re live, posting on Social Media and Discord that you’re going live, etc.

Let’s go over some of the Pros and Cons to playing a Starting Screen on Twitch.

Pros to Playing a Starting Screen on Twitch

  • Builds up hype at the beginning of the stream.
  • Gets your viewers to chat amongst themselves before you come in, allowing the streamer to have topics of conversation to bounce off of.
  • Allows time for people to come in before the stream officially starts.
  • Gives you time to post “Going live” notifications on Social Media.

Cons to Playing a Starting Screen on Twitch

  • Some people don’t want to wait around for 5-10 minutes and will move on to a different stream.
  • If new viewers are stumbling upon your channel for the first time, a Starting Soon Screen might put them off of your stream, making you lose potential viewers, followers, etc.

Conclusion

To conclude, notifications and display on Twitch’s sidebar are ways in which followers most commonly will learn that a streamer is live. Therefore, we can assume that before a notification reaches your audience, they will have no way of knowing you’re live (and keep in mind that Twitch’s live notification only goes off a few minutes after the stream starts).

With that in mind, as mentioned, whether you should play a Starting Screen on your streams is up to you, but if you do choose to put one up, try to make it between 3-5 minutes, so your viewers don’t have to sit around and wait 🙂

About the Author

Lital

Lital is a Social Media Content and Community Manager from Israel and part-time Twitch streamer at Liithargic. She is passionate about videogames and creating meaningful friendships via social media and through livestreaming!

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