🔴 Busting 4 TikTok LIVE Myths

Hey, it’s Harry.

Welcome back to another week of the streaming and content grind.

I've come across countless 'tricks' and 'hacks' touted to boost TikTok LIVE views. Let's dive into this today.

In today’s edition of Live Success:

• 🚀 Should you join a TikTok LIVE agency?

• 🇺🇸 Does TikTok favor US accounts? How to stop LIVE restrictions

• 👾 Tips for your Minecraft stream

• ✍ The free tool I use to write this newsletter

💼 TikTok LIVE Agencies - The Good and The Bad

“Agency” can often feel like a dirty word. Agencies often don’t have the best reputations. I usually talk about TikTok LIVE agencies in relation to gaining LIVE Studio or stream key access. However, they can do much more.

I’ve been thinking more and more about them recently. Based on what other creators were telling me, it seems I could do just as good of a job, probably even better. So, I've started the process of creating a UK agency 🇬🇧. You can join the waitlist here.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of joining one.

Advantages

• Free to join.

• Help to grow and monetise your TikTok LIVE. They have more advanced analytics and often provide training.

• Protection from false bans and tech issues.

• Access to PC streaming. Some will give you a stream key. Some LIVE Studio.

• Access to other agency creators who you can LIVE battle with and collab with.

• Agencies have direct access to TikTok staff.

• Some people say that just by being in an agency you get a “boost” in the algorithm.

Disadvantages

• They typically don’t want to work with larger creators.

• You’ll usually be required to stream 20+ hours per month.

• Agencies take a cut of your gifts but it comes from TikTok’s side of the split. If they are money hungry they may pressure you to do a type of livestream you don’t want to do. e.g. live battles when you want to game.

• Bad experiences happen. For example, here is both a positive and negative review of CarterPulse, one of the most popular US agencies.

Conclusion

If you’re a committed streamer then I don’t see many downsides to be honest. I’ve compiled a list of known agencies here and once again UK creators can join my agency waitlist here. Hit reply and let me know your thoughts on LIVE agencies!

⚠ TikTok LIVE Mythbusting

Over 65% of TikTok streamers told me they received a warning or restriction of some type in this poll. Let’s play ✅fact or ❌fiction.

❌ TikTok favours US accounts. This might be controversial but I simply don’t believe this claim. In fact, my poll seems to indicate that US accounts are MORE likely to get restricted.

✅ TikTok can detect gift icons. The evidence on this one seems clear. If you put a gift icon on the screen your stream is more likely to be restricted. My video below has more thoughts on this.

❌ TikTok doesn’t like alerts. The simple fact that follow and gift alerts are built into TikTok’s own LIVE Studio software indicates that this one’s a myth. However, you should combine this thought with my next myth-buster…

✅ TikTok doesn’t like certain words. There is clear evidence that phrases like “follow for follow” can get your stream restricted. People like Ben Toye get around this by being very careful with their wording.

This week I put together a video discussing why you might receive warnings. Spoiler alert, the general answer is to experiment with your setup if you get warnings.

👾 Minecraft Endures - How To Stand Out

To the surprise of nobody, Minecraft continues to do well on both YouTube and TikTok. It has over one trillion views on YouTube and a bit less than half that on TikTok.

Of course, this means it can be quite difficult to stand out when you’re streaming Minecraft so here are my tips to get more Minecraft views:

1. Find your unfair advantage. Do you build the best houses? Stream that. Are you a speedrun god? Stream it.

2. Engage the viewers. Platforms like TikTok and YouTube will push your stream if they can see people watching for longer. Keep the vibes high and consider adding in tech such as TikFinity’s Minecraft mod.

3. Spread your wings by multistreaming. This gives you more reach and more ways to monetise. Here are 6 methods.

🎯 Bullet Point News

• Kick starts paying some creators an hourly rate.

• TikFinity releases a single-player Minecraft mod. It can be found via the setup page.

• Twitch is now stopping banned users from viewing your stream.

• YouTube enables AV1 and H265 livestreaming. This means many people can now stream with a lower bitrate but the same quality.

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I hope this week’s update helps you with your streaming and content journey. As always hit reply and tell me what you think of this edition. I’m always looking to provide more value.

Thanks for reading!
Harry
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