Maybe you’ve seen video games streamed on YouTube and are wondering if you should get in on the game. Or, if you’re already streaming, you’re wondering how to grow.
If you’re in either situation, we’ve got a treat for you.
Marcel Cunningham, also known as BasicallyIDoWrk, is one of the top streamers in the game. He’s got nearly five million subscribers on YouTube alone – and he shared his streaming secrets with us on the Beyond Influence Podcast.
Here are five of Marcel’s top tips and stories for aspiring streamers and gamers who want to grow their YouTube presence (and make money in the process).
You can watch the full episode at the link here:
Table of Contents
Tip #1: Understand The Streaming Game
Marcel shared his reality upfront: As a video game streamer, you have to be a comedian, performer, host, and business operations person all at once.
At the same time, you also have to balance the types of content you create.
For Marcel, that means understanding how to use both short-form content, like YouTube Shorts, and long-form videos, to his advantage.
“Long-form content will always make more money than short-form content, but short-form content will put more eyeballs on you,” Marcel explained. “So it's a healthy balance.”
Tip #2: Find Your Niche
The best thing about video game streaming is that you don’t have to fit a specific mold; you want to find your unique niche. Instead, you can focus on what you’re good at or enjoy and start creating an audience from there.
“It doesn't have to be this crazy straight path and I love that.”
How Marcel Found His Niche As A Creator
With nearly five million followers on YouTube today, you might think that Marcel started his career nearly a decade ago with a big plan. But the reality was much more natural.
“At the time, I was broke,” Marcel divulged. “I didn't have a computer that could run PC games. So it was just me playing with whoever I could play with and just recording the genuine normal reactions that you would have every day.”
Marcel quickly gained followers — it took him about six months to hit 100,000 — because of his ultra-genuine approach. In particular, subscribers liked his early compilation clips, like the “Top 10 funniest moments of the day.”
“I'm a guy who just looks at any opportunity as an opportunity and just do it and take whatever comes and have a good time doing it,” said Marcel.
Want to listen to more conversations with experts in the influencer marketing and social media space? Subscribe to Beyond Influence, hosted by Kwame Appiah and Scott Sutton.
Tip #3: Build A Community
Every creator needs to strike a balance between doing what they love and doing what their audience wants.
Marcel’s approach to community building to this was rooted in his sense of humor and natural approach to storytelling. For inspiration, he would look at gamers he admired and memorize their style or ways of gameplay.
Then, when those streamers were live, he would join the game as a mimicked copy of the big player and play directly with them without them knowing who he was.
“I just leaned into just having fun experiences and trying to make it as entertaining as possible,” joked Marcel.
Later on, Marcel was more intentional about building a community of other streamers with similar followings; members would both mentor each other and compete.
“We formed this little group and we really just bounced ideas off of each other,” Marcel explained. “So it was like, ‘I watched a video yesterday. How did you edit that? What is that process?’ So it became a friendly creative competition between us.”
Tip #4: Make It Sustainable
One downside of streaming success is your audience will always want more from you—and that’s not sustainable.
When Marcel first got started, he would play after school or work for a few hours. As his account started to grow, his streaming took on more of a formal schedule, with him and his crew gaming in four-hour shifts.
These days, regardless of how long he plans to game, he needs to get into “work mode”, with 30 minutes of focus and prep time.
One major component to keeping his streaming sustainable? Taking breaks.
“It's so hard to tell people that are streaming and stuff that you have to take breaks,” Marcel added. “The social media ad revenue arc... It peaks in December and then it goes down in the early spring. Take that January, February off. Like, legit, just don't stream. Stream once a week, take it off because it's so important.”
Tip #5: Monetize Your Channel
As you grow, monetizing your streaming on YouTube can lead to a lot of money – or, in Marcel’s case, an entire business. Beyond direct channel monetization, you can also work and collaborate with brands.
How To Work With Brands As A Streamer
The key to Marcel’s brand sponsorship approach is to prioritize things he actually cares about or things he genuinely is interested in.
Marcel shared his experience doing a series with Hummer out in the desert; the company provided him and three other creators with an electric Hummer and gave them 30 minutes to drive around and do whatever they wanted — as long as they filmed it.
While that kind of sponsorship is really cool, Marcel joked that what he really wants is things that improve his life, like gas, food, candy, and even toilet paper.
“Anything that just enhances my life, that's my favorite brand deal to get,” said Marcel.
Make Money Streaming Video Games
Video game streaming is just one part of YouTube’s growing platform — and you can stream on other platforms as well to grow your following and income.
But one of the big parts of any social media-based business is handling admin, from planning your feed and lives to tracking analytics.
That’s where a tool like Later Social can help, giving you a one-stop YouTube Shorts management platform with features like post creation, scheduling, and analytics.
And when you’re ready to collaborate with brands, sign up for Later Influence to instantly connect with top brands and easily manage your entire campaign workflow.
