streamers haven

How to Boost Your Income by Recycling Content

One of the best ways to improve the value of your content is to recycle your content into different formats. For streamers, you immediately have access to two separate forms of content; A live stream, and a VoD (Video on Demand). However, there are even more options that you can and should take advantage of to establish multiple income streams.

Having multiple sources of income is a sort of security blanket; If any one source dries up, you still have some money coming in to make ends meet. That is the beauty of passive income from things like a blog, or YouTube Video. That content is on the internet until you yourself remove it, so it can, and will make you a ton of money over its lifetime. The sooner you start, the more money you’ll make!

And it only gets better with every bit of content you create.

“Wait a minute, I barely have enough time to do what I’m already doing! How will I have time for this?”

That’s the point of the article; You aren’t creating new content, you are simply offering the same content in multiple forms! This is significantly less work over creating unique content for each platform.

The reason Livestreaming can’t do that…is well…the nature of the beast. It’s only on the internet while you are live. And If viewers don’t tune in from the start? They miss a LOT, and that content will likely never be seen by anyone again if you don’t make it available elsewhere.

Recycle your content to improve and expand your exposure

We follow a particular YouTube Channel by the name of “Clark Kegley – Refusing to Settle“. He does a lot of passive income idea videos, which is what we will be making use of with content recycling. However, we can’t just jump into passive income without first having the content & a platform to generate it on.

There are many points within this article that draws inspiration from three concepts that appear in Clark’s videos:

  • The idea that time does not equal money.
  • Devoting your Time to Money Later vs Money Now & Money Maintenence.
  • Unlatching yourself from social norms & standing out as an influencer

These concepts are derived from his channel and are a strong inspiration for us. And while Livestreaming is the focus of Streamer’s Haven, as a passive income platform, it is woefully inadequate by itself. As such, we are going to go over 5 ways to boost your income by simply recycling your content into different formats that are more passive income friendly.

1: The First Platform to Recycle your content – YouTube

Recycle your content onto YouTube.

Up first is the content platform most everybody already gets recommended: YouTube. See, Streamers are creating video content every day; you have no shortage of content to snip and stitch into a timeline for use in YouTube Montage videos. The fact that this is something most streamers don’t do is a waste of potential income.

Not only that, but aside from things like LUTs, an editing program, and a slightly different approach to creation, a lot of the things that you need to stream are also needed to create YouTube Videos.

If you are new to the game, there are a few good editing programs available to choose from:

We recommend Davinci Resolve due to its stability in rendering over Adobe Premiere, but if you already have another program you prefer, Keep on using it.

Wait, VODs (Videos on Demand) aren’t worthless?!

There are a few Redditors who recommended in the past that we’ve seen to simply “turn on VoDs” in your settings and forget they exist. This is okay, but only if your intent for streaming is to simply do it as a hobby, and nothing more.

However, recycling your live streaming content into a DOD (Digestible on Demand) format, you are likely to generate a lot of extra traffic over time.

Consider that the only place that the content appears is in your videos directory on your channel. This is not SEO Optimized (Content can take up to 3 months to rank!) so you don’t get any meaningful traffic from it either. Still, it is one of the easiest methods to recycle your content that originated as a livestream on Twitch or Mixer.

How do I save my Livestreams for use in creating YouTube Videos Later?

There are two main ways to save your live streams to recycle into other content formats. The first is to simply record your live streams as they happen.

Then, you snip out the best moments from the stream and stitch those moments into a high-impact, influence magnet Video On Demand, The YouTube Video. Dramatic, right? That’s kinda what you want to have in your videos. Think of Movie Trailers, and how they convince you to pay to watch that movie. Your video format style should draw inspiration from those in how you create your videos.

There are a few reasons Recording while live is considered the best practice:

  • Separate audio tracks in recordings; you can easily separate your mic and other sound sources for editing purposes
  • Video quality can be recorded at SUBSTANTIALLY HIGHER bitrates than what Twitch and mixer allow. This means you can stream in 720p and record in 4k if you had space on your drive to do that.
  • You can choose when to record, and when not to record with a hotkey, saving you time sifting through your 2-8 hr long VoD looking for good highlights. Check out Neatclip to do this quickly.

There are drawbacks with this method:

  • Larger system load when streaming
  • Large filesize, requiring some extreme file storage solutions

The second way is to enable the option to save your video for 14 days in Twitch or mixer. The downside to this method is the lack of control over audio tracks and the stream quality bitrate.

One serious drawback to the second method: If you do not save the content before the passing of 14 days, that video is lost forever.

2: Recycle your Content into blog articles

Recycle your content on your own blog.

The next subject is one that we are the most familiar with, and that is the blog article.

A blog is one of the strongest ranking tools available on the internet. The reason is that you are writing a lot of words that Google and other search engines use to determine the “Value” of your website, and it ranks it accordingly. With a high Word count, There are several opportunities to rank for multiple keywords that people search for.

With a well-written article that provides a high value to a specific audience or niche, (Streaming is a niche, Programming is a niche, fencing is a niche. Hobbies & occupations are niches essentially), you are able to monetize in several ways:

  • Affiliate Links – Passive
  • Subscription services like Patreon – Passive
  • Sponsored articles – Active
  • Freelance writing (typically, you can expect to see about $10 for 700 words just starting out, and up to Hundreds an article if you are guest blogging on someplace like Forbes.) – Active

Specific Advantages & Disadvantages of a Blog over other platforms

Again, because of how a blog thrives off search engine traffic from its high volume of text content, it is something that keeps on giving for years and years, assuming you maintain the blog with fresh content at least once or twice a week.

You can also embed videos within a page; so that VoD you made into a YouTube montage video can be recycled on the blog article, which will drive traffic to your YouTube Audience, which then drives people to your livestream, which if you run a Podcast stream, will direct them to your podcasts as well. It is a feedback loop in a nutshell.

The content feeds on each other and reaches out to different audiences who have different interests. Those individuals may not have ever been to Twitch or Mixer or even heard of them. More on Podcasts

The Drawback of a blog is that it costs money for a branded website; You need a website to write to. We recommend using WordPress and a WYSIWYG Theme like Divi (Affiliate Link) to make the process of making your blog much easier. If you recycle your content on a blog, we feel you would see a lot of benefits.

Divi WordPress Theme

One other advantage is that you can hire ghostwriters to do the work for you, but we don’t recommend this.

Just remember, there is one final drawback of a blog: It takes about 3 months to START to generate meaningful traffic if you do a post a week. In that time, all of your traffic will be DIRECT traffic, so you’ll need to promote your blog on your other established platforms to generate your first 3 months of traffic.

3: Recycle audio tracks into a Podcast

Recycle your Content onto a Podcast.

This is a bit of an art form to get right, but a podcast is one of the easiest platforms to recycle your stream content. The reason is that you can simply snip the video from it by saving it as an audio file. If you want to be lazy, you can stop there, if you wanted. You are essentially done.

However, We recommend you create unique podcast streams where you interview members of your streaming community you’d like to form a connection with to expand your own influence. I can almost guarantee most would jump at the opportunity to be featured on a podcast, as it is exposure for them.

You would do this Live, and record the video for YouTube, and then strip the video from it and turn it into a Podcast. Then you can Write about your thoughts on the interview on your blog! The SAME CONTENT on 4 different platforms!!

Get a name for yourself, and you can even charge people for the interviews.

Podcast Topic Ideas to get you started

We already mentioned interview Podcasts with other streamers to expand your influence within the streaming community, but there are a few more:

You could do a Podcast about The Legend of Zelda Lore Theories like Zeltik on YouTube. (Or any game for that matter!) We love to listen to these kinds of videos because it makes us think about the game in different ways. This dramatically adds entertainment value to the game itself, and the lore surrounding it. Who doesn’t love a good story, after all?

Next up, we have Podcasts about hobbies like Art or music. You could explain what song you are working on, and what parts you had trouble with, and ultimately share the solution that worked for you. You are again, telling a compelling story.

Finally, you could do a Rant Podcast. While we aren’t a fan of these ourselves because of the messages that are typically promoted on these, they are a good way to generate meaningful traffic from, ehm, particularly passionate people.

Whatever method you choose will depend on the original content from the livestream it is based on.

4: Recycle your content on Social Media

Recycle your content onto Social Media.

Ahh, social media. The cause of most of the internet drama… Love it or hate it, Social Media is one of the best platforms to form connections on. It isn’t easy, but it can be worthwhile if you utilize it properly.

For Social Media, Clips and Memes are the go-to content to throw at people. You don’t have their attention very long there, so you need something with some sort of strong emotional response associated with what you post there to catch interest. Short clips, around 10-25 seconds perform well, so long as the content on it is interesting.

You want the clips of your best, most entertaining moments.

We will say that as a monetization option, Social Media isn’t great. Post too much Affiliate links? Lose followers who think you are only there for the money. You need to moderate your attempts at making money there, and instead, use it for exposure to get them interested in your other forms of content.

The big advantage this platform has over others is how little work is required to catch user interest. Simply Look through the clips as you are making your YouTube Videos and post the clips on there. I’d set clips into folders that tell you that you already posted that clip to social media.

The Key: Turn your streams into more-permanent and rankable content on Search engines

Now that we have gone over the 4 ways to recycle your content, Its time to talk about monetizing them. So how do you influence what people buy? The answer is simpler than you might think.

You provide a convincing piece of writing, video or audio to explain all the good of the product to the potential customer. They make a decision on whether or not they will buy from your content, so if you build up a level of trust from your audience, they will be more than willing to use your affiliate links any time they want to buy something from wherever, knowing that it will directly help you.

The reason why diversifying your content is so important is that your livestream is only available on the Twitch or Mixer platform, possibly your website, if you have one, and wherever you link to. It is woefully inadequate in generating any meaningful traffic from Search Queries (Aka, Google searches.) That is our main source of Traffic on Streamer’s Haven, and we are just under 11,000 Unique Visitors a month as of this articles publish date:

Unique Visitors per month: 10,830 from September 8th to october 8th.
Metrics of Streamer’s Haven’s monthly traffic for September 8th to October 8th

Here are two ways to Monetize your content passively that we ourselves use:

1: Affiliate Programs – A very easy to set up passive income method

The First method is by using Affiliate programs, which are sales incentives offered by companies to promote and sell their products or services. You receive a percentage, or flat rate fee for every sale you manage to land. The amount you receive will depend on the product or service categories & other factors dependant on the program’s Terms of Service. You’ll want to read that in detail for any affiliate program you are considering using.

Why do I bring this up? Well, affiliate programs are one of the best resources to earn passive income on any platform your content is presented on. In fact, Streamer’s Haven takes part in the Amazon Associates program to offset the costs of running the blog while also providing a means for us to earn a bit of money off things you would be buying anyway for your stream setups.

With Amazon Associates, you can create affiliate links to products related to the content you create.

For example, “Our Recommended XLR Microphone for Streamers – https://amzn.to/2LW1rPg

Here is an Example –

If they buy an $11,000 TV after clicking your link, even at a mere 6% rate, you get $660. Just like that. No extra effort and the link stays up until the content is deleted. In three months, you will b11e sent a check, or gift card (If you opt for a gift card payment option).

That said, sales like that are very rare; its usually just a bunch of small purchases here and there, especially for a new, unknown entity. But those small purchases here and there add up. It is a “Money later” strategy… Check out this video by Clark to understand what that means.

2: Patreon Subscriptions – Super stable source of income, but a bit of legwork

Up next is a website called Patreon. This is a website that lets you set up a monthly subscription plan for your biggest fans. They pay a subscription to you as if you were a streaming service like Netflix, and you tell them in a description box of the tier of what they get for subscribing to you.

For example, Streamer’s Haven has a Patreon set up. One of the benefits we offer is that streamers will be featured on a page with a link to their streams and one social media of their choice. This is a subscription incentive, and you will need to provide something that your audience will value.

You could:

  • Offer early access to YouTube or Podcast content, etc.
  • Grant special roles in Discord to your subscribers to set them apart from others.
  • Send them a “LootBox” in the mail of your branded merch like shirts, hats, etc. (Eats into your profits, but this is a strong incentive)
  • etc.

You’ll need to get creative on what you would offer your potential supporters. Patreon is something many YouTubers & creators utilize strongly, and to great effect.

The biggest advantage of this monetization method is the stability of income. You get monthly income from any number of people who support what you do.

The big Disadvantage? People already pay a lot of money to many different sources. If you set your monthly fee too high, you are liable to scare off people. You can offer tiers, starting at $1 a month, and have $5 a month, $10 a month, etc to offset this issue, but the fact remains that people don’t like to spend money if they don’t have to.

There are even more opportunities out there…

It’s up to you to find them! (For now) We feel this is enough information to get you started in diversifying your content. If you haven’t already checked it out, Clark Kegley covers topics related to this article (Affiliate marketing, etc) in even more detail, so check him out! You may learn something useful to help you succeed! So Remember, Recycle your Content!

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