AFTER A YEAR OF LIVE STREAMING, I LEARNED THESE 3 THINGS

During COVID, my Disco Fries partner Danny Boselovic and I decided we’d start doing something everyone else already thought to do… LIVE STREAMING. Wow, I know what an original idea! By the time we took this task on, the market, specifically Twitch , was already flooded with DJs going live with sets. Not only were Danny and I not in the same location since we live a few states apart, but we weren’t exactly interested in doing something that for us is way more fun to do in a nightclub. Yes, of course, sometimes we’ll drop a DJ set online but the idea of doing it multiple times a week on a live stream just wasn’t for us. What would we do to be different? We identified that no one on Twitch was digging into music industry and deep production advice in a single show format. We came up with the idea of interviewing our friends, industry guests, and artists we wanted to connect with in a podcast style, live format where we could touch on all things from music business and song production, to how to increase your visibility as an artist, wrapped in a bow titled “Finish My Track.” From production to playlisting and publishing, the goal was to cover every aspect of being an artist.

Now, ultimately the stream was (and still is) meant to be a feeder into our FinishMyTrack.com business where we help artists finish out producing their tracks, mix and master them, but it also was a means for us to stay present online with content, reconnect with friends in the industry we don’t see often enough, and create new relationships. It worked! We are well over 100 episodes in, have built some incredible relationships, created an immense amount of content, and learned a heck of a lot. So on that note, here are a few of main takeaways to date;

ASKING QUESTIONS RAISES QUESTIONS

Over the months of starting this journey I noticed the questions we began asking in later episodes were much deeper than the original questions we had going into the early episodes of the show. The more questions we asked guests, the more topics we touched on, the deeper we began to go. It’s safe to say that if we brought our first guest on again that our interview today would be much different than our first interview with them. Practice makes perfect and interviewing someone is certainly an art-form. There are a combination of factors here but I think it is safe to say that the more you interview people, you sharpen that skill, and you learn HOW to interview. What is compelling for the viewer to learn about? What motivates the guest to dig deeper into their answers? We’re to a point now where we can tell if we’re going to need to push a guest a bit harder for real depth just a few seconds into the interview. We now know how to navigate those conversations. This is stuff you can’t teach, you just have to do it time and time again and pick up on the social cues in conversations that will help you navigate. Ultimately, I found that when we ask a question and a guest touches on a small nugget of information, it can raise even more questions for you to pull from. Pay attention to those moments and lean-in.

YOUR REAL-TIME VIEWERS ARE A FRACTION OF YOUR ACTUAL VIEWERS

We’ve had plenty of episodes with 10 live viewers and we’ve had plenty of episodes with hundreds, but I’ve received feedback on many of what I perceived to be our “lowest watched episodes” as stand-outs. How did these people in cold-emails or DM’s even see us? Contacts have popped up on everywhere from Meta to LinkedIn from Founders of start-ups to employees of major streaming services noting that they discovered the live stream, loved the concept and would be digging into more episodes. We use StreamYard for our live streaming application and not only is it very intuitive for live streaming production with its ease of use, its incredibly accurate for social media metrics. We know who is watching and commenting and from what platform all in real-time. What doesn’t factor in is the replays. Your stream lives on every social media channel you connect it to forever so you have a flow of viewers who consume your stream or parts of it sometimes months or years after the fact. DVR and on-demand streaming video platforms like Netflix exist because the majority of people can’t watch everything LIVE so all of this makes sense. It’s just something I never considered and especially didn’t consider when I watched our live view count crawl along early in the life of the show. The nature of the show, spontaneity of the conversation, and frankly, the convenience to our schedule are live, but largely we’re creating for an audience that consumes it after-the-fact. In short, don’t get discouraged by your live viewer count, you’ll be able to hit plenty of people after the fact.

YOUR FORMAT CAN CHANGE WHEN YOU’RE MULTI-DIMENSIONAL

The premise of Finish My Track is to have weekly interviews and focus conversations around their area of expertise but sometimes guests have to cancel. Have a backup plan. As Disco Fries, we always default to pulling up a track, making a song live, reviewing demos, or just talking shop about recent industry events and data. Since we do all of these things with guests on the show live, it’s not a complete 360 for viewers, it feels on brand, and it doesn’t cause confusion to those who have come to know the format of the show for what it is. When you have a few offerings wrapped in one cohesive package, it’s easy to swap out individual parts without creating confusion. It’s why the Dollar Menu at 麦当劳 ’s has always been so successful.

While we’re still early in our learning about the ancillary benefits of live-streaming but for me the most impressive findings of our weekly practice are certainly not the technologically driven ones. Of course there are tons of interesting data points like streaming between 11AM and 2PM PT is the best time for Twitch or that raiding other channels is a bigger growth mechanism than simply streaming your own content, but the most interesting parts of this process have been the personal growth and brand development we’ve done with absolutely zero spend.

Creating and engaging this show has been like taking master-class in communication and I give it 5 stars. A must try.

If you’re inclined, follow us on twitch.tv/thediscofries and catch the show every Thursday at 1PM ET!

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