Should You Put Your Content On Multiple Services?

It’s very tempting to reuse content by uploading the same footage to multiple sites, but is this actually a good idea? It feels sensible –⁠ after all, you’ve put all that effort into making your video or your stream. Why not try to show as many people as possible? There are definitely a few things to consider when it comes to multiplatform streaming, so let us take you through the options.

Different sites have different feels

The sort of content that viewers are looking for on different sites can vary. The greatest advantage of sites like Twitch is that it’s live and being able to interact with the streamer. People can then upload their VODs to places like YouTube. These polished videos are edited to show off the best bits, often with effects and overlays added. A live-stream viewer can sometimes treat a stream as background entertainment. Something that’s running on a secondary screen whilst they’re working on something else. But if someone is seeking out videos, they’re more likely to be concentrating on the show. They’re wanting a well-crafted story to follow –⁠ something which can hold their interest. So the content you upload to each site has to differ.

Then you have to consider social media channels, whether that’s Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok. All of these require the audience’s attention to be grabbed very quickly and typically expect very short videos that don’t need much setup or explanation. A brief pause in their scrolling, rather than a real-time investment.

Is there a way to reuse content?

A number of very successful Youtube producers take footage from their Twitch streams and produce highlight videos. Turning anything from an evening to a month’s worth of streaming into a ten or twenty-minute best-of video. Twitch itself has the Clips feature, allowing short chunks of a stream to be saved as a highlight to show on your channel. Editing your footage to a fraction of its length by pulling out the best bits is a lot of work, but it’s very rewarding. It also shows your stream at its best, skipping over the mistakes and the grind and focussing on the highlights, the hilarity, and the moments of pure skill or luck.

Depending on the content of your stream or videos, it may be possible to pull out a short chunk for social media. However, you need something that grabs attention quickly and doesn’t require time to set the scene. A perfect sniper shot in Warzone or a big jump or crash in a racing game could work. But, showing off a machine in Minecraft or Factorio is might be less likely to grab people’s attention. But this can really depend, it’s best to use your judgment here. We’ve seen some amazing Minecraft machines blow up on Twitter!

How do I change my content to suit a different service?

There are many pieces of video editing software available with a variety of features –⁠ some come preinstalled on smartphones, but only allow you to trim the start and end of a clip. Others are very expensive but allow movie-quality effects to be created. Personally, I use Kdenlive which is free and reasonably powerful, allowing clips to be cut up, rearranged, and layered. It doesn’t touch actual image processing that might be used, for example, to remove a mustache from a character.

Some streams may be suitable for multiplatform streaming, allowing you to broadcast on more than one service with the same feed. A tool such as XSplit Broadcaster makes this very easy, streaming to wherever you want and allowing for eye-catching effects and transitions so you can switch between different sources, play pre-recorded clips, and more!

There are definitely ways to reuse content on different platforms, however, it does take some thought. You can’t just upload the same video to multiple platforms. But, with some careful editing and targetting your content to specific platforms, you can certainly make it fit.