The other day a friend asked on Twitter about what to do leading up to a Vtuber debut because they didn't do one the first time they showed their Vtuber. So, I responded with the first bits of information that came to mind based on what I did for mine! Here are my responses:

First, leading up to the reveal definitely let people know that it's coming up! This can be as simple as a little advertisement, doing a very short teaser vid, a shadow-y png advertisement, anything you feel comfortable with. But make sure however you do it you make the time and place apparent.

The day of the debut, embrace the scuff! It happens, so don't be embarrassed or anything. Just let it happen and let it flow, things will be all right and it doesn't take away from your debut.

When I did mine I had a bunch of things updated to match my branding, from alerts to my website, twitch, panels, all that. You don't have to do that all at once though. Reveal what you feel comfortable with, but the primary reveal is your model. That's paramount.

I did a slide show on stream to convey info that I wanted the viewers to know, including some things about my OC, lore, fun facts, schedule, website address, I released some merch, showed new emotes and made sure to credit all the artists that helped with the project.

Overall, it can be as grand or as low-key as you want. Just have fun with it, don't feel like you have to spend a lot to have a good debut, and you can even visit other people's debuts to get ideas. That's what I did before I did mine as well. 

BTW, here's a couple links to give you an idea of how I did things:
Vtuber Debut Promo
Vtuber Debut Stream

My experience with a debut taught me a lot about how it's done. Hopefully this helps! Take care AKNet! 

P.S.: Inner Circle members will get sneak peeks into my next Vtuber debut! 

Apparently there has been so much abuse of drops on Twitch that Twitch has finally updated their rules on it. You can read about it HERE from Twitter. 

The lowdown on it is that you must be LIVE if you're doing drop campaigns. You can't just have a picture up, or use a VOD anymore. I admittedly have seen a number of channels taking advantage of this before the rules were more narrowed down today.

So let's say you are like myself and you like running VODs on your Twitch but you don't want to be penalized for still having your drops on. Well, you can turn them off during your VODs and you'll still be in compliance with Twitch's updated ruleset on drops. 

You can find how to do so HERE, along with other FAQ's. To learn how to turn drops off, look for the subheading "As a streamer, how do I turn Drops on / off for particular game sessions?"

Hi AKNet! 
You might have seen occasionally on Twitter a live stream that happens to show up on your feed. Or maybe you haven't. Either way, let me shed some light on how to stream on Twitter if that is something you are looking to participate in. 

As a disclaimer, you have to have access to Twitter Media Studio to be able to do so. I know a while back it was invite only. I'm not sure of how you would get access to Twitter Media Studio nowadays, with all the changes that have been made. I THINK you have to he a Twitter Premium member to use it because I've had reports of people who decided to not renew their Twitter checkmark losing the ability to stream. But if you DO have access and you want to stream things from desktop using OBS, this bit of information should help you. Another thing is switching OBS between streaming on Twitter and streaming on Twitch doesn't seem as intuitive, even if you create different profiles. I personally like having the stream information window and a few other extra ones in my OBS for Twitch streaming but they seem to mess up and disappear if you switch profiles. The only way I could fix this was by disconnecting then reconnecting Twitch to OBS in settings. Maybe someone knows more than me to make this work easier? If you do let me know.

Let's get to the meat now.

To stream to Twitter, first you need to go to Twitter Media Studio. From the Twitter home page on desktop, on the left side under profile click more and then you should be able to click on creator studio > media studio. Once you are at the Twitter Media Studio, at the top click on the producer tab. This is where you will be working on Twitter to start your stream.

You cannot start a stream without a source. So before you click that create broadcast button make sure you create a source. You create a source by clicking the tab that says "sources" right next to "broadcasts". Then when you are on the sources page click either of the "create source" buttons. A window will pop up and you have to fill out the fields so it can generate what you need to be able to stream. For source name, you can name it whatever you'd like (I just named mine Default). For source type I kept it on RTMP. Select the region relevant to you then click create. Once you do this it will show you a few pieces of information that are important. The info that's most important here is the RTMPS url and the stream key. Do not show anyone these pieces of info because they're exclusive to you. But do make note of them because you will need them in OBS Studio. 

Speaking of OBS, we might as well set it up. Go to OBS and go to file > settings > stream. Once you're on the stream settings page click on the service pull down menu. You would think that you just select Twitter to stream to Twitter but this is not the case. You are going to click on "Custom..." and you'll see two areas where you can enter the server and the stream key. For server put in the RTMPS url from the source you created in Twitter. For stream key enter your Twitter stream key that you generated. Click "OK" to confirm these changes. If you ever need to refer back to this information you can find it under your Sources tab in the Twitter Media Studio. 

When you head back to Twitter Media Studio, click on the broadcasts tab and click the "create broadcast" button in the upper right corner. You will be brought to a window that is used to finalize your stream before you go live on Twitter. Name your broadcast, pick a category, select the source that you created earlier, adjust your other settings (including advanced settings and content settings if you want but they're optional) and you should be good to go.

Finally, In OBS click the start streaming button and you should see a preview of your stream that you're sending to Twitter one the preview window loads in Twitter Media Studio. Then in Twitter Media Studio click the "create broadcast" button when you're ready for Twitter to enjoy your stream!

Hopefully this helps anyone who might be interested! Let me know how you feel about streaming on Twitter, if you've tried it, and take care AKNet!