It is without a doubt that one of the best ways to grow your stream is by posting clips on social media. Making clips can expose your stream to many new viewers. With Twitch launching a discovery feed for clips, it’s more important than ever to capture high-quality clips of your livestream.

But getting clips can be challenging. As streamers, we are often too caught up in the moment to stop and make a clip of our own content. For small streamers, there may be no one else around to make a clip for you.

We’re here to help. Let’s discuss some ways to get clips of your livestream made.

What are clips?

Clips are short snippets of video that encapsulate an epic moment, whether it be a hilarious fail, a competitive victory, or a spirited conversation.

Video content sites like Twitch, YouTube, and Kick have a feature that allows viewers to make a clip with a simple button overlay on a video. Clips can be made of livestreams and video-on-demand content.

Why are clips important for streamers?

Clips are crucial for any streamer that is looking to get more viewers. Clips are so powerful because they:

• Have the capacity to go viral
• Are easy to watch
• Display your best moments
• Show viewers what your content is all about
• Help you get discovered

What makes for a good stream clip?

We love viewers who want to help clip for their favorite streamer, but sometimes the clips don’t turn out to be useful. Here are some qualities of a good clip:

• Captures an epic moment – look for when the streamer has a strong reaction to something
• Isn’t too long where it takes too much time to get to the pivotal moment or trails off at the end
• Isn’t too short and cuts off the reaction or commentary. If anything it’s better to be safe and have it be too long than too short. The streamer can always download and edit the clip
• A Goldilocks clip captures both the context and the reaction so the clip can stand on it’s own as a piece of content posted anywhere
• Has a descriptive title that helps the streamer understand what the clip is about. Note: you don’t have to be a creative mastermind for the title, just provide details so the streamer can see at a glance what you clipped.

How to get more clips of your stream

1. Ask your audience. Starting with the basics, get in the habit of asking your viewers to clip something after the moment passes. “Hey did anyone clip that?”
   
2. Enlist your mods. Teach your mods about making good clips and ask if they can help. Even if they are too busy to make a clip themselves, they can use a command like !clip that asks viewers to clip the moment. They can also create a marker for you.
   
3. Use stream markers. On Twitch, the streamer and their channel editors can add a marking to the VOD by simply typing /marker in chat. This will show up when editing a VOD in Video Producer, allowing you to find those awesome moments and make highlights yourself.
   
4. Create hotkeys. Hotkeys are a quick way to catch a clip or marker without disrupting the flow of your stream. You can use a keyboard or even a stream deck to set up a shortcut.
   
5. Thank your clippers. By shouting out and showing appreciation for anyone that makes a clip, you provide your community with positive reinforcement and the reminder that clips are a big help to their favorite streamer.
   
6. Reward your clippers. To that tune, you can also incentivize clipping by rewarding your clippers with a prize. This could be a VIP badge in chat for a month, a special Discord role, the ability to choose a game for you to play, or whatever fits into your budget and streaming plans.
   
7. Run a clip contest. Run a weekly or monthly clip contest with prizes to bring out the competitive spirit in your community. This is not only a great way to source high-quality clips, but it also builds a community experience around a special event.
   
8. Share your clips. Post your clips on social media, make clip compilations, and shout out your clippers so they can see the outcome of the effort they made to clip for you. It also helps to show your audience what you are looking for in a good clip.
   
9. Use AI tools. There are a few AI tools coming out, such as Eklipse, that can automatically scan your VODs for hype moments and grab clips for you. While still limited to certain games, we expect clip generation to become more automated in the future.
   
10. React. Big reactions to in-game events or chat interactions can make for great clips. Don’t be afraid to show authentic excitement, surprise, or even frustration during your stream. By being expressive, your audience will understand this is a moment worth remembering and therefore clipping.

If you want to grow your stream and attract new viewers to your channel, making and posting clips is essential. Check out our courses on Growing Your Stream and Recycling Content to learn more tips to help you succeed.