#streaming tips

But then I remember that I got so badly bullied just for showing my face online that no, that's not happening.

Still, playing games and interacting with people and all, I'd really love to try one day.

Hi dear! Sorry I didn’t reply sooner but I knew it would a lengthy reply so I wanted to make sure I had time to type it out. I’ll put my reply under the cut (as long as tumblr allows it this time lol)

As we know, due to a unfortunate error, CALM was forced to enter the US Billboard 200 album chart one week earlier than intended, debuting at #62 with only 10,000 albums sold. While it’s sad that the boys don’t get to extend their impressive run of debuting at #1, they’re still extremely close to reaching #1 this coming week even despite the missing sales (and would’ve been a shoo-in, had the mistake not happened). The Billboard chart week closes Thursday night and this is definitely an attainable goal!!

The easiest way to help achieve this is to stream the album non-stop on a platform like Spotify, Amazon or Apple Music. Here are some helpful tips:

- Streams don’t count if the volume is muted or turned down all the way so make sure you have the volume on at least the lowest volume (plug your headphones in with the volume low if you don’t feel like listening or better yet, plug those headphones in and leave it streaming while you sleep!)

- Having the album on repeat doesn’t count but if you place the album over and over on a playlist (such as this fan created playlist) it does!

- On iTunes/Apple Music, make sure you are streaming the album and it hasn’t been saved to your library, if you’re playing saved music, it does not count.

- A certain number of streams of any song or combination of songs off of an album is equal to 1 album sold - you don’t have to play the entire thing! I’ve seen people streaming off playlists that are filled with Easier since it’s the shortest song on the album and thus would take less time to accumulate streams.

- Streams from paid services (like Spotify Premium, Amazon Prime or Apple Music) count for more units than free services (like the free version of Spotify or YouTube) so if you’re able to, use one of those services! (See if there's a free trial you can take advantage of!)

- This is for the US charts but if you’re not from America, you can still help by streaming using a VPN

Non-Streaming Ways To Help

- If you purchased a ticket to the North American leg of the No Shame Tour, your ticket comes with a physical CD of CALM and you should’ve received an e-mail with instructions on how to redeem your copy. It only counts towards the chart if you redeem it so make sure you have!

- Likewise, if you’ve bought any merchandise from the 5SOS official store - redeem those digital copies, they only count if you download! (Each digital copy purchased entitles you to download the album 10 different times but you do not need to download all 10, it only counts for 1 sale)  

- Obviously buying the album helps as well but I’ve heard gifting on iTunes doesn’t count so if you’d like to purchase the album for someone, it’s better to purchase and then send it to them

- As I said, most merch purchases are coming with a digital copy right now so if you’re on the fence about buying a merch item, now is the time! (And make sure you redeem your copy!)

100 Tips to IMPROVE Your Twitch Stream!

I love this video so much, and I decided to write down my favorite 10 tips.

The closer your mic is to your mouth, the better.

If you are using a webcam, make sure you are lit well as cameras do better with better lighting.

Write a plan before going live- important to have things to talk about during the stream.

Ask a friend (who is also a streamer) for constructive criticism.

Don’t become obsessed with statics. 

Add alerts for sponsors, donations, subscribers, etc. to your stream.

Use Twitch Strike to find games to stream that aren’t overly saturated but still have a decent amount of viewers.

Make sure your webcam and audio are in sync.

Use other social media platforms to socialize with other streamers.

This is the first time we have streams to help us with getting that number 1. So here are a few Apple Music and iTunes tips to help get the most of our efforts. (If you stream on Spotify I have another post for that).

1. MAKE YOUR STREAMS COUNT To stream and make it count on Apple Music you cannot have the song in your library. Which means you need the “+” sign next to the song. Not nothing and not the cloud.

2. PURCHASING THE SONG ON ITUNES AND STILL BEING ABLE TO STREAM To follow up the 1st tip: You CAN still purchase the song and stream it. But in order to make your streams count you have to delete it from your iTunes library and then stream on Apple Music.

You can re download the song later. iTunes won’t make you purchase the song a second time, though it will ask if you’d like to. You can if you want but your first purchase is already accounted for and iTunes will let you re- download it for free :)

3. DO NOT MUTE Similar to Spotify, the steam won’t count if its muted. If you stream all night (which you should) plug headphones into your device and set it to a low volume.

3. PURCHASE ON ITUNES BUT PLEASE STILL STREAM PRETTY PLEASE Hard sales count more than streams as 150+ streams on Apple Music = 1 iTunes sale. So if you do the math you can see a purchase is more impactful than a stream. Though your streams can add up in the long run, it is always best to purchase the single. Doing both will help tremendously.

4. DO NOT PRE-ORDER THE ALBUM BEFORE YOU GET THE SINGLE Billboard Hot 100 does not count instant grat songs (songs you get instantly with a pre ordered album {ex ootw from 1989 when it instantly downloaded the second it was up}). Please buy the song THEN pre-order the album. Otherwise it’s only going towards album sales. That’s great but why do that when you can get a sale for the lead single AND the album? (It’s a win win).

These are just a few tips to help you get the most out of your efforts for Taylor. I have other posts about Spotify and general streaming tips as well. Please check those out and reblog them for your followers.

Hello! If you're not US based, unless you use a VPN it won't count towards this chart but it will help in whatever country you are in!

I've gotten a few questions about VPN usage so I thought I'd link to this tweet that has recommendations/instructions and I also wanted to mention that the VPN I've personally used is called Hola Free VPN Proxy Unblocker and I believe is available as both a download and a browser extension (I use Chrome as my browser so I was able to add it as an extension from the Chrome store).