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discords stream announcement bot m8

Discord Live Stream Announcement Bot

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discords stream announcement bot m8

 

A great tool to help attract and keep people in your Discord is the use of an auto announcement bot to shout out your live streams. This can help out streamers by providing a bigger audience over the percentage of their actual followers from Mixer or Twitch. I've discovered great streamers via this method and I think this should be a staple to all live streaming Discord communities out there. The bot in this example is M8 Bot, which is a powerful resource with additional commands and tools built in.

This guide will show you how to invite the bot to your server, set it up with the proper permissions and edit some basic settings for stream announcements.

 

 

Pro Tip: The first step is to ensure that you have 'manage server' privileges on the Discord server you are trying to invite M8 Bot into.

 

Head over to https://m8bot.js.org/

 

m8 bot logo

 

Scroll down the page and click the 'Get M8 Bot' button.

 

 

 

Authorizing and Inviting Bot:

An authorization pop up will be displayed. Click the pulldown and select the server you are inviting M8 bot too. Again, ensure you have 'manage server' privileges to the server, otherwise this will not work. You can leave all the options checked, then click 'Authorize'.

 

 

 

M8 should now be in your Discord server. Find the bot on your viewer list, left click it and you will see that it is given the M8 bot role with the permissions you allowed. I also went ahead and added M8 Bot to my 'Bots' role which group it with my other channel bots.

 

m8 bot discord

 

 

To Add Streamers:

Head to the channel that you would like your announcements displayed in and use the following command:

 

!addmixer [streamer] for Mixer

!addtwitch [streamer] for Twitch

 

For example: !addmixer spammarino

You will then get a similar confirmation after you add each streamer:

 

 

To Delete Streamers:

Head to the channel that you would like your announcements removed from and use the following command:

 

!delmixer [streamer] for Mixer

!deltwitch [streamer] for Twitch

 

 

Disable @here Pings:

By default, @here pings are enabled. What this means is that members with access to this channel will receive a notification for each message. Pings can be a touchy subject to some especially if they add up quickly. Personally, I do my best to minimize pings on my server and leave pings mainly to important announcements. To disable pings, type the following command. FYI: This is case sensitive.

 

!set edit livePing false

 

 

Change Announcement Message:

If you would like to change the default announcement message that shows up in the M8 bot messages use the follow command:

 

!config edit liveMixerMessage {{streamer}} is now live on Mixer!

 

The part after 'liveMixerMessage' is what is displayed as the message. Use the '{{streamer}}' variable to display the streamers account name.

 

 

To Verify Your Settings:

run the !config command

M8 bot config

The livePing setting should be set to 'false' to ensure @here pings are disabled.

Your modified liveMixerMessage should also be updated and displayed here in the config settings.

 

 

Go Live and Confirm The Bot is Working:

 

Now all you or your added streamers have to do is go live and M8 bot will do the rest.

 

 

The announcement message is a nice clean message showing your Mixer avatar, a screenshot of the game you are streaming, game title and some of your current stats (follower count, Mixer level, total views) along with a timestamp of when the message was posted.

 

 

Clean Up Old Messages:

 

If you run a large Discord server, your M8 announcement messages can add up pretty quickly. To delete old messages, simply run the following command. Enter an actual number, up to 100 at a time.

 

!purge [number]

 

General Tips:

  1. Create a separate channel dedicated to stream announcements so your General Chat doesn't get clogged up.
  2. If you have a public Discord server, add regulars and your loyal supporters as opposed to just anyone. Your goal is to to create a community, so ensure your streamers are giving back and supporting your cause.
  3. Encourage members to actively view your announcement channel and check out some streamers they might not yet follow. To be honest, I use my Streamer-Promotion channel as my main notifications when looking for streamers to watch since the Mixer notifications can be hit or miss at times.
  4. Since you must execute commands directly within the channel, when I am making bulk changes (adding a lot of streamers, etc.) I temporarily disable the channel, again to avoid excess alerts to members (even if @here pings are off).
  5. Scroll through some of the older announcement messages and make note of some of the listed stats. This is a nice quick way to see your follower and total view growth.
  6. To check out the full list of commands and options that M8 has to offer, head back to https://m8bot.js.org/ and check out the setup, commands and help sections. This tutorial just cover a small portion to get you and your streamers added to M8 bot's auto announcement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snaz timer to OBS

Adding A Stream Countdown Timer With Snaz

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Snaz timer to OBS

 

Incorporating an intro splash screen or a stream countdown page is a nice way to create anticipation for your stream. Repetition helps creates interest and can help draw viewers in. Or maybe your intro tunes or graphics are just that catchy that people who stumble upon the channel will want to stick around. Having a buffer before you actually go live will give people time to tune in so when the timer hits 0:00, you've got an audience. This post will provide you with a step by step to get this up and running as an overlay in OBS. There are multiple ways to set this up, but I decided to go with a standalone program that writes to a text file that is read and displayed by OBS. This software is really light weight and resource friendly.

 

 

DOWNLOAD THE FREE SOFTWARE The first step is to download and install the free software, Snaz.     

 

 

SETTING UP YOUR TIMER FILE IN SNAZ When you open up the program you will notice that there is a lot of potential customization with this software. This post will only cover setting up a simple countdown timer, but I'd recommend delving into the other options once you are familiar with the software.  

  1. Click on the ''Chrono's' tab.
  2. Set countdown timer length. In this example it is 10 minutes.
  3. Press 'Start'. This will start the timer and create the file.

 

  1. The file path will populate within this box. Press the 'Copy Path to Clipboard' button. This is needed to paste later into OBS.

 

 

 

ADDING THE COUNTDOWN FILE INTO OBS Now that the text file is created, we need to bring this into OBS as a source.

  1. Open up OBS and select a Scene. We will be using our 'sample - Xbox'' Scene.
  2. Under the 'Source' column. Click the '+' sign, then select 'Text (GDI+)

 

 

  A New window will open up.

  1. Enter the name of your new Source. In our example, we will call this 'Countdown Timer'...seems fitting.
  2. Click 'OK'

 

 

 

Another new window will open up. This contains all the properties for your countdown timer.

  1. Click the checkbox for 'Read from file'
  2. Then click the 'Browse' button to tell OBS the location of the Snaz text file.

   

 

 

Yet another window will open up.

  1. Paste the file path we copied from Snaz in the 'file name' box.
  2. Press 'Open'

   

 

 

The Snaz text file will now be loaded up and OBS will display the text in realtime. The Snaz timer should still be running and you'll see the numbers update in real time. That is basically it. You've linked the file. All that is left is customization of the font, size, gradients, colors, alignment, etc. I won't go into any of those details here, but feel free to let me know if you have any questions on those details. One thing I will say is to go on the bigger side for your font size. You'll want to scale down rather than up in your OBS scene. If you resize your fonts bigger, you'll run the risk of pixelated, blurry fonts. Once you are done customizing the look, click 'OK'.  

 

 

  Your newly created live text file will show now show up with red handles. You can grab the source and move it around to wherever you desire it to be. Remember, if you find yourself increase the size by grabbing the grips, you are better off adjusting the font properties bigger to avoid any pixelation. Just right click the source and go back to the properties. You can also adjust any other properties here as well.  

 

 

  Since we have gone this far, lets complete the countdown timer by adding a line of text above it with 'Stream Starting Soon...' To do this simply we will just add another text source.

  1. Click the '+' sign under the Sources column.
  2. Select 'Text (GDI+)

 

 

 

Another window will open up.

  1. Enter the name of your new Source. In our example, we will just call this 'Starting Soon'
  2. Click 'OK'

 

 

 

You'll get another familiar prompt, but this time you are not telling OBS to read to file. We are simply creating a static block of text.

  1. Fill in your desired text in the text box. In this example, we will enter 'Stream Starting Soon!'
  2. Again, click the 'Fonts' button and adjust these properties as you see fit. Adjust any other properties here as well.
  3. When you are happy with everything, click 'OK'.

   

 

 

Adjust your newly created source on your OBS scene as desired. Congrats! you've now setup a live countdown timer. Keep in mind that you will need to have Snaz open and the Chrono's countdown timer running every time for this to display in OBS. It is now part of my routine to open up Snaz and get the timer started every time I get ready to go live.