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/
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.
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
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:
- Create a separate channel dedicated to stream announcements so your General Chat doesn't get clogged up.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
