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(5 min read) ToastyMarshmellow’s counterintuitive approach to generating over 50% of her revenue from <10% of her audience. Featuring Linktree, Restream.io, and Repurpose.io
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ToastyMarshmellow
I coined the term "nerdstyle" to mean nerdy lifestyle, because I do everything involving nerds - so movie reviews, nerdy travel content, video games, streaming, voice acting, you name it.
Toasty (her online name) is a theatrical and voiceover actor in NYC, who’s built a million-scale audience across social by leaning into her nerdy passions of gaming, anime, music, and movies.
She’s been able to diversify her content across platforms and sub-niches, reaching and monetizing several different segments within her nerdy fandom.
Let’s get into it!
Links
The Business
.Highlights.
.Breakdown.
.Observations.
Though 71.6% of Toasty’s audience is on TikTok, just 7.6% of her audience, via Instagram and Twitch, generates over 50% of her revenue.
Put differently - if she hadn’t focused on moving her audience off of TikTok, she’d only be making half her income.
Toasty cross-promotes, of course - for example, multicasting to TikTok Live, Twitch, and YouTube via Restream.io (more below in The Stack).
Her bigger strategy, however, is somewhat counterintuitive given her audience concentration on a single platform:
I treat all of my pages pretty much separately and try to build specific audiences for each.
As a result, she sees different value in each platform:
TikTok - scale and authority
The reach found in TikTok is most valuable for brands seeking views.
I would say TikTok is good when a brand is looking for something to try to go viral or to get a lot of reach.
Instagram - brand and community
Instagram seems to be doing a fantastic job letting Creators cultivate thriving communities.
Now if only they’d revshare….
Instagram is better when people are really trying to hit a core community…for example, I did a Dove campaign and I was talking about natural hair and gaming, and that's perfect for my audience because a majority of my audience is Black and so they connected with that. They really just love that video so much, and probably love Dove 10x more because of that video.
Twitch - real-time interaction
On the one hand, Toasty much prefers brand-based monetization to having her audience pay for subs:
Back before I had brand deals, I was really pushing for subs, because that's how I was paying my rent.
Now I don't really push for them. If people want to sub, they can sub, but I'd rather have a brand pay for an ad than use my audience to make my money….
On the other hand, the juice isn’t always worth the squeeze:
I'll have brands reach out for Twitch, but the problem is that a lot of their offers are pretty low, so I just won't do them.
I don't really want to do this ad that's only paying me like $500 that’s not a game I care about. If it's something I care about, then great.
Streaming is a tough business, so she’s starting to think outside the box:
I have taken so many breaks from streaming, because streaming is just so much effort sometimes - especially for women, having to make up my face just to come on camera.
I'd be way better as a VTuber, okay? One of these days I'm gonna become a VTuber. I've always said that.
YouTube - TBD - rebranding
Toasty’s experience with YouTube shows the unintended consequences of virality - she now has to go backward to move forward in the creative direction she wants.
Jakeneutron and I did this song around Amanda the Adventurer. I was also playing the game at the same time, and acting as Amanda on the livestream.
It all blew up, and now people kind of just see me as that character!
I'm rebranding my YouTube right now to get an audience that likes me for everything / not that game.
That's the danger of going viral!
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The Stack
Link in Bio - Linktree
Everybody just uses Linktree so I use it. I do want to make my own website eventually, and have it be my own domain. Then I can have all my events and everything listed there. That's on the list for this year.
Affiliates - Amazon Storefront
I do be shopping from Amazon, so might as well have it up there. If anybody wants to buy the stuff from my link, cool. But if not, also cool. I'm not really going to promote it.
Project Management - Note App + Google Calendar + Canva + Manager
I do have a content plan calendar that I sometimes use. That's one of the digital products that I would drop - a content calendar for my specific niche, because I feel like I've kind of figured out how to do it.
I also have my manager who keeps me on top of brand deals when stuff is due.
Finance - Accountant + Chase + Marcus by Goldman Sachs
Chat - Restream.io
I will dual stream to Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok Gaming at the same time, and then I'll use Restream.io for a combined chat…it's great, it's every streamer's best friend!
…Restream gives you your own stream key, the code that you need to put into OBS, which is the streaming software to stream to the different websites. You stream and then it automatically streams to YouTube and Twitch. TikTok is not on it quite yet, so I have to put in my TikTok in a different way, but it all ends up working out.
Restream lets you stream to all those platforms at once and then it combines the chats so that you can read the chats in one thing.
Twitch does not technically allow you to read multiple chats, but …they’ll come around eventually.
Representation - Katelyn (@thebelleperspective on IG)
I text her, FaceTime her, go to lunch with her, karaoke. We're friends, but she's also good at her job. We play good cop, bad cop because I'm very nice in the emails to the brands and stuff. But basically, I just loop her in, and then she takes it from there. She knows when to say no, when to walk away, things like that.
Video Production & Distribution - Rode travel mics + Shure SM7B + walk in closet recording studio + Sony ZV-E10 + Sony ZV-E1 + iPhone 15 + Custom Gaming PC with Zotac Gaming GeForce GFX card + Wondershare Filmora + CapCut
I use my Twitch streams to basically make my YouTube videos. I have to stream once a week to have that YouTube video up for the next week.
Other Content Distribution - Repurpose.io
When I post on TikTok, it automatically posts to YouTube Shorts, Pinterest, Twitter - like it automatically does it for me.
Operations - Has an editor for YT, another for Twitch clips, edits everything else herself
She’d love to hire moderators to help her grow on Facebook.
One of the ways that people grow on Facebook is sharing yourself in Groups. The issue with that is, you can't share your own stuff in most of those Groups. I've gone viral on Facebook before, but it's always been people reposting my content onto Facebook and not linking it back to my Facebook account.
Finding people who can share my Facebook posts in those niche nerd pages is what I need to hire moderators to do.
Relevant Previous Interviews
LinkedIn Roundup
I write about the Creator Economy on LinkedIn through the lens of my 15 years as a Creator, agent, manager, marketer, producer, and executive at companies like Patreon, Wheelhouse, and WME.
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Written by Avi Gandhi, edited by Melody Song,
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