So, you want your own Kick bot for interactions and certain activities. To most streamers, their Kick bots become their assistants. Sure, a bot will most likely chat, entertain, keep users engaged and make the community look live while automating everyday moderation tasks. But to others, the Kick bot goes further than that.
Making your own chatbot can go in different directions. One of these options is simple and straightforward. The other one is more difficult and usually avoided by most users who lack programming experience.
The Hard Way
The hard way implies making the Kick chatbot yourself from scratch using Python, Node.js, or direct API webhooks. You’ll need a new Kick account for the bot, some keys, a bit of coding here and there, some more coding once you come up with settings and customization, lots of testing and so on.
Making the chatbot yourself is beneficial from some points of view. After all, you can customize it in the smallest detail, so it can be made with your unique needs in mind and execute highly complex, bespoke logic.
On a negative note, most people will avoid this path because coding is just too much of a headache and requires constant maintenance as platform APIs update.
Plus, there are many situations and circumstances to pay attention to. In other words, customization can become so problematic that you’ll probably get lost in all the data and spend more time debugging than actually streaming.
Fortunately, there’s an easy way as well.
The Easy Way
The easy way implies buying the bot ready-made. The good side? Easy, quick, almost instant, a bit of customization, no coding required. It sounds like the perfect scenario for beginners who want fast results. The bad side? While such bots can be deeply customized, they won’t be as accurate or completely specialized as a bot made from scratch.
This doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, you don’t want your bot to start philosophical conversations with your viewers. It’s all about announcing things, interacting at certain triggers and so on to keep your chat room vibrant and structured.
To most people, this easy way is the best way to get a chat bot. If that’s your case too, here are the steps to do it properly.
- Find a provider. You’ll find lots of bots. Some of them are free, but completely useless or severely limited in features. As for premium bots, make sure that you’ll get lots of customization as well. If you’re not 100% sure about the provider, look for reviews and perhaps a few bots in action too.
- Get a free trial. A bot can be boring and useless, but it can also be exciting and turn a dead room into a live community. To make sure you get the right bot, opt for a service that gives you access to a free trial too or a robust free tier. You should be able to use the bot for a week or so.
- Get it set and ready. Settings can be extremely varied. Some bots only interact with subscribers. Others interact with followers only. Some bots interact at keywords, others interact at things you might say. Some bots react when you change something like starting a stream or receiving a raid. Think of what you need first.
- Keep it safe. Whether you’re buying a bot, some viewbots or followers, you’ll have to follow some common sense requirements. For example, you should never share your password for bots of any kind or grant unnecessary third-party permissions.
Further Evolution
Don’t introduce the bot to your audience straight away, but give it a test first. You can start a new channel, so it doesn’t look unprofessional. Or, if you only have a few followers, you can introduce them to your tests and get some feedback as well.
Think about potential circumstances and situations when your bot may react and try to trigger all of them. You want to ensure that the settings are perfectly fine and won’t look spam in the chat.
Furthermore, while most people set their bots and forget about them, the truth is that you should keep updating your custom commands and timers. As your channel grows, your needs may change. You may have new rules, new promotions and so on. Keep your bot updated, or it might become a boring tool that everyone will block.
In the end, getting your own chat bot isn’t the most difficult task in the world, but you’ll have to stick to what the market has to offer. You’ll have to find a middle option between what you need and what you can find. Hopefully, you’ll hit that sweet spot and turn your bot into a helpful assistant in your channel.
