Nightbot is one of the most popular chatbots available in 2022. It is compatible with Twitch and YouTube Gaming. It offers a cloud-based bot with an easy-to-use interface and boasts many features including custom commands, mini-games, media requests, and giveaways. Nightbot is a great choice for new streamers learning the ropes with bots. It can answer commonly asked questions, manage chat, announce followers, and more! Here’s a quick guide overview of the steps it takes to setup Nightbot on your Twitch channel.
Table of Contents
Link Nightbot to your Twitch Account
To start, first, you must link your Twitch account to the Nightbot cloud service. To do this simply click on Sign Up! on the homepage.
Twitch will pop up with an Authorize window to allow Nightbot to access your account. Simply click the Authorize button,
Initial Nightbot Setup
Upon granting authorization you will be forwarded to Nightbot’s dashboard website. This is the control hub where you can tweak various settings of Nightbot to meet the specific needs of your channel. The dashboard will also display helpful stats such as chat activity, command usage, and spam filters. The navigation panel on the left side is used for the various features that Nightbot offers.
All that’s left to do to get your Nightbot active and working in your channel is to click the Join Channel button on the top right above the top stats for your channel. This will add Nightbot to your channel.
When Nightbot successfully joins your chat channel a popup will show reminding you to moderate Nightbot so that it can perform all moderation features you enable. This has to be done in your Twitch Channel manually and not something that can be performed from the Nightbot dashboard.
/mod Nightbot
Nightbot Commands Setup
By default, Nightbot has more than 30 pre-configured channel commands ready to use out of the box. These default commands are nice utilities to get your channel up and running, but you should put some focus on custom commands too. Custom commands can bring your own personality to your community and provide a unique experience for your viewers and chatters that they cannot find in other streamer channels.
Commands allow chatters to control the bot with specific outputs or functions. From changing the stream title and game category to providing chat with information such as uptime, subscriber activity, and social media shoutouts.
To get started, simply click on the Commands tab on the side panel on the left. Here, you can click Custom and begin giving your bot its own unique functions by selecting Add Command on the top right of the page.
Here’s an example of a typical custom command:
!twitter
Nightbot will respond in chat with a message seen by everybody stating @Streaminal is our Twitter profile.
Variables to define are:
Command: the trigger word to tell Nightbot to perform the function. The global format is to prefix the command with an exclamation mark (!), but you can use any other symbol too. No spaces are permitted.
Message: the response to the command that Nightbot will perform. Reference Nightbot variables to make the messages dynamic and fluid. The most commonly used is $(user) to have Nightbot respond using the chatter’s name.
Userlevel: defines who can use the command. (owner, moderator, VIP, regular, subscriber, everyone) Most commands would by default be used by everyone.
Cooldown: sets a time limit on how frequently the command can be used. This is helpful to reduce bot spam in users who try using the command back to back.
Alias: this is used if a command is supposed to call another command in its carried out function
Nightbot Spam Protection Setup
Nightbot comes with a host of spam filters to help deal with chat users who spam. This includes moderating excessive capitalizations, symbols, emotes, and blacklist words. You can also enable a link protection where users will not be able to post any links at all within your chat.
- Blacklist: can define specific words to be banned from chat. Using an asterisk (*) enables a wildcard. For example, stream* will block any message containing stream, streaming, streamer, etc.
- Caps: The default is set to 8. This is the number of capitalizations in a message before Nightbot identifies it as spam.
- Emotes: The default is set to 3. Nightbot will identify a message as spam if a user types more than allowed. We recommend turning the limit up as it’s Twitch chat’s nature to use more than that.
- Links: Nightbot can mark all messages with links as spam and remove them before anybody can click on them. This can be useful for preventing self-promoting chatter or any malicious activities in your community.
- Symbols: Like emotes and caps protection, Nightbot can limit the allowable symbols (!, ?, $, &, etc.) The default value is 8.
- Repetition: allows control over repeated phrases (copy/paste messages). This is limited by the percentage of posts, which is defaulted at 45%.
Nightbot Giveaways Setup
A popular feature for Nightbot is its giveaway module which it enables you to review an eligibility list of your viewers. The eligibility list allows you to see the current pool of viewers that will be capable to win a current giveaway; an example being a giveaway for subscribers only versus non-subs. Another great feature of the giveaway panel is that your Twitch chat is also present so you can easily monitor conversations in chat while you engage in kicking off the giveaway. It’s a one-stop shop for performing giveaways!
There are four options to choose from for user eligibility. You can structure giveaways for only your mod team, regulars (loyal viewers), subscribers, or anybody. You can also select multiple categories and as long as the view meets one category they can enter the giveaway.
There are three different eligibility types that can be selected.
- Active User: Selects a user in the eligibility list that has spoken in chat in the selected given time. Saying anything in chat during the given time will enter the viewer into the giveaway.
- Keyword: Allows user to enter by typing a prescribed keyword in chat. You can define the keyword yo be used.
- Random Number: You set a range (0-100,0-1000, etc), and the first person to type the correct number generated by Nightbot wins.
Nightbot also gives you the ability to provide extra luck for certain entries. This is for subscribers and/or regulars where you can move the slider bar to give a better chance of winning for them over new viewers or nonsubscribers. The slider bar allows for twice the chance (2x) all the way up to ten times the chance (10x) of winning, by default the extra luck chance is turned off allowing all entries an equal chance of winning.
Nightbot has also incorporated moderation into the giveaway. When utilizing Active Users you can define a timeout period where it selects users who have chatted in the last defined timeframe period. Options are from the past 1 minute to the past 15 minutes.
When utilizing the keyword entry giveaway you can define an anti-spam that will remove users from the eligibility list if they continuously spam chat with the keyword. Options can be strict allowing one-time entry and any additional typed keyword disqualifies the user to allowing users to spam the keyword ten times before becoming ineligible. This is a good way to moderate chat spam during giveaways, but make sure you clearly communicate the rules before upsetting viewers who didn’t know.
Nightbot Takeaway
Nightbot is a great bot to choose to use in your channel. It is very user-friendly for beginners and still has the ability for custom features for the more advanced users. There’s a reason it’s the number one chatbot used on Twitch. It may not have all the bells-and-whistles of other chatbots, but unless you’re dead set on providing all options available to your community many features added by other bots may go unused anyway. If you plan on running giveaways at any point in your streaming future, it only makes sense to go with Nightbot as it has the best giveaway module seen from other options available.
Not set on Nightbot or considering setting up a second chatbot?
Check out our review on Top 10 Chatbots for Streaming 2021