A great article posted on Reddit.
Let’s face it. As Twitch grows, it’s getting harder and harder to get noticed and to grow your stream’s viewer base.
There’s a lot of unnoticed potential on Twitch, and the only way to get around the consequence of Twitch’s growth is to be smart and methodical in how you conduct the business of streaming.
So in this post, I’m going to detail some ways that you guys can spread your name and grow your community in a viable, legitimate, and non-spammy way.
We’ll start with my favorite: Twitter.
Using Twitter correctly has the power to not only bring back viewers who have been in your stream before, but also spread your name and reach new audiences who would’ve never heard about you in the first place.
As a broadcaster it’s important that you are cross promoting your social media accounts wherever you can.
This means that it’s a good idea to have a link in your Twitch info section leading viewers to follow you on Twitter, having a social media banner that pops up on your stream every so often, and shouting out your Twitter account at the ends of your broadcasts.
This is by far not the only way to grow your follower count. Here are some other ways:
- Live tweet during the stream (learn from Dr. Disrespect and the h1 devs)
- Conduct giveaways on Twitter
- Do a Q&A
- Tell your viewers to tweet you during your breaks
- Follow relevant personalities and interact with them
Once you’ve racked up a few followers, there are also a number of things you can do to get new and old viewers back into your future streams:
Post a “Going Live” tweet whenever you’re about to start your broadcast.
I recommend you make use of funny or interesting gifs and videos in your “going live” tweets. These days, a simple image rarely is enough to catch someone’s attention while scrolling by on Twitter.
Also, If you give the user a bit of entertainment before leading them to your stream, it can help big time for leading them to watch your broadcast. (you can embed your streams into twitter with a tool called kapsuli)
Tag the developers of the game you’re playing.
Game companies love to see streamers enjoying their games, and by tagging them in your tweets, you have a much higher chance of them noticing your broadcast and deciding to help you out.
A good practice is to actually establish a connection with the devs over Twitter. This mean that you can start liking, re-tweeting, and responding to their tweets with meaningful additions to show them that you aren’t just there to leech off of their follower counts.
Post valuable content.
Let’s face it: nobody wants to follow you on Twitter just to see your “going live” tweets.
There are tons of different ways to provide value to your followers:
· Interact with people who are responding to your tweets. · Share relevant and interesting articles. · Post stream highlights or funny moments from your broadcast.
Form relationships with other streamers.
One of the best ways to grow your audience and get introduced to other like-minded streamers is to form relationships with other people in your community.
However, you need to be sure that you’re approaching the networking process with the right mindset.
It’s incredibly easy to detect when one streamer is only on another broadcast to leech off of the viewers of another streamer. When viewers notice this, you’re going to have a hard chance at gaining the respect of potential viewers.
Here are some ways you can form relationships with other streamers:
- Share content from the streamer on Twitter
- Hang out in their chatroom after your stream
- Host the other streamer (you may get it back in return)
- Use the collaboration section of this subreddit to find others looking to collab
Once you feel like you’ve begun to form a relationship with another streamer, don’t hesitate to reach out! I don’t know of anyone that wouldn’t like to have some company while playing a game once and a while.
Expand to other platforms.
You’ve probably noticed a ton of broadcasters now a days expanding their channels to YouTube. That’s because its an incredibly powerful tool for spreading your stream!
If you’re not sure how to start posting videos, here’s what we suggest:
At the end of your broadcast, download your VOD and find any funny or interesting moments in your stream. Then, make a short video of all of the interesting things that happened to you while playing.
Doing this will allow you to form a short video for YouTube that potential viewers can stumble across and get an idea of what your stream is about.
If they like the video, chances are they’ll decide to stop by your stream! Just be sure that you link your stream in the description of the video.
Edit: Just remember, at the end of the day, no amount of promotion will grow a stream that isn’t producing entertaining content. That’s what’s most important. If you’re worried about your stream’s growth, I highly recommend Bacon Donut’s article, “The Problem Might be You”.