Are you just starting out in the world of Twitch streaming? It can be pretty hard to get going, especially if you’re starting completely from scratch online. The thing is, if you’re starting from nothing, then you need to create your own audience, and that isn’t always an easy thing to do.
In this article, we’re going to touch on some of the common pitfalls that people have when trying to gain a Twitch audience and a large list of tips on exactly how you can grow your audience.
The Common Pitfalls
Now, there will be hundreds of thousands of Twitch streamers out there that just don’t make the cut, and overtime, give up, but why? There are some common reasons that people tend to not achieve the goal of being a full-time Twitch streamer & here they are:
- The beginning is tough, really tough. It can take months to get regular viewers and when people don’t see results within the first few weeks of streaming, they give up.
- Choosing a highly saturated game, mix it up, find what you’re good at and what your audience like & then stick with that for as long as you can.
- Starting streaming, and just thinking that viewers will come – it’s not that easy! You need to generate your own viewers, you can’t just share your screen and go.
- A lot of streamers give up because they feel their skill level at the game isn’t great – but that’s not a reason to give up, people like watching, well, normal gamers, you don’t have to be a pro.
Tips on How To Be A Sucessful Twitch Streamer
There are several ways that you can be successful on Twitch, but you need to put the effort into doing so, it’s not easy! We’re going to provide a large list of methods to improve your Twitch following below, but don’t just do one and expect it to take off, do as many as you can!
1. Use your existing networks of friends
Popular on Twitter? Perhaps you’ve got a few thousand Facebook friends, or not, but one of your friends might have those large figures and share your video. Don’t underestimate the importance of using your existing friends & family.
Many often overlook it, or maybe embarrassed to share their gaming experiences with their friends, don’t be!
2. Join forums and participate in chats
There are hundreds if not thousands of gaming forums out there, including large ones such as Reddit & questions on Quora. Make profiles on some of the most active ones, be active, and promote your stream, either through your signature if possible or by dropping a link when you are live.
You can leverage the audience of these already built up forums to grow your own audience, but be sure to build up your profile and reputation on the forum a bit as from experience they don’t take too kindly that your first post is just a link to your Twitch and more often than not, it’ll just get deleted.
3. Know other streamers? Collab time!
Are you close with any other streamers? I mean, you don’t even have to be, you can reach out to other streamers to work together on a project which you can do on one of either channel.
The brilliant thing about this is that it’s mutually beneficial for both parties, so there are a lot of Twitch streamers that should want to do this, as long as you are in a similar niche, of course. Why? Because you get to expose yourself to their audience, who may become followers of you and they get to do the same to your audience.
4. Share everything on social & create your own pages
Create your own social pages on all the platforms you can, including the big ones, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, of course. You should try and build up the likes on these pages, and every time you stream you should post a reminder link on your social.
This exposes you to a whole new potential audience, that may not have even heard of Twitch (unlikely, but you get the point).
5. Utilise Youtube
One of the biggest mistakes I see Twitch streamers do is to not utilise Youtube. You’re creating video content, put it on the largest streaming website in the world. It’s a whole different audience that you can use to drive to your Twitch channel, and not only that, you might be able to monetize some of your live streaming via Youtube for an extra revenue stream.
6. Consider a website
Again, you’re creating content already so why not host it elsewhere and have it rank on Google, you’ve heard of them right? This just opens up a further avenue of a potential audience, I also wouldn’t stop there, transcribe some of your videos & write guides on some of the topics you’re covering if possible.
You can track your website visits using Google Analytics & you can also include call to actions on your site to your Twitch profile, you can even get plugins which will show your website visitors when you’re live.
7. Ask other creators for help
Don’t be afraid to ask, reach out to other creators, perhaps ones much more established than you & simply ask for their help. If you’re putting in the effort and they like your content they might sympathize with you and give you a shoutout, or even collab which exposes you to their audience.
8. Analyse your statistics, see what works
There are several tools out there, like SullyGnome for example which will show you audience levels. If you keep track of what you are streaming when then you can track what has lead to the most visits, then naturally you might want to start trying to create more of that type of content to see if it always has that kind of positive effect on your watching levels.
9. Share your videos on forums
You know those forums we told you to join and participate in for tip #2? It’s now time to utilise them. Every time you go live, post something about it on these forums, especially Reddit, that can be a real winner for reactive content that has the potential to drive a large number of visits if you can get a few up votes.
10. Try get featured on other websites
It’s not only a good idea to have your own website, but you also want to get features on others (like this one, hint hint). The more write-ups or interviews you have about yourself across the web the more likely you are to see those visitor numbers rocket up.
You’ll be surprised who might want to feature an interview or comment about you, you might even be able to get in large online news articles – it’s definitely worth reaching out to them to find out if they want to hear your story!
11. Use your Twitch name as your in-game name
It’s in-game advertising. If your name in-game matches your Twitch name then people might search for it, or they might see your name whilst scrolling through streamers and recognise it.
12. Play in tournaments
A lot of gaming tournaments get a large following and may have millions of people watching them, even the early stages. If you get yourself entered, there’s every chance that you could expose yourself to the audience, and if your in-game name matches your Twitch, well you get it!
13. Stream reactively on live events
It depends on your niche, but if there are new game releases, tournaments or events you should stream a commentary or something of that kind on them. People want to watch the news, and hear the opinions of others almost as if you were to actually attend the event.
14. Giveaways, if you can
This only really works if you have a bit of money to throw away. Well, throw away is perhaps the wrong word, because if it’s done wisely it can help you grow your audience significantly. People love a giveaway, and you can post it all over freebie forums to gain a bit more traction as well, then you just have to hope that some of that audience stay.
15. Merch, it’s free advertising!
Ever wondered why all the big YouTubers and Twitch streamers sell merch? Well for one, you can make money on it, but secondly, it has your name of logo all over it and people wear it out on the streets, that’s free advertising right there!
16. Pwning.com
This is a website that you can log in with your Twitch account and essentially they feature smaller streamers. It provides short samples of small Twitch streamers to their large audience, giving you a chance to grow your viewer base.
17. Comment on blogs & related news articles
If you comment your Twitch link on blogs that are related to your topic, then people who are searching and finding that topic might see and follow the link. The more you do it, the larger chance you have.
Relevancy is key with this though, much like the forum stuff, if you just go to an article simply post your link then the likelihood of that staying on the site for a decent amount of time is pretty low. Create a bit of dialogue around it, prove you’ve read the article and maybe mention your streaming something similar etc.
18. Conferences & live events
Networking, this is much like any job, the more like-minded people you talk to the better, ever heard the saying, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know? This is where you can grow your chances of collabs, getting featured in articles or at the very least getting a few new viewers who might share your channel.
19. Old fashion flyers
Why not get a few prints of your channel with an interesting graphic and go put it on lamposts or in your local Target. It’s relatively low cost, as long as you can do the designs yourself, it just takes a bit of your time.
20. Stick to a consitent schedule
You should stream as much as you can, but try and keep it consistent. Even if your audience is only small, you want people to continue to come back, and if they know that you stream at 8pm on a Wednesday, then you’ve got more of a chance of getting their view for your next stream.
21. Twitch Strike
Twitch Strike is a platform that can help you determine which games to stream, they work out the ratio of broadcasters to viewers for particular games & provide you with an overview of the best games to stream that hour.
22. Try a variety of different content
This ties into the figuring out what works, you need to try a load of different things when you’re first starting out, then you can find out what is bringing you the highest amount of viewers and continue it. What I would say for this, is always make sure it’s something that you enjoy, because there’s no point growing an audience in something you don’t quite like and falling out of love with it, because if you then change niche, it’s quite likely your audience won’t follow.
23. Your stream titles are important
Like really important! Your title needs to capture the attention of any viewer within the first few words. Make sure you test a variety of different titles, try to figure out what works which you can use the Analytics tools we’ve mentioned before.
24. Small budget paid ads
There are a few articles out there that will tell you to advertise on Google Ads display, Facebook, Twitter & Instagram to grow your Twitch audience, but in all honesty, all I’ve ever found to work is Facebook. You can get a decent amount of interaction for your money on Facebook and your budget can be stretched far more than Google, for instance, setting just $5 to boost a post should give you a healthy amount of interaction, given the post is a good one of course.
25. Subscribe, follow & interact with other channels
Be active in the Twitch community, subscribe to other broadcasters, interact with their chats and just generally be a member of Twitch. The more you do, and the more you get your name out, the more likely you are to be able to increase your viewership quickly.
