October 5, 2023
Everyone wants to be a streamer. There are millions of people streaming online, with even more joining every day. It’s a career where people can incorporate their passion for video games and work on their schedule. It isn’t easy getting started, though. Being stuck with very few viewers is one of the worst feelings for new streamers, and sadly it can last a very long time, especially if they aren’t implementing strategies to foster growth. “How do you grow, though?” you may be wondering. Here are a few strategies that I have found helpful in getting out of that initial slump.
Support from friends and family
The most important and most effective way to get off the ground when you are first starting your career on twitch is simply to ask for support from the people you already know. It’s almost impossible to get noticed by any potential new viewers when your channel is sitting on the most disheartening number, zero. Your stream will be at the very bottom of the list for whatever game you are playing, and won’t look enticing to anyone who doesn’t already know who you are. Therefore, the key to getting any traction is to take matters into your own hands and get that viewer count up through your friends and family.
You would be surprised how many of your friends wouldn’t mind at the very least opening your stream up in the background on their computer so that you benefit from another viewer. Simply go to them and tell them about your stream and ask if they would mind watching. You don’t even need that many, just enough to get you away from that pesky number zero. Once your stream is no longer suffocating under that number zero, it will begin to climb the ladder of streams in the game you are playing, and it will look more inviting to any new viewers, leading to organic growth.
Make your stream more attractive
This may sound like a frivolous step as looks are primarily superficial and speak very little to the quality of the content of a stream. However, when potential new viewers are scrolling through Twitch looking for a new stream to watch, they can’t see who you are and how good your content is. They only see the title, the game you are playing, and a thumbnail simply showing what your stream looks like. Making sure all of these things are good and reflect the quality of your stream is extremely important to drawing in those potential viewers.
Your title should be interesting and reflect the content of your stream, whether it be funnily or excitingly. Avoid titles like “Stardew Valley Playthrough Part Six.” Make your title something someone wants to click on. Similarly, your stream should look attractive as well, if possible. It’s surprising that the snippet of what your stream looks like helps. In my opinion, this doesn’t translate to a requirement for one of those overly expensive UIs with animated parts. Instead, it should be something simple that makes you stand out. For instance, if you are a vtuber, you could have an interesting model or outfit, or if you have a regular webcam, you could have an interesting outfit or costume. You could have a running joke UI element that stands out or a pet or mascot cam. The possibilities are endless.
The game you play is just as important as the way your stream looks. If you play a game that is too popular, it will be difficult to find your stream in the sea of other streamers, especially if popular content creators already play that game. If you play a game that is not popular enough, then no one will be looking for streams of that game. Of course, it is best to play the games that you enjoy the most at the end of the day, but if you have multiple options of games you can play, you want to find a sweet spot right in the middle. This will take a lot of trial and error, but you will know when games work for your stream and when they don’t, and then you want to stick to those that work if you can. Twitch isn’t a matter of constant variation. It’s a game of throwing stuff at a wall, seeing if it sticks, and then if it does, continuing to throw that same stuff at the wall until it stops sticking.
Be an active part of the Twitch community
Being involved in the twitch community not only as a streamer, but also as a viewer, is extremely important and cannot be neglected. You have to consistently involve yourself in the community if you want to see growth and improvement in your steam. This has many benefits for the overall quality of your stream. First and foremost, getting involved in the community will lead you to make friends who share a passion and drive for the same career. Having like-minded friends will allow you to learn from each other and improve.
You can learn many things about bringing in new viewers and content creation from other streamers. You should never get disheartened by seeing other people seeing more success than you on Twitch. Instead, you should embrace it and ask how you can learn from it. There is always something you can learn from other streamers.
Simply being involved in the community and being a consistent face in the chat of various streams in the Twitch community, and more specifically the community surrounding the area of content you seek to specialize in with streams of similar size to your own, will help grow your stream as people see you and recognize you from other streams. Do not ever advertise yourself in other people’s streams, though. This is not just rude but is also against the rules of most twitch channels. Just get involved and make friends, and this will help you grow naturally!
Be an Active Part of Your Own Community
Another community is key that you are a part of, and that is your own! A fantastic way to keep viewers involved and returning is by having a fun and exciting community that welcomes them with open arms, and you are the leader of that community! The only way to get your community to thrive and have fun is for you to get involved in it yourself. Plan fun events like movie nights or game nights, join Discord and talk to people, get involved in the chat, send memes and videos, and anything else to get the ball rolling. It may be difficult at first, and you may be having movie nights by yourself for a while, but eventually, people will get involved. You have to make sure that there is something there for people to get involved in.
Once that number of viewers is a community instead of just a number, your stream will start to grow, and that is when you will know that you’ve gotten somewhere. You may not have hundreds or thousands of viewers watching you at one time, but you have a community that enjoys watching you every time you stream. You have a community that hopefully welcomes new community members with open arms. So where can you go from there other than up?
Make good content
I hope that all of these tips can be used to help propel your stream to where you know it can be, and I hope that this is the beginning of not only a career but a true passion. There is one last thing I want to say, though: good content is the key to organic growth at the end of the day. All of the tips in this article are meant to help propel you further, but you have to make sure you are focusing on making your content fun and enjoyable. Otherwise, the viewers you could be gaining will simply leave as quickly as possible they arrived. What this means is different from person to person. The main point I want to make here is that you shouldn’t get lost in the view count.
These tips should be implemented to help you share something you are proud of with more people, not as a simple way to increase a number, even if that number is daunting. Good content is not just the best way to foster growth; it’s the only way to promote organic growth.