If you want to reach more viewers on Twitch, you need to start promoting your channel. There are various ways to do that, and here are the best ways how to promote Twitch stream. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, etc.), blogs, and gaming forums are the first step in the promotion.
Attract Your Type of Audience
- Think about your goals but try to stay objective
- Choose the games you play wisely (it will have a direct impact on audience you want to attract)
- Think of streaming as a regular job and make your working hours, and in other words…
- Create a schedule
- Be as active as possible
- Build a brand, slowly (with social networks, explained below)
- Show your creative side (by streaming other games once in while, just talking with people)
Interact with Your Viewers
Remember that the promotion starts while you play. Talk with your viewers and try to include them in streaming as much as possible. The word-of-mouth tactic still has a lot of success.
- Non-stop talk (comment on a gameplay, ask questions, discuss things)
- Use emotes and memes to interact
- Hire mods to spice things us
Do Your Own Promotion
- Create all social networks and post your schedule & interesting stream moments
- Join Facebook groups and other like-minded communities to promote yourself
- Twitter and Tik Tok are a must – currently the biggest networks for everything streaming-related
- Enable VODs and post them on your Youtube channel.
If you are a regular streamer and you have trouble getting a high number of viewers, you must feel very unlucky and annoyed.
It is undoubtedly hard to compete with today’s rivalry on the platform of Twitch and the promotion needs a certain organization.
In further text, we’ll explore each of these, and learn about specific details you need to think about when promoting your Twitch stream.
Table of Contents
1. Attract Your Type of Audience
The first step you have to take when answering the question of how to promote Twitch stream is to decide what type of audience correlates to your content and streams in general.
This will depend on what type of person you are and how people react to your personality and the content together.
This probably sounds overwhelming and too general. Because of that, we will take you step by step for each piece of advice on how to advertise your Twitch stream.
Think Ahead
In any sort of business, you will have to develop a certain amount of responsibility and ambition. There is no point in doing a job if you do not strive for success.
Either write it down or organize it mentally, in your head. Think about your goals regarding your aspiration to properly advertise Twitch.
Try to be concise with your objective as that is the way to move ahead. If you simply state that you wish to progress in what you do, you do not know what that actually entails.
In addition, try to stay realistic as you do not want to make yourself feel bad if plans do not become successful.
Start small and move in small steps. This means that you have to learn to be patient and to do everything in a clever and organized manner.
In order for your plans to succeed, you will have to stay determined for a certain period of time. It is most likely that you will have to put in most of the work when you do not have a great number of viewers.
However, do not let that bring your hope down. Set deadlines for yourself and note down every little success in order to motivate yourself.
Make Your Own Working Hours
Working on the platforms like Twitch means that you do not have an office you go to every day from nine to five.
But, this does not mean that you are supposed to be in bed by noon without a schedule on what you will be doing that day.
It is actually quite the opposite. Working on such platforms means that you are your boss and an employee at the same time which can be overwhelming.
For that reason organize your working days and rest on those you consider your personal weekends.
On the working days, you will be either planning your content or streaming for a certain period of time, playing a game you put in your schedule, or discuss topics, depending on the niche you belong to.
Think About Your Schedule
Your schedule, including the time and the content, will be available to your viewers as you should put it on your profile. This is an important step of your plan on how to promote your stream.
Remember to stick to your schedule as you can easily lose viewers if you are irresponsible and inconsistent. Also, pay attention to time zones and find a suitable streaming time for everyone.
This can be done in a very creative and appealing manner. Your schedule consisting of the time and content can be very colorful and easy to navigate if you take the time to create it.
By doing this your viewers will become consistent and they will easily get used to your schedule. They will have the content they like available on agreed days and hours.
Consequently, you will gain an audience that appreciates your streaming and that will be consistent as long as you are.
Try to Be Active
Even though you will not be always in a mood to appear in front of the camera, remember that your stream will not gain viewers if you break the consistency we talked about.
For this reason, it is important to work on the days when you do not stream as well. That is the time you should use to plan your content for the days when you do not feel creative.
Naturally, there will be days when you will feel under the weather and you are allowed to take a few days off as you would in a regular job. Just remember to inform your viewers as they usually do not think about such instances.
Your activity will depend on many aspects starting with the type of your content. Let’s assume you like playing games. The necessary thing would then be to play games that are most asked for.
What Games to Play
There are many factors to tackle before getting to the best games to stream. You have to decide first whether you stream because you like those games or if you have a greater objective behind the streaming.
There is a difference between these goals so pay attention to whether you will be casually playing those games or for the sake of professional streaming.
In the first instance, you will have to choose a game you enjoy playing as that is the surest way of providing viewers with honest content.
On the other hand, if professional streaming is your goal, you will have to look at the trending games and do more research on how available such are for your stream as there are many other streamers playing them right now.
These are some of the best top ten games to play on your streams: Fortnite, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Escape From Tarkov, Minecraft, Call of Duty: Warzone, Cyberpunk 2077, Grand Theft Auto V, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Among Us.
As mentioned, before choosing a game do your research on how many streamers are actually playing these games and think about how you could draw viewers to watch your stream rather than someone else’s.
Also, in the section below there are several considerations regarding the possible reasons why viewers watch your streams.
Consider Viewers’ Standpoints
There will be multiple reasons as to why someone might come and watch your stream rather than someone else’s.
Let’s say they have heard of the game Among Us, and they have seen other streamers play that game. However, they are not convinced whether to buy it so they come to your stream to check their evaluation.
This is the moment you will either play the game to state its advantages or its disadvantages, depending on your opinion.
There will be other reasons aside from the viewer’s decision on whether to buy a certain game or not.
Some will come to understand how to progress in the game and learn something they did not notice, for instance. Your stream should, therefore, be in some way instructive with additional advice you consider valuable.
Other viewers might simply come because they like your personality. So, be free to show your wits and comical skills to them. Try not to think of it as your job constantly.
Make Your Twitch a Specific Brand
In order to promote the Twitch channel, you will have to attract the audience by making yourself appear appealing, and you can do that by creating your own brand.
Creating your brand consists of many things. You can have a unique way to greet your viewers by doing something or saying words in a specific manner.
Accordingly, this is related to the section at the beginning of the article when we talked about how to advertise Twitch stream by being yourself, using humor, and being comfortable with your personality.
Creating your merch would also be suitable once you realize what your brand is.
You can even invent a special nickname for your viewers if they agree naturally. When we discuss your interaction with the audience this will all make much more sense.
Show Creativity to Your Viewers
As you have seen maybe on other platforms, people like to have certain theme-organized videos or streams like on Twitch.
This means that on some days you can provide viewers with the content they are not used to, like Chatting Day, for instance. Set aside one day in a week or a month that will appear interesting for your viewers.
If they like chatting with you, you can take a rest from games for one day and discuss different topics with them.
Another way to attract viewers is to have giveaways on your stream. In that way, new viewers might appear because of that, and stay for your content, or even better recommend you to other people.
2. Interact With Your Viewers
The answer to the question of how to promote your Twitch also lies in this section as your job includes being interactive and considerate to your audience.
Pay attention to the overall streaming. Do not simply play a game and pretend like you are alone. Try to communicate with viewers like they are in the room with you.
Remember that there are other platforms where the content is based on someone’s viewpoints and experiences. On Twitch the setting is different- it may appear to you that no one is listening, but your viewers are.
Some might even come just because of what you are saying, not because of the games. Think about the diversity of your viewers as well.
Moreover, if you do not have a lot of viewers, it will be easier to respond to all the viewers. Try to do that as such rapport will maintain their loyalty to you.
If the game requires more concentration or effort, maybe try to think aloud or ask your viewers for advice. Include them as much as you can.
Also, greet them properly at the beginning of the stream and at the end. In the meantime, use your chat and ask them questions if they do not start any discussions.
Another important piece of advice here is of great value- the Host Mode. When you are offline there is an option for your viewers to still get the content they expect from you even when you are not online.
What are Moderators?
The interaction with your viewers will not be as easy once you become more popular and reach a certain number of viewers.
At that moment, you will hire people who will act as moderators, i.e. the people who will interact with the audience as you concentrate on the game.
The alternative would be using Moderation Bot. There are different kinds depending on what suits your server best.
In either way, you will need to rely on Moderators or Moderation Bots if you yourself do not have the time to properly greet the audience, respond to them, or filter the harmful language.
Use Emotes
As you probably already know, emotes on Twitch make communication more vivid and on point.
There is a plethora of developed regular and animated emotes as viewers and streamers know how more effective and humorous communication becomes with the use of these more developed emojis.
You can find the categorization and meanings of all emotes online, but once you become a Twitch member you will remember the meanings of the most popular ones.
3. How to Promote Twitch Stream on Your Own
In order to promote the Twitch stream in all the right areas, you will have to promote yourself, meaning your Twitch streams and your content on other platforms.
Finding people on other platforms is like finding people with different likening, standpoints, and expectations. It is of great value to gather your type of audience from as many places as you can.
You never know how many people would love your content unless you give them the chance to watch your streams. So try to do this:
- If you have a YouTube channel, for instance, try to put some of your content on that platform as well. That can include compilations of your videos or your own advertisement in a five-minute video.
- If you have a profile on Instagram then you will be able to interact with your viewers even more easily. They will be able to see what you post regularly and find out more about future streams.
- In case you do other streams besides the gaming ones, TikTok is a great way to interact with your viewers and also find a new audience as well.
- Here, you would focus on making short creative videos where you could promote yourself quicker.
- If you think of going on Reddit and promoting yourself, try not to do that. You can go there and casually mention what you do without directly promoting your content.
- This is a place where you interact with a possible audience, not where you attract it.
- On Twitter, you can create short promotions or spontaneously post an image with a description that is humorous. In this manner, you can attract people who do not know your work but might check it after the tweet.
Also, always focus on liking and retweeting other people’s tweets, even better than other streamer’s tweets. Creating partners is also relevant when you are trying to grow your Twitch bigger.
So next time you use Instagram, Twitter or YouTube, or any other platform you use, write your schedule, or the next themed streaming, whatever leads them to your Twitch profile.
Here are some other quick tips on how to grow your channel!
There are also two more ways of attracting a potential audience that is not familiar with your content at all.
Unlike on Reddit for instance, on gaming forums, you are allowed to advertise your schedule and some of your previous work.
This is a place where you can find an audience that likes specific types of games, so go to such forums and promote yourself a bit.
The last option is to visit Twitch conventions where you can learn more but also network with people from your profession.
It will be probably easier for you if you have a friend or an acquaintance that will help you with your first convention since you need to know exactly where to go depending on your level of popularity.
Conclusion
If you made it to the end of the article that means that you have all the material necessary to lead you on your way to progress.
In addition to attracting your audience by providing them with worthy content, you will try to keep the relation with them as long as possible by interacting with them constantly.
Finally, you can use all your other social media platforms to advertise Twitch stream and your content by adding your profile to those media or by reminding viewers of your schedule.
