Welcome, come on in. We’re going to be talking about how to get noticed on Twitch and grow your channel.
Twitch is big, and there’s no two ways around that fact. Twitch is simply the largest and most well-known live streaming platform around today, despite YouTube and Instagram’s efforts to get in on the action with their own versions of live streaming.
Twitch’s popularity is both a good and a bad thing for anyone who’s hoping to make it big on the platform.
On the one hand, it could mean that Twitch streaming could end up being your new job: building a huge audience that gives you money just because they like to tune in for your work and maybe even expanding into more traditional forms of media to bolster your brand.
On the other hand, and this is the tricky hand for sure, it could also mean that even if you stream entertaining content every day of the year for years on end, you could end up buried under the massive pile of other users who, for whatever reason, have already found their massive Twitch audiences.
So what can you do to move toward outcome #1? How can you go from being a tiny channel with literally zero subscribers to being one of the most successful channels on the platform, or at least a sizeable platform that can bring in some money to reward all your hard work?
We’ve applied some fundamental marketing principles to Twitch streaming to give you some solid tips about how you can go about promoting your channel and creating compelling content that will attract new viewers.
Your brand matters, and even if you don’t think your Twitch channel has a brand, it absolutely does.
Your brand is how members of your audience see you and your work. Branding can happen passively, of course, but this should be avoided at all costs.
Passive branding means that you’re not actively deciding how the audience is going to see you. It also probably means that your content and your persona are not very well focused. This can lead to all kinds of problems.
Instead, actively brand your content and your online presence. If your audience members both new and old know what you’re about and what they’re going to get from your content, then you’re already ahead of the game and you will immediately outpace other small Twitch streamers who haven’t given a thought to branding.
So ask yourself right now: what is your brand? How do you want to be seen on Twitch? Is your channel going to focus on comedy, gaming, Q&A sessions? A mix of all three?
What kind of content are you going to focus on? How often do you want to stream? Most importantly, how do you want people on Twitch to see you?
Who is your ideal audience? What kind of content would they enjoy?
When you can answer these questions firmly, then you’ll be much closer to understanding how you should market your Twitch channel and who that marketing will work best on.
When you’re out there in the trenches and you’re actually streaming to an audience, you need to be energetic and interactive. You just do.
Sure, there might be a niche market for Twitch streamers who just go about their business, whatever that happens to be, without actually talking to the people in the stream, but generally speaking, that’s a very bad idea when you’re trying to build your channel and attract new subscribers.
Just go ahead and take a look at any Twitch chat that’s happening right now. Just about every person in that chat wants to be noticed in some way, and most of all, they would love to be noticed and acknowledged by the streamer.
No matter what the main content of each of your streams is going to be, you should always leave plenty of time to keep track of the chat and interact in some way with the people who have stopped by for your stream.
You can answer questions, you can contribute to ongoing conversations in the chat, or you can even hold little contests and giveaways for your viewers.
Interaction is one of the most appealing aspects of live streaming of any sort, and you should take advantage of that. Otherwise, people may as well just be watching a YouTube video of someone sitting at their desk.
Actually deciding on what your streaming schedule will be, that’s entirely up to you. You need to make it work with your schedule, especially given the fact that plenty of popular Twitch streamers like to stream for hours and hours at a time.
However, once you’ve decided on specific days of the week when you’re going to be streaming, you need to stick to those days very consistently.
Ideally, the time at which you stream on each of those days should also be consistent and reliable, but this just isn’t always possible.
Whatever your schedule ends up being, stick to it. Not only will this make streaming part of your routine and make it easier to find the motivation to hop online, but it will also set a precedent for your fans and subscribers.
People will know that they can count on you to stream on a specific day, or on two or three days each week. This will make it easier for them to tune in.
Having a tight-knit community on your Twitch channel is definitely a good thing in a lot of ways, but you never want your community to feel exclusive.
As the content creator, you can foster the tone of the community and even make some changes as needed.
You always want new people to be able to hop into your streams without feeling out of place, and if you’re welcoming as a streamer, then your diehard fans are likely to follow suit and welcome in the new folks.
