The best way to get more viewers on Twitch is to focus on streaming games based on the viewer count of your past game streams. Don’t go for overly popular games as you’ll face stiff competition from established Twitch channels.
Observe the channels of popular Twitch streamers and adapt your next stream based on your target audience. You also need to work on building personal connections with viewers on Twitch and promoting your streams on other social media platforms to acquire new viewers.
I have been streaming on Twitch for years now and I have used these strategies to make my channel popular and get more viewers. So if you’re new to the Twitch platform and looking to grow your channel, then here are the best solutions to gain viewers on Twitch.
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You can entice Twitch users to stream and follow your channel by following the solutions outlined below.
To attract viewers, you might be tempted to Twitch stream the most popular games, like League of Legends, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Minecraft, Valorant, Grand Theft Auto V, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
But in doing so, you’ll be competing against hundreds of renowned Twitch streamers with an established streaming channel. A few viewers watching streams might be interested in checking out new streamers playing these games, but it’s not very likely.
This doesn't mean that you should live stream unpopular or obscure games. What you can do is stream games based on your viewer count and tweak your stream schedule to obtain more Twitch viewers.
You can either find traditional games with a cult following or fall back on old AAA games that were blockbusters when they were released and are still in demand. Though this will let you gain more followers, this is a time-consuming activity.
If you want to save time and find titles you should stream, you can try out TwitchStrike. This streaming platform will help you find the right game for your potential viewers and adjust your streaming schedule to get more Twitch viewers.
After selecting the game you’d like to broadcast and play, it’s time for you to do some recon and learn from other streamers to understand what’s working for the Twitch audience and what’s not.
Go to Twitch, find the ‘Browse’ option located in the top-left corner, and search for your game under ‘Categories.’ You’ll now have access to all the Twitch channels streaming the game you want to play.
You can filter the channels from low to high or high to low based on their viewer count. Researching the channels with no or very few followers will assist you in recognizing what’s not working.
For instance, usually, the posts from channels with zero or very few viewers don’t have any interesting graphics, or the hosts are not very interactive. Similarly, by watching the most popular channels, you’ll realize how you can engage many viewers.
Once you set up your channel, it's time to take steps to make your channel discoverable for new viewers. Unfortunately, there are no systems in place in Twitch to help discover a new streamer.
Due to this, you must gradually build your online presence on other platforms and add the link to your Twitch for more viewers. Through this, you can easily build your Twitch following and earn an affiliate status.
YouTube is a popular platform where you can showcase your gaming skills and gain a loyal following. This doesn’t mean that building your brand on YouTube will be easy. Being uber popular, YouTube is also very competitive.
But you can use YouTube’s search results to rank your YouTube channel. All you need to do is conduct keyword research, edit your posting clips to add the wow factor, design and add a custom thumbnail, and add a creative video title to gain traction.
You can create compilation videos of a popular game, ensuring that your audience is getting educational content. To post quality content, find out what people are looking for. You can use YouTube’s search feature for this and do some recon into the most popular channels based on the top two search keywords.
To truly beat the established, popular channels, ensure that your content is unique and your title relates to the keywords. You can also use sources like TubeBuddy to grow your YouTube channel’s presence. This platform can help you come up with new video ideas after accounting for the related keywords.
TubeBuddy has a free browser extension and app to let you manage and grow your channel. It can also help you create unique thumbnails and stream titles.
Besides YouTube videos, you can also expand your brand and generate hype using TikTok.
You can employ a hundred techniques to get more viewers on Twitch, but if you aren’t retaining them, then you’ll forever be stuck looking for new followers.
It’s important to remember that your potential audience isn’t giving you their precious time just to watch you play games. It’s your responsibility to entertain your audience while they stream your videos.
Provide the people watching with running commentary and interact with them to make them feel valued. You can chat with them by adding a chat overlay using OBS or SLOBS. This feature will let you answer questions and ask a few of your own to keep the entire interaction entertaining. Twitch community members can chat with each other too on the platform.
To stand out from the crowd and retain viewers, consider welcoming all viewers—existing and new—to show your appreciation. For your repeat paid or premium subscribers, you can give them a shoutout and even invite them to play with you.
Building a loyal Twitch team will let you gain name and fame in the gaming community.
If you’re wondering how to get more viewers on Twitch, enhancing the visual appeal of your streams is essential. This will aid you in gaining more visibility needed to reach a broader audience.
It’s simple to modify your Twitch channel’s appearance through the platform. You can employ overlays and come up with creative stream alerts, short animations, and custom emotes.
Similarly, you can set up a green screen with Twitch studio to constantly change your backgrounds. Unique, quirky green screen backgrounds serve as great conversation openers and will ultimately help you get more viewers.
Great visuals and creative stream alerts will work wonders in letting you build a dedicated audience base and skyrocket the engagement rates.
For newbie streamers, a Discord channel is a powerful tool since it offers a wide range of communication options, including text and voice messages, stickers, emojis, GIFs, and memes. It’s a great digital space to interact with and talk to your fans.
To make the most of your Discord server, you can create various forum channels for specific purposes. You can use these channels to update your streaming schedule, share your insights on popular video games, and talk to your Discord audience.
The cherry on top? You can employ Discord bots to help you manage your channels, moderate them, and alert the members when you go live.
If you’re a part of the Twitch affiliate, you can reward your fans with Twitch channel points. You can even personalize your channel points with a cool Twitch name or icon. Fans can then redeem these channel points to unlock various digital items.
Incentivizing your audience to earn points is a great way to grow your viewer base and beat other streamers. For instance, for viewers who’ve been with you every step of the way or spent a lot of time viewing your channel, you can reward them with custom Twitch channel points.
Points are not the only way to reward your loyal followers. You can also reward them by letting them choose your channel’s theme music or inviting them to play with you.
If you want to beat other streamers playing the same game, you need to go live several times a week and stream on a regular basis.
Maintain a consistent time slot and be especially active during after-office and school hours. Being consistent with your streams will let your viewers adjust their personal schedules based on your future streams. There’s a very high chance that early mornings and late night time slots will let you acquire many more viewers.
To enable consistency and inform the Twitch audience at large, you can add your streaming time slots using your Creator Dashboard. You can also use broadcasting apps, like Streamlabs, that come with a timer widget to build excitement till the moment your streaming begins.
One more thing to keep in mind is that you must avoid streaming at peak times. If you stream at the same time as other popular streamers, there’s a possibility that the viewers on Twitch will stream their channels and not yours. So while preparing your schedule, be sure to take into account the stream timings for other streamers and try avoiding them.
Twitch hosts millions of gamers and other channels, so if you’re wondering how to get more viewers on Twitch, the simple answer would be to let your personality shine.
To hold the attention of your Twitch audience and make yourself memorable, let your outfits and appearance do the talking. For increased viewer retention, you can choose a good microphone to improve your audio quality, invest in good lighting, and present yourself confidently.
Better equipment will help you create a distinct persona on Twitch which is key to attracting more viewers and encouraging people to stream and press the follow button.
To grow your channel based on gaming, don’t shy away from leveraging your social media accounts. Many streamers use other sources, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr, to get viewers on Twitch.
For instance, you can post your gaming clips with an engaging stream title on your Facebook page and other Facebook groups.
Ensure that you’re sharing relevant content to build relationships organically on these platforms. Keep things interesting, and avoid saturated games and generic titles. The most important thing to successfully grow and stream videos in your preferred category is interacting with your audiences.
Networking with other gamers whose channel size matches yours will let you raid viewers at the end of your broadcasts, form a dependable Twitch family, and conduct squad streams on Twitch.
To choose the perfect streamer, find out how many viewers they have, if they play the same game as you, what their stream quality is like, and if their streams are entertaining. You can even support them on Discord communities, Twitch subreddit, Facebook groups, Twitter, and other social media platforms to get a shout back.
To improve the performance of your future broadcasts and attract a new viewer, apply Twitch tags to adequately describe your Twitch stream and channel.
The success of your Twitch content highly depends on how discoverable your page is on Twitch. Apply relevant tags for your streams from the ‘Stream Manager’ tab to prop up your videos and creative titles.
This will aid Twitch viewers in finding your channel among popular streamers when they use tags to filter their search in Live Channels or Categories.
Before exhausting other channels, you should think about inviting your friends and family to stream your content.
In your initial days, you’ll find a few people who’d be genuinely interested in watching your streams. Invite friends and let them know how important their support is for you, especially if you’re just starting out and don’t have regular viewers.
Even if they don’t interact with your stream, their view count will help others discover your Twitch channel since it’ll rank higher than someone with zero or a single viewer.
Additionally, if a few viewers stop by, they won’t feel like they’re the only ones streaming content. They’d be happy to watch your stream while communicating with other members of the community.
Twitch analytics will help you garner important insights about your channel, including viewership numbers, viewer retention rate, the age criteria and demographics of your viewers, and more.
This way you can determine when people are watching your stream, if a stream title influences your viewership, what are the latest trends, and what’s working and what’s not working for your stream on Twitch.
Having some clarity will let you break into the gaming niche and create some best streams while playing a game.
To get more people to stream you on Twitch, leaderboards are an excellent idea since they’ll let you give your top viewers a shout out.
Twitch users often compete with others to reach the top of Twitch leaderboards. This will work to your advantage as it’ll let you increase your viewership and generate revenue. You can also display the names of your followers who have earned special rewards and have been part of your stream since the beginning.
You can even introduce crazy challenges to up the entertainment quotient and enhance the viewing experience of your followers. This is a great idea as it doesn’t require any financial investment.
Doesn’t matter if you’re new to the streaming platform or have a decent number of followers, adding a bio on Twitch is a vital step. Curating an interesting bio will go a long way in endearing you to your existing followers and acquiring new ones.
An eloquent and concise bio detailing who you are, what you stream, when you stream, with links to your social media profiles will also solidify your branding on Twitch. You can also make your bio appealing using creative overlays and designs. Platforms like OWN3D are easy to integrate and add a touch of sophistication to your bio.
A smaller streamer can add a call-to-action to their Twitch profile if they accept donations on Twitch and mention what they intend to use the donations for to incentivize most viewers to actively donate.
Participating in tournaments is a great way to not only showcase your gaming skills but also build a reputation for yourself in the gaming world. If you’re confident that you can compete with the best of the best, you can join tournaments hosted by the games or other streamers.
If you can’t find any tournament related to your specific game, you can host your own tournaments and invite fellow streamers to build excitement among your followers and be one of the well-known streamers.
Even if you don’t win the game, people will become familiar with your name, and it’s also an excellent opportunity for you to network with other players, improve your gaming skills, and amplify your stream viewership.
There’s no better way to make your subscribers feel welcomed than by playing games with them. You can play games online that work well in groups. If you have a good viewership and a substantial number of followers, this is also a good opportunity to maximize your subscriber count.
To make the most out of such events, post this on your social media accounts and Discord channels too besides just posting on your Twitch stream. This event will become more engaging and enjoyable if you constantly engage with your fellow players and your viewers.
You can also have an ultimate showdown with a player who beats your other subscribers to up the challenge quotient and gets more people to join the event.
Interacting with your audience, answering their queries, being friends with them, and playing with them will definitely go a long way in growing your viewership on Twitch. But if you don’t show your face or if your video is grainy, most viewers won’t stream your videos.
It’s essential to build connections with your audience, and the surest and easiest way you can do that is to show your face to them. While it’s not a cardinal rule, most viewers would rather watch videos on YouTube than click on Twitch streams where the player’s face is not visible.
If you don’t own a decent webcam and don’t feel like investing in one at the moment, you can always use your mobile device and set it up to curate a better streaming experience for your followers.
But if you’re big on anonymity and don’t really want to show your face to the world, you can use a cartoon or avatar to build an impressive persona.
Though Twitch is a great platform for streamers, the competition is fierce. Moreover, it’s challenging to get your channel ranked on the Twitch search results or incentivize new viewers to visit your channel.
If you’re tempted to buy viewers to grow your Twitch channel quickly, refrain from taking such steps. Twitch's terms of service discourage streamers from using methods that could lead to fake engagement.
Instead, you can follow the solutions listed to increase the viewership of your channel organically. While implementing any of these tips, don’t forget to invest in a high-speed internet connection and an ergonomic graphics card to avoid any technical issues.
