Published by Jonah Cohen, April 30th, 2021
Twitch is currently the top live streaming platform in the world with 140 million active users. For the people who want to stream, that can be a really good thing. That number means that there are people who are able to watch a stream, but why do most streamers get less than 5 viewers? There is one main reason for this. If everyone had a perfect stream that was entertaining and visually appealing, there would still be a lot of people with 0 or 1 viewers watching. This is because there is no good way for small streamers to be discovered by viewers on Twitch.
There are ways around this problem. One big way around is choosing the right category to stream in. A category on Twitch usually refers to the game you are streaming, but there is also art, music, and just chatting. Choosing a category that has 5,000 or more people following it and also only has a maximum of 20 streamers at once is very important. This helps you get discovered because while looking for a game to watch in that category, the viewer is connected to you and then the viewer will hopefully enjoy spending time in your stream so they will come back for the next one.
Once you have found a category, it is important to network in that category by just chilling in other people’s streams. The more people who know your name and what you are like as a person, the more they will click on your stream instead of someone else’s. Networking for viewers on Twitch should be fun. You are literally going to other people’s streams and participating just like everyone else. Most streamers don’t like it when people promote their own channels, but even without doing any promoting, you are making connections to people who could watch your stream.
Now, even with those extra tools to use on Twitch, discoverability is still not good enough on Twitch. That is where YouTube comes into play. Youtube has more discoverability than Twitch due to YouTube promoting more videos to the user based on what the viewer watches. That means the likelihood of someone finding you on YouTube is much higher than finding you on Twitch. If you are making good searchable videos on YouTube, you can grow a following on there and transfer a portion of your YouTube following to Twitch viewers.
Making something searchable is very important to growing at first. No one is looking for a video about your gaming highlights if no one is looking for you. So, to help people find you, make a video that you would search for. Preferably something not many people have done. The easiest way to make a searchable video is to make a how to video. To get people to find your how to video, title it “How To (replace with your own topic)”. How to videos are a great example of evergreen content, or content that is always attracting views. So, a good place to start with YouTube videos is to make high quality how to videos.
So, those are some things you can do to get more viewers on Twitch. Make sure to have fun with it. Streaming should be a fun thing, so if one of these methods is causing you to no longer enjoy streaming, take a break from using these strategies, since what you already have done may be enough to get you started.