Even though we play as individuals, The Elder Streams believes in sharing knowledge to enhance all of our gaming experiences. To get started though, we're going to run through the first steps you need to take to make your stream stand out from the crowd.
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The most popular and effective ways to grow your following is to set a consistent schedule, create consistent content, networking with other creators and playing niche games.
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These are the top 10 tips that I would choose to use to grow my followers on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and so on.
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1. Creating valuable content
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People enjoy entertainment more than fancy visuals and being good at the games. As long as you are making entertaining content at a consistent rate, you will gain a good reputation. A good way to figure out how to make your content valuable and entertaining, is to sit down and make yourself a little chart. Basically what you want to do is look at what your target audience is and how to cater to those kinds of people. It's all well and good attracting lots and lots of people to your content but what really matters is which of those people stay in your community you are trying to build. Sit down and plan your next creations based on what you want to achieve and what you succeeded in the last time.
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2. Get Social
Use the power of social media to enhance your following. You have a bunch of followers over on Twitter? Bring them to Twitch! You will never get all your followers to come check out your streaming content if they don't know you're doing it. build up a good community on YouTube or Twitter and bring those guys over to the stream when you go live.
As you build your community on your social media, post valuable content for your followers. Whether you use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Discord, or another network, have a clear schedule and remind them that you’ll broadcast.
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There are also small streamer groups to join on Facebook and Twitter who can help you promote your content and also make some friends along the way.
You can also go into other peoples streams and just hang out with them, become a friendly and recognised name in the community and when you go live people will see you and think 'Oh I know them'. One big rule here though, NEVER PROMOTE YOUR STREAM IN ANOTHER STREAMERS CHAT! If they know you and give you a shout out then that is on them to do, not you.
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3. Keep Talking
No one likes sitting in an awkward silence.
While it may feel unnatural to continually speak if nobody is responding to you, it is important to continually chat throughout your stream. If it feels weird, practice this in your day to day activities. While you cook, clean, get ready for your day job or any other activity, actively narrate your activity. In time, “talking to yourself” will become quite natural.
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Even something that seems that mundane will show casual viewers that you want to engage with them and they may begin to share their own stories with you. Here are a few things you can discuss:
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Funny events of the day
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What you did last weekend
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What you plan to do next weekend
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Where you would like to vacation
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What you plan to have for dinner
You can also keep the content entirely game related and discuss:
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Game lore
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Fan theories
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Storylines
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Mods
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Gameplay strategies
For example: "Hey has anyone every tried doing x,y,z for this level?" "What did you do when you were in this spot? Was it any different?"
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Just make sure you always respond to your viewers, keep chatting to them and take an interest in what they have to say. People don't want to talk you if all you do is ignore them all the time.
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4. Have Catchy Titles
If you start a stream with a snappy title or something that makes people think 'ooh what's this?' then you are more likely to get people to come in to see what's going on. A cool thing to do is also to make the title a question. This would then encourage people to come in and then answer the question in the chat. I once used the title, 'Is Talos really a God?' and it worked out pretty well, got people talking both to me and to each other. Just don't get too political or controversial or you may get the wrong kind of attention.
5. Try not to stream over saturated games
Some of the more popular games are played on stream A LOT by people. Fortnite, for example, was streamed by over 8000 accounts at the same time during 2019 and on average around 5000. Minecraft and Apex Legends are high scorers too. Find something you enjoy, that people may like to watch but not everyone is doing. If you can reach the top 20 for the game you are streaming, your discoverability will be improved greatly, therefore changing your game category to something streamed by less people will allow you to climb this ranking much easier.
Fast paced online games like Apex Legends, League of Legends, Call of Duty and Destiny all require a high level of concentration to play and this can take attention away from the viewers in chat. If you are to to take note of the point mentioned in point number 3, then it is useful to have a game you can pause and chat with the viewers and take things a little more casually.
There are some really good websites out there that can show you the statistics of certain game categories so you can see for yourself where your game fits in.
Of course there's no saying you can't stream any of those over saturated games, just make sure that you are playing for your own enjoyment and be prepared to have fewer viewers than average. Once your community grows larger, these games may not be so bad for your channel as your community will help you with your discoverability.
Final Thoughts
If you decide you want to cheat and buy followers or use follow for follow tactics, these will only get you so far. You cannot build a community on a F4F regime. People may follow you back but they will not be there for the content or the creator, they were purely there for the numbers. The best methods are 100% to grow your community one person at a time, create real relationships with people and build a fun and friendly environment that people want to be involved in, support others and get to know them and most importantly, make sure you do it all for you, don't do anything just to please others. If you have fun playing a game it will show through and this will hold people in your stream as they start to have fun along with you. ​