So this is definitely a question a lot of people are constantly asking, and there is no definitive answer other than two that are probably a bit out of your immediate control. These two being:
- Be pro at a specific game (that people watch!)
- Be a girl (this one is a little harder to accomplish if you weren’t born as one)
Once you start straying away from these two, it becomes a little more tricky. I streamed for a short period of time and I found that there’s definitely not 1 specific thing you can do to suddenly/magically get thousands of viewers. Okay so maybe there’s one thing, but it’s not as easy as we would all like it to be, and I will eventually get to it. For now though, I want to go over some simple steps to take to get you some more viewers, and how you can get them to stay there, and tell their friends!
- Say hello to every viewer that enters your stream (especially when you’re first starting out): You see a lot of streamers do this, and that’s because it’s easy, and it works! Such a simple thing to do, so if you find yourself not doing it, shame on you. You want to make your stream more personable because that’s what your viewers want. Hell, you might scare some away with your voice, but that was going to happen regardless!
- Do whatever giveaways/games you can to make the stream STAY personable with your viewers: You also see a lot of streams that have giveaways on them, and that’s because shoot, who doesn’t want free sh*t?! I know I do! Now another thing I’ve been seeing is streams play games, such as hearthstone to use as an easy example, with their viewers. Why not take their advice and play games with them to keep them involved, you want to make them your livelihood after all!
- Be one of the following: funny/fun, or REALLY good: Okay so this ones an easy step, so don’t screw it up! In order to be a good streamer you need to either be funny, fun, or REALLY good. Sorry to break it to you. If you’re non of these, you’re more than likely not going to have a successful stream. JUST QUIT NOW! Just kidding, but at least work on being more fun! No one wants to watch a dull stream when they could be watching someone better than you (unless you have a nice rack or something that is going to distract them!)
- Buy like 10 computers and the sickest internet and download twitch viewers tool: Yes, this one is a joke. This used to be possible but Twitch is cutting down on this and is able to distinguish is you’re cheating your viewers to eventually become a partner with them. I know a lot of you wanted an easy way out so I figured I’d save you a trip and touch on this subject a little bit. Don’t try it, you’ll just have to back track and make up for it in the long run. I know some people who tried downloading and running this to get their views up because they thought they could get well over a hundred, and let me reassure you, it’s not that easy. Not only does it slow down your internet tremendously but you might as well just go and open the window that many times instead (because that’s what it’s doing to your computer anyways!).
- Be a social butterfly: More than a couple things play into this one so I’ll try to touch on all of them the best I can. The first is social networking. If you can’t get the people from your own personal networks to view your stream your a step behind. Post that sh*t everywhere! That also includes forums. Yes, I know you don’t want to be that annoying guy who spams their channel everywhere, but let me tell you something, that annoying guy is again, one step ahead of you. Another thing to touch on in this topic in particular is, be social with the other streamers! If you know other streamers and you guys are talking about each other on stream you guys are essentially forming a partnership. What do you think happens when you or them sign off? A lot of your viewers are more than likely to go to the other persons stream (or at least will have a better chance than they did before your name was mentioned!).
These aren’t hard. The hardest one is probably doing giveaways, but there are other ways to get your stream more active with your viewers so you have free reign to customize that tip to however you feel necessary. There is probably one more that I can say that beats all of these (aside from being a girl/having a nice rack), but it’s definitely not the easiest one. A friend of mine went from having 5 viewers daily (consisting of me, himself, and three random people usually) to well over a hundred. This isn’t a secret so don’t get your panties in a bunch either; but he did it by getting a shout-out from a top streamer. I didn’t add this to the list because I don’t want everyone to suddenly be spamming and begging every top streamer for a shout-out; chances are it will not work. He got his randomly, but it WORKED! This ties into being a social butterfly though, and if you can find a way to do it, DO IT.