Making Good on Your Twitch Following
My friend Nick had reached out to me for some marketing advice related to his Twitch channel Nick_Shox. His channel has a following of 15.2K and mostly features him playing games such as World of Tanks and War Thunder. The issue he was facing was a combination of a few things which we discussed over a call. First, the page is seeing flatter growth. Although it is partially due to him playing less time, it was also that the base community he has built off of is not extremely massive. Second, he wanted to learn how to use other platforms to engage with his community further and continue to build that up. Third, him playing less is directly related to the fact that he does feel stuck playing the same games and would like to expand his repertoire without losing the following he has built.
Expand to a YouTube community
Engage with community members on social media
Adjusting your gaming repertoire
World of Tanks Wallpaper Image Source
Now, I had a few immediate thoughts when Nick reached out to me.
Thank you so much for recognizing my marketing skills and wanting to reach out to me. It means so much to me when a friend asks me a question about something I’m passionate about, so I’m very grateful for that.
Honestly, working with someone who has such a big following would be new for me. Typically, I have only built up from a much smaller community or from nothing and never reached a size that large before. Personally, it did feel like he had the whole building a community online down better than myself, so how could I be of any help?
I know absolutely nothing about World of Tanks and I may have played War Thunder like 3 times years ago. Essentially, I know nothing about the target market that Nick is catering to.
I love a challenge! Especially one that requires my attention to learn new things. I decided to ask him to give me some time to look into everything first before providing any concrete advice. I had first watched his Twitch stream, checked out his YouTube channel, and took a look at his Twitter page to find out what his current practices are. Then, I began to dive into some other sources, so I can get an idea of:
What he could do differently
Where he can extend his reach
What his community is like
What resources I can provide him
This way, he can make the decisions he wants and has more information to do so. That’s where the real meat of this article will come in. I’m sharing my findings and methodology with all of you and hopefully it can benefit anyone who is interested.
Expanding to YouTube
First, my friends Twitch is the primary hub of where his work is done. His following is almost entirely on that platform while his most viewed video on YouTube is 2.2k views as of now and his subscriber count is only 484. Ideally, Nick wants to tap into the YouTube audience a lot more because it will potentially have a lot of new users who aren’t on Twitch. Nick’s highest viewed video appears to be a tank equipment review which happens to be the same type of video that shows up first on YouTube when searching World of Tanks. It seems like many of the videos on YouTube cover achievements like kill number, damage, and challenges. Which video-wise, Nick is diving into. The other content is informational videos to help other players improve, such as tank reviews, map guides, and analyzing update. Content-wise, Nick seems to be in the correct vein, but he is not fostering the page growth like he wants.
One area that I noticed Nick might be lacking is his intro and outro approach on both Twitch and YouTube, but especially YouTube. Essentially, he just says “hello” and “thank you” when he could be stuffing those two sections full of information. I consider the intro important for branding. Here is where you want to be consistent and provide a logo and maybe some social media information with music or a small animation to gain attention. The outro on the other hand is the real MVP when it comes to a video because it keeps viewers engaged in some way and contains Calls to Action (in other words it tells viewers what they can do). Although I do know this, I turned to the internet for the assist. According to “The Importance of ‘Outro’s for YouTube Content”, the outro should summarize the final offer if applicable or have additional links and a message to tell the viewers. The typical offer for a YouTuber would be to watch more videos, so you’d likely want to tell the viewers to subscribe or provide another video link. The additional information or messaging would be other platforms to find your content or social media to stay up to date with your content.
There are still some thoughts I have that one could implement to build viewership on YouTube when you have an active Twitch following which Nick does some of. One, you can include a frame on your stream which indicates key messages or other platforms to find you on. Second, you can provide unique content that can only be found on YouTube and is not provided from a stream as incentive to checkout the YouTube channel. Third, use bots on your Twitch stream chat to post links to other platforms or social media. Lastly, it helps if you create a launch plan and establish an upload schedule for users to easily follow.
The Move to YouTube
Be sure to create a solid intro and outro for your videos, so that connecting the two platforms is made easy for viewers
Use Twitch features to support your viewers in checking out your YouTube such as an informative frame, chat bots, and your About
Provide unique content for YouTube, so that people from Twitch have more incentive to check it out
Establish a launch plan and a steady schedule for uploading
Engaging on Social Media
Social media engagement is the other major contributor to building upon and working with your community. Nick has a Discord Server where he has various categories and channels for his community to discuss interests beyond the game, the game itself, and even talk and play games together. This is common practice for many streamers since it creates a dedicated community with dedicated channels for each topic. On Discord, Nick has close to 800 members on his server and is managing his very well. Nick also only uses Twitter as far as standard social media platforms go to engage with his community, but only has a following of 43 at this time.
First, for those who do not know about Discord, it is a platform where you can have direct control of an entire communications server with categories within it that separate sections that contain some combination of text channels and voice channels. The platform also supports video conference calls in voice channels and the active streaming of your screen directly through any voice channel as well. Many online gamers use this platform to speak with friends while playing games and share information. Many streamers use it to create massive online communities and keep them engaged by bringing them all together. It’s a super innovative platform and amazing for building a community. It’s definitely gamer-focused at this time, but has a lot of potential to expand further beyond that.
Twitter is a great platform for Twitch streamers and keeping up with your community in a fast-paced environment. The article Mastering Twitter as a Twitch Streamer - Research and Findings pretty much covers all of the ways that you can maximize your use on the platform to be an effective streamer. That article is a great read if you’re looking to really amp up your presence and highlights some great points to be followed. My general notes are the following:
Using Twitter to Build Engagement
Follow the few key accounts related to your stream including the game/company accounts, Twitch Twitter account, other streamers that are engaged in your community, and your biggest fans
Provide original content that often contains images or videos and may be repeated in a different way
Use hashtags, but don’t overuse them. Use them when relevant or use an original one for an event of yours
Engage with other streamers and conversations that fit your brand because mentions and replies can be very beneficial especially for a smaller account
Depending on your brand, you may want to get active on other social media platforms. Facebook is less used by the younger demographics nowadays, but if you know your content can often cater to an older crowd expanding there may be very beneficial. You’d want to create a page that you manage through your personal account, but if you don’t want a personal account you can always make it a fake name and only have it to manage the page. If you’re a streamer that relies on your personal looks or presence or your super dope game set up, you may want to utilize Instagram more, so that followers can experience a taste of that outside of stream. If you really only stream the game play, there’s often not a massive need to establish any strong Instagram presence.
Adjusting Your Game Repertoire
This one is definitely a tough one to address. First, if you are a streamer that has built a following in a community based around that game, your followers may not be very interested in watching other games. The article The Inevitability of Switching Games — the Twitch Streamer’s Lament covers the complicated dilemma that many streamers find themselves in really well. I’m not entirely convinced in the article that all games will inevitably lose their following especially since this example of World of Tanks is an old game with a long lasting community. It does still cover burnout for streamers which certainly is a common problem. The article starts by explaining first that switching will lead to a drop in viewership initially, but to hopefully allow for you to form a new larger community. Then, it dives into ensuring your persona online is the captivating part of your streams and not just your game play of the particular game. That’s how you can keep many of your viewers for the journey in finding new games. Overall it does seem that this is a hot topic for the community in recent times.
My personal advice when it comes to expanding your repertoire is that you should rely on your community and communicate things clearly. For example, if you have a personal list of games you’d like to try you should let them know you’re thinking about those games. One of the best ways to test out if a new game is successful is to plan a clear schedule that allows a specific time to explore new games. This way, your community knows that you will not be playing the normal at that time. Then, you can truly get a read on how much of your community is there for you and not just the game. In addition, you may build closer relationships with some community members. Another method is having an event. An event could allow you to mix up your normal because it is inherently different as a special event. Hosting an event would also allow for other opportunities like special merchandise, new collaborations, and increased viewership for the occasion. Perhaps, the easiest method could be to simply ask the community and get a consensus about new games to try and move into.
Changing the Game
Expect a drop in viewership at least temporarily
Ask your community what they’d like to see
Create a schedule or event to test new games
Overall, building up a Twitch following and community can be very difficult, but it’s very similar to a business following. If you want to embrace new markets, be sure to research if the product could succeed and then make it easy to move markets (platforms and video type in this case). If you want to build an engaging online presence, have an organized plan and idea of what you want your brand personality to be (in this case, how you act on stream and on social media). If you wan to make a product change, get information on your customers that are “brand loyal” and get a feel for what they’d be interested in (in this case, if you switch games get information from your following). In general, it all comes down to communicating effectively:
Be clearly you
Know the key members in your following
Speak to your following
Understand many people interact with things differently online
That’s my take with some supporting information, but I’d love to hear more regarding this topic. If you have a successful Twitch following, if you’re another marketing professional, or if you’re an avid stream viewer I want to hear from you. The more information that different people can share the better we can all make decisions. Therefore, if you agree, disagree, or want to add more do so in the comments below.
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