In the past few years, we witnessed the growing popularity of home-based gaming and streaming. When looking into a large number of available platform choices, and the expanding variety of streams, one can easily get overwhelmed.  Yet, many streamers dream to be able to make a living by utilizing their gaming skills on Twitch. If you choose to be a full-time gamer/streamer, you need to know how to increase your popularity. But do you know what it takes?

Below, we share 3 useful tips on how to grow your Twitch audience. Each one of them should help you to build a more satisfied audience.

1. Try dominating an unsaturated niche

A lot of gamers try to play whatever games are currently popular. It's easy to find tons of streamers on Twitch playing the likes of Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Call of Duty. What if you tried finding a smaller niche and developing a unique gaming character? 

For example, some gamers are really passionate about strategy gaming and could make RTS games their specialty. Others go with simulation and management games. First, narrow down your ideal audience – you will be able to target your audience better if it's defined in advance. Play the games you feel genuinely passionate about, and the results will be more satisfying.

Having a specific niche actually might as well be the best way to build up your profile as a gaming influencer. Starting off another successful Fortnite streaming channel isn't very easy to execute. Find a way to stand out; it's better to build a smaller, committed audience that you can interact with and deliver more tailored content, as opposed to trying to please everyone. You could also do some research on the best games to play and try that route as well.

2. Interact with your audience

The best gaming streamers out there are excellent at interacting with their audience casually. It's important to naturally involve the audience in the chatter and the madness of the experience. This makes the experience feel more organic and enjoyable for an audience member. It's essential to make your chat feel like they are contributing actively to the story.

Try to make people want to log back on. If they feel like they are genuinely part of the fun, they are more likely going to be joining in your channel and coming back for more. When you barely acknowledge people in the chat or disregard donations and the like, people will switch off soon.

You want to be building a stable little family of people who come back and genuinely enjoy every part of your gaming commentary. That is really important for building a successful experience.

3. Have a tight streaming calendar

One of the worst things a streamer could do is to be chaotic with the channel schedule. You must build a stable streaming calendar and stick to the plan. People will be coming to your channel and expect to see you live. Furthermore, you could try themed evenings. Your Monday night streams could be based around playing a specific game. Try and pick 3-4 games (to begin with) that you can stream for the whole evening.

This will create thematic evenings that will be expected by your subscribers, they will come to see specific content on certain days. If you lack a schedule and go online randomly, you can never create consistency regarding who logs on with you, therefore it will be challenging to scale up your audience. Do the proper research to find out what are the best times to stream the game you currently play. 

Data and image by Twitch Tracker

That leads us to our next point - social media! Your social channels are crucial to communicating your streaming times and your "going live" shout-outs. Get your schedule in your social media headers and try to create an easy to follow platform, like a Discord channel, where people can find out, or even better, be notified, when you will be online. You will be shocked at just how important this stuff can be to building legitimate success as time goes on.

It's all about trying to make sure you stay consistent. Also, keep in mind, for each game, the most active subscribers could log in at different timeframes since all genres have different audiences. It's like having a TV show, and you are the host of it; if you want to get noticed, get online when it works best. Do your part in researching the best streaming hours. For example, we discovered that if you are streaming League Of Legends, which has been the most played game in 2019, on weekends, there are 13% more streaming channels than on weekdays. At the same time, the game is watched by 37% more viewers. This is the best way to fine-tune your game choices with your audience and deliver them the best watching experience.

Let us know if you have more ideas on how to grow your in-stream audience in the comment section below.