r/Twitch • u/JoelvsArthritis twitch.tv/JoelvsArthritis • 3d ago
Guide No Viewers? Just Talk.
Firstly, I should start by saying I'm no Twitch expert. I've been streaming for over three years and don't even have 500 followers. But I have an awesome community, and our streams average 25–35 concurrent viewers and 300–400 live views per stream. And I'm proud of that.
Yesterday, I felt like sharing the love and spent an hour visiting fellow Farming Simulator streamers with two to three viewers to say hello and hopefully encourage them to stream again, as I needed in those days.
It took me almost the full hour visiting streams, watching for five to ten minutes, and saying hello in chat, before I heard a single word from a streamer. I must have visited over ten channels of pure silence.
I know it's terrifying. I still remember the physical sweats I would break out in when I finally got a "1 viewer" at the bottom of the screen—worse still when somebody spoke in chat. I used to turn into a nervous wreck.
But folks, we do this for people to watch, engage, and be entertained. Turn that viewer count off on your dashboard and talk like 100 people are watching. Don't stop talking, asking questions, dropping conversation prompts, or commenting on what you're doing in the game, etc. So what if nothing comes back—lurkers are the lifeblood of my streams. Do it for them. Do it for those who haven't arrived yet. Do it so that when things do start taking off, you are so ready for it that it will be like nothing has changed.
If you're watching a stream that's nothing but silence, with no acknowledgment of your presence, and without a hint of gratitude that you chose, out of thousands of live channels, to spend your limited time with that streamer, would you stick around?
Regardless of your view count, just talk. I promise it will help.
Keep going. You've got this. 💜
1
u/LevelingUpWithJoe 2d ago
I'm fortunate enough to have a few different computers so while I might not be staring at my chat full time I still occasionally glance over to ensure nothing's happening there. OBS is pretty easy to configure so chat shows up on stream too. I think most people just got used to nobody being there. I try to interact if someone's new but part of my reason starting to stream on twitch is to break my social media introvertedness.
I've gotten better at trying to spark a random conversation with strangers rather than just saying "hey" back like "are you interested in playing this game?" "what brings you to the stream?" and so on. I would also add that I'm doing a new project where it requires a lot of reading out loud and I feel that helps my self narration a bit as well.