I'm going to be upfront with everyone, but it took me getting over 100 Twitch Followers in my first 3 months of streaming to recently start getting over 50 followers a month. So in this post, I wanted to give you some tips on how to help you get followers at a fairly rapid pace as mine increased around 62% in a month. In my opinion, doing these things has most definitely helped my Twitch stream get a major boost in followers, and maybe 50 followers a month isn't much to you but the way I see it... I've had my public Instagram account on here for much much longer and I still don't have 150 followers on there. Now, you can watch all the YouTube videos in the world on how to rapidly grow your following but for myself, I don't always find all their advice that useful or I don't feel I can apply it, or I just find it too time-consuming when I really just want to play games and have fun streaming. If that sounds like you, then hopefully you'll find my advice useful to help you get more followers and in my opinion, it's pretty simple.
1. Level Zero.
You may see top Twitch Streamers that have a lot going on in their streams but you're likely not going to be starting your Twitch account with much of anything, including a following (there's such a thing as level zero). First thing first though, you need to create a username for your Twitch account and I recommend either at the beginning or end of your username to add TTV to it (I feel at the end may be best), this change alone tremendously increased my following on Twitch because people who also use Twitch know that TTV in your name stands for Twitch TV and they're going to go and find your channel. For example, my current username is HexYaLaterTTV. I also think it helps to have this same username replicated as your gamer name (such as on PS5), keep things simple, and let other gamers be able to add you more easily. You're also going to want your username to be publicly visible as you're streaming and it helps to play multiplayer games because that's the only way you're going to meet other gamers in the beginning to help add to your following. If you created your account name without TTV in it, you can usually go back in and update it, just make sure anything linked to your account also gets updated with it (I see so many invalid Twitch account names from active gamers).
2. Learning Twitch.
Now that you have your TTV username and Twitch account started you may want to learn the ins and outs of Twitch. Go through everything that's available on your Twitch channel and fill out as much as you can... add socials (or eventually create at least one to branch out your channel whether it's an Instagram or a Discord account, etc), fill out your About section, etc. Just make sure you're doing a walkthrough of everything and in the process, you'll learn more about where things are and how to access them in order to update them later (you can find plenty of tutorials for things on YouTube as well). My suggestion is to try and market yourself and your channel because you never know who's watching and where your new streaming interest may lead you in the future.
3. Branding.
When I first started streaming I didn't know what direction I was going to go in with my account or how Twitch really worked, but after about a month I started learning more and more, gaining a few followers and I eventually found my own niche of how I wanted to brand myself. For me, I was streaming a lot of Dead by Daylight (which is a fairly popular game on Twitch), and it just so happened I already had an Etsy shop called Hex Ya Later where I made spooky items to sell, so... those two things really played well together with the spooky factor so I decided to rename my Twitch channel and PS5 name to HexYaLaterTTV so essentially my Etsy could almost be kind of like my merch as well (I can't say this has boosted my Etsy sales yet but it's a fairly small shop right now).
4. Make Content & Be Present.
Not everything will come to you right away but try and get a look at more popular streamers on Twitch and see what they have going on in their channels and you'll eventually get an idea of how creative you can be on your channel (again, you'll find plenty of YouTube tutorials to help you). For me, I tried to find time almost every week to update my Twitch channel in some type of way and educate myself on something new that might help in boosting my follower count. You don't have to learn and do everything in a day, pace yourself but make progress on it during those first 3 months of streaming. Also, make sure you are streaming because just having an account isn't going to get you very far, you need to make content and be present (On average, I'm streaming about 7 non-consecutive hours a day, 3 times a week Fri-Sun). If your goal is to become an affiliate your Twitch analytics should tell you where you need to be to reach that goal (I believe it's currently a minimum of 50 followers, 3 consecutive viewers, and at least 8 hrs of streaming a month).
Also, be sure to market yourself, when viewers come to your stream encourage them to follow your channel and tell them that you'll follow them back (be sure you do, don't be a streamer who doesn't keep their word). Also, show up to their streams if they're live streaming, even if it's just to say hi and ask how they are. If you've been streaming for hours and you have like 5 or more people still watching your stream by the end of it, try to send a raid party over to another follower's stream that looks like they could use the views (I recommend choosing someone that's at least playing the same game as you) because I've found a lot of times I end up gaining their followers as well in doing that, even if that person really never shows up in my streams, but it's really all about networking.
Finally, reward the Followers that always support your streams or play with you, make them Moderators, or if they're streamers and you like their content add them to your away feed so their streams appear on your channel when you aren't actively streaming. Or even subscribe to their channels if they're also active streamers and affiliates.
5. Communication.
You don't have to show your face or be on camera to get this kind of following (I certainly don't), but I do recommend at least having a mic and being able to talk to your Followers (don't just respond by typing back in your own chat to someone, this also makes it hard to game and people don't always have a huge attention span nor care about your conversation with someone else, they're here to watch you play the game). Although adding a photo of your face on your channel, even if it's your main profile picture, lets people put a face to the voice (I like being able to have an idea of who I'm talking to).
If you want to add or create graphics on your channel you don't need to be a pro (although, I used to be a visual communications specialist), I used Canva to put together my Twitch designs. You can also find a lot of free graphics online you can use as well.
6. Talk as if people are always watching.
You can tell when you have viewers in your stream on Twitch but people will always be in and out of your stream and they can also watch your recordings later if they're so inclined (which are active for a week unless you publish them as highlights). Since you have these recordings I recommend always just chatting throughout the game because people can better understand your gameplay and possibly get to know you as a streamer. Don't become a streamer who really has nothing to say until spoken to because some people will just lurk in your stream and spectate as well as listen to what you're saying, not everyone is going to be comfortable typing you messages in your Twitch chat. I see this so much from people who are Twitch affiliates now and a lot of times their follower list is pretty low for the amount of time they've been a streamer. If you've been streaming for years, you're an affiliate, and you only have around 350 followers... it could definitely be better, but everyone has their own goals and how they want to do things and that's fine too but I'm here to help you grow your channel as much as possible by not even having to do that much. The way I see it, if you're already streaming, you may as well be present at that moment and talk while you're doing it, even if you're just chatting with another teammate during your game.
7. Stream as if everyone will judge you.
Some people are under the impression you're supposed to be some pro gamer or something all because you're a streamer and that is not the case at all, I just stream to have fun and possibly make some gamer friends along the way. People will not only try to judge your personality, your voice, and your photo/s but also your gameplay. When I'm off-stream, I will play as annoying, slow, and toxic as I choose... and maybe here and there I'll do it on my stream too. However, when I do stream I try to play more bold and forward and push myself out of my comfort zone because people really don't want to see you hiding in the corner of a map the entire game... they want to see the action and how you progress throughout the game, as well as how helpful and beneficial you are to your teammates.
So play as if you're the main character and show people what you're really made of. Even if you do all that on your stream, you better believe there will be some bitter losers who will still come into your stream and act like you ruined their gameplay. To those people, I tell them my opinion, I tell them to come back later and watch the stream again to see what really went down and then judge my gameplay for themselves again. Guess what, they usually never do, and if they're rude enough I usually just block them anyway. For me, I'm actually finding more people who enjoy playing with me than those few that complain and don't. It's a game and it's meant to be challenging, if you're winning every game, you're no longer challenging yourself and if you're losing most of your games, you just need to keep pushing harder or maybe find a different game that works better for you (or read my other post on game strategy).
Ultimately, I really hope these few simple changes to your Twitch channel can help get you more followers, and if so drop me a comment or leave me some of your simple tips that you feel have boosted your following.