I had this friend and we've both noticed his rapid growth in Twitch Followers lately and finally, I was just like... "What are you doing that I'm not doing because we were almost neck-n-neck in our Follower count?" Now, he could be doing some other things that I haven't caught onto, but what he told me seemed like a no-brainer, and... it is still a little time-consuming what I'm going to tell you but hey, it's working for him and I think this could possibly work for anyone else out there willing to put in a little extra work. I also wanted to mention things that might not be making as much of a difference in growing your following as you might think it should be. I really didn't find any YouTube videos that really went into these things and I'm not here to gatekeep from those of you who actually come here to read my content, so with that said, let's jump into it!!
What you should do!
Oddly enough sending raids was something I kind of backed away from for a bit because I always felt I was sending out raids and never receiving any, but... you shouldn't stop sending them because of that. In actuality, this is a great way to support other streamers and a lot of times I found I gained their viewers/followers as followers as well. Another thing, while it's kind of rude to ever promote your stream in someone else's stream... this is one of the exceptions to that rule (because we can all win here). Another tip that I thought of is... don't just send a raid to someone with a low view count at that time (unless you're helping them to reach affiliate status) because if they're only streaming to 1 viewer... the chance of you gaining that 1 viewer is kind of slim and you're also not going to gain much back in return so, you may actually be better sending a raid to someone with at least several viewers to better your follower odds.
What you don't actually have to do!
I know this may sound crazy and while you'll probably gain most of your following through streaming you don't actually have to stream all the time to gain more followers daily. You also don't even have to be good at playing the game you're playing because I've seen so many amazing players with a small follower count and so many streamers that aren't as good with a larger more rapidly growing follower count (your personality may also be coming into play here). What you should start doing is becoming more of an active viewer in other people's streams. By this I mean, when you go to a friend's stream and they gain a new follower or even someone that just joins in their chat in a game that you also play... you should give them a follow and maybe even say hi to them in the chat so you can introduce yourself as well (sometimes it's all about networking). I'm also starting to think there's a real reason people !lurk in numerous streams and it isn't always to view your live stream, but we'll keep that secret between us and our new following.
The Final Results!
I've been keeping tabs on my friends following for a minute now and you probably saw that I was typically getting around 50 followers a month for a while now, but by him doing the above things I just mentioned and him quickly outgrowing my own stream, below are his results...
- 12/02/23 he had 423 Followers.
- 12/04/23 he had 438 Followers.
- 12/12/23 he had 462 Followers.
- 12/15/23 he had 474 Followers.
- 12/17/23 he had 482 Followers.
- 12/18/23 he had 489 Followers.
That's 66 new followers in 16 days so that's a little over 4 followers a day on average and at that rate, he could easily reach 120 new followers a month (or every 30 days) which is more than double what I was getting at my 50 followers a month. So, if anyone tries these tips or notices them working for you feel free to drop me a comment below and let me know your results.
3.19.24 Update!
It has now been about 3 months since I originally wrote this post and his following is now averaging about 95 followers a month so, my initial estimate of what numbers he could be reaching has definitely been getting there and happening.