Building A Community To Support Your Gaming Stream Career*

If you’re looking to make a little money out of your passion for gaming, or are simply looking for a new way to share your love of the medium with like-minded people, streaming can be a great way to do just that. However, playing games on stream alone isn’t enough; you need to build a community that supports you and keeps coming back day after day. Here, we’ll look at a few tips to help you build that community.

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Be Engaging And Welcoming

First and foremost, you have to be ready to put your best foot forward with viewers whenever you’re live. Welcoming new viewers, greeting regulars, and keeping the general conversation going while playing games. You can focus on the game at times, of course, but most offer plenty of laid-back time to ask open-ended questions, react to comments, and generally catch up with them. Dedicating a segment of the stream, such as the opening or a break, to viewer feedback and spotlighting the community (such as their art) can be a great way to help them feel involved, too.

Create A Central Hub For Your Community

Your stream chat and social media can be a great place for ongoing engagement, but your community should have a place to gather as well. Starting your own Discord server could be the perfect thing for it. Structuring it with rules, channels for different topics (talking about games, sharing art, delivering announcements), and hosting regular polls or Q&A threads can make it feel like the place to be outside of your streams. You don’t necessarily need to chat on Discord all the time, as it should be a place for the community to get to know each other, too.

Play Plenty Of Community Games

You’re a gaming streamer catering to gamers, so it’s only natural that you should open the doors to play with them, too. It doesn’t have to be every day, but having a day or two a week as your community nights can foster long-term bonds and give the chance to build towards something together. It’s always worth keeping an eye on which co-op or online games are trending, but sticking to the favorites, like setting up your own server with a Minecraft server host, can be a great fit, as well. When the community is actively involved in making some of the more memorable and funny moments on stream, it can really make them feel much more connected to your content.

Collaborate With Streamers That Fit Your Vibe

Your community might come for you, but you can grow even more by partnering with other streamers that share your playstyle and vibe. They don’t have to have the exact same personality, but a good complementary fit can allow both of you to shine, bringing your content to a bigger audience and establishing cross-community camaraderie, while allowing for much more dynamic and exciting kinds of new content. 

Over time, community management might become as big a part of your role as a streamer as the actual streaming itself. Hopefully, the tips help you grow to the point where you know you have an audience that truly enjoys what you do.

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*Collaborative Post