Correctly using social media is a critical tool for any budding streamer or content creator to grow their audience and expand their horizons. Social media can allow streamers to connect with users who would not normally find their content, engage with their fan base in real time, build a brand and community, and gain even more audience insights through social media analytics.
The livestreaming industry is only becoming more and more saturated as it continues to grow and more and more users are signing up to go live. Aspiring streamers need to give themselves a boost over their competition by leveraging social media to the fullest extent possible.
Finding the right social media
While leveraging social media is important, finding the right social media for your audience is an important first step. Through the analytics of your live streaming platform, streamers can identify their audience, finding out important details such as age, location, and where they are most likely to spend their time on social media.
Picking the social media which best suits your audience is the critical first step. Streamers aiming to reach a young Western audience might use TikTok to post short-form content of their live streams, whereas streamers based in Southeast Asia might prefer Facebook over platforms such as TikTok or Instagram. As an example from the Americas, Gaules is most popular on Instagram. French creator Kamet0 is active on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, whereas Japanese VTuber Pekora only utilises Twitter, which is hugely popular in Japan.
On any social media platform, it is important to use eye-catching visuals. This can be achieved through professional graphics, engaging videos and thumbnails, or high-quality photos. Getting that first click on your content can be the hardest one to get, and it is important that whatever your content is, that it is eye-catching and likely to perform well through the social media’s algorithm.
Once decided on a social media platform, it’s time to start posting. Rather than posting sporadically, posting often and on a scheduled basis will raise the likelihood of your content getting picked up by the algorithm, and it also ensures if a video of yours does go viral that there is other content available for fans to peruse instead of them finding nothing else to watch.
Engaging content
The old saying “quality over quantity” often proves true on social media, but quantity is not to be neglected. High-quality content is a must for any content creator, not only in regards to the idea behind the content, but how the content is executed. Avoid low-quality video or audio to ensure you give the best first impression to new potential viewers, and focus on providing value to viewers of your social media content.
The value you provide on social media will be directly linked to your live streaming content. Many streamers have found success posting educational content to social media to grow their brand, but depending on your usual live streaming content another form of content may be best. Whether the content is inspirational, educational, or entertaining, it is crucial that every social media post has a clear value behind its content.
PirateSoftware covers many topics educationally through his YouTube Shorts
Twitch streamer and content creator PirateSoftware has become one of the fastest-growing Twitch streamers of 2024 thanks to his short-form YouTube content. He exploded in popularity around the beginning of 2024 thanks to his viral YouTube Shorts, which often are educational in nature. These shorts focus largely on the game development industry, social engineering, and hacking, although he also covers many many topics. Some of his most popular YouTube Shorts cover the American healthcare system, Windows hotkeys, live streaming, and work culture.
In regards to quantity, a consistent posting schedule for social media can help boost your following, just as an important streaming schedule can bring more viewers back to your channel over time. Posting consistent but high-quality content is not only likely to grow your audience, but be favourable for any social media platform’s algorithm, bringing even more eyes and impressions to your brand.
Maininging brand consistently is also important. While chasing trends can bring short-term success, if this content is not in line with your usual brand, it is unlikely to result in any long-term growth and evolution for your live streaming career.
Leverage trends
Speaking of trends, if streamers can hop onto the latest trends in social media without betraying their own brand, this can be highly beneficial to their career path. Engaging with trending topics is well-known to not only increase your reach to many new potential fans, but also to improve your content’s visibility within the algorithm-fueled suggested content of social media.
Hashtags or tags can also be an ideal way for users to ensure their content is treated favourably by the platform’s algorithm. Recently, Instagram creators have been using the caption “No Problem! Here’s The Information About The Mercedes CLR GTR” on their videos, even those unrelated to Mercedes or even cars in general.
This caption has been picked up by Instagram’s algorithm, and many of the videos have rocketed to the top of the platform. This means that videos with this caption not only receive heavy traffic directed from the algorithm, but are also more likely to be related to each other, allowing a sort of large community-wide collaboration on the platform. Keeping your ear to the ground and leveraging trends such as this can be the key to success for many aspiring creators looking to have their first viral hit.
Short form and long form
Live streams around the globe usually fall under what we would call “long form” content. While this content is great for generating donations and hosting long special events on live streaming platforms, short form content can be crucial for many reasons: one of the key advantages of short form content is its viral potential.
North American VTuber Filian has been one of the most successful content creators in regards to multi-platform short-form content. The American streamer exploded in popularity around the beginning of 2022, but she had been actively posting short-form content to fuel this growth since mid-2021. She boasts over 300K followers on Instagram, 1M followers on TikTok, and 2.68M subscribers on YouTube. She regularly posts content on all three social media platforms, and some of her most popular YouTube Shorts have tens of millions of views.
Filian's short form content has helped drive her to the top of the streaming industry
Short form content can crucially act as a sort of trailer for your content. These short videos are essentially short teasers or highlight reels for your longer form content, giving users a taste of what to expect from your streamed content. The short form model also allows creators to diversify their content, catering to different audiences and broadening the appeal of your brand. The creative expression allowed in these short, sometimes highly-edited videos also allows creators to showcase their creativity and personality in a way that is not as direct as the longer-form streams.
Short form content is also a method for streamers to recycle their content. Existing long-form content can be divided into shorter clips, effectively extending the lifespan of the content and maximising its value. Sometimes a once-in-a-lifetime moment can happen on stream, and while this may drive engagement in the moment, recycling and repurposing this content can allow creators to enjoy more extensive and long-lasting benefits.
Short form engaging clips from your live stream are more likely to be shared on social media, increasing your chances of reaching a new audience and also growing your brand across social media. These short-form viral videos usually generate more immediate engagement, beneficial for both the platform’s algorithm and also building a more interactive community.
Community building
Utilising other social media platforms is beneficial, but redirecting this content to your primary content platform is key. On platforms like Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, this can simply be achieved by having your primary content platform linked in your biography, or having a link in the caption of your videos. The latter option is preferable when it comes to viral content, something that will achieve a lot of impressions and views, but many of these viewers will not go to your channel directly to view your biography.
Outside of redirecting fans to your primary content, secondary social media usage is important for streamers and creators to build a community. Social media such as Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok allow creators to engage with their audience directly. This can give potential new fans an idea of your personality before seeing your long-form content, and keep fans interested.
One of streaming’s most popular creators, Kai Cenat, is unstoppably active on social media. He often posts updates regarding his streams on Twitter, highlighting upcoming content and building anticipation, something to be explored deeper in the next section, and updating fans on what’s happening on stream. Kai held a lengthy Elden Ring playthrough on his channel, and he took to Twitter to announce his victory.
I FINALLY BEAT ELDEN RING.
— AMP KAI (@KaiCenat) May 17, 2024
Although a short Tweet, the post alerted fans that the marathon content is over, and its culmination has been reached. Kai also received over 120K likes on the post and 3.5K comments, as his community was not only celebrating his victory, but discussing the marathon in general below the post. These kinds of posts act as an anchor point for your community to discuss recent happenings and hopefully share your channel’s content with others.
Long-form streams can sometimes take time to set up, plan, and execute. During this downtime, streamers can use social media to interact with their fans in a time-sensitive manner, keeping their brand presence active and vibrant in between the longer streams. Time efficiency is also important for viewers; not only is short-form content more convenient for many fans to digest and process, but the on-the-go nature of the content will more effectively reach mobile users who prefer to enjoy media in short, bite-sized chunks.
Building anticipation
Many streamers utilise special events to either enjoy or create opportunities for streamers to receive high viewership and reach new audiences. This may come in the form of a Twitch Drops campaign, something streamers can passively enjoy, or a special marathon stream organised by the streamer, something which the creator has direct control over.
In either case, building hype and anticipation for these events is crucial for maximising the potential viewership creators can receive in these scenarios. Short clips or announcement posts on social media can be used to build anticipation for upcoming special event live streams, keeping the audience not only informed as to when these events will take place, but also building excitement for fans to tune in.
Spanish content creator ibai hosts some of the most-watched live streaming events around the globe. The Spanish creator is one of the founders of the hugely popular Kings League, as well as his own Velada del Año series, which has a 4th iteration soon coming. Ibai takes to Twitter extremely often to highlight upcoming events, not only such as his own Velada del Año events, but also highlighting the Kings League, and teasing new collaborations.
Con la ?. @MrBeast pic.twitter.com/x3NoEasgSc
— Ibai (@IbaiLlanos) June 5, 2024
Ibai recently teased a collaboration with MrBeast on Twitter and other social media
Sneak peeks of upcoming content can also be critical for developing a sizable live streaming audience. If a streamer has created a special live streaming event for themselves, it is crucial that fans are not only aware of this event in advance, but have time to spread word of the event to their friends, and share something like an announcement post on social media.
This can ensure your efforts do not go to waste and that these special events are not only enjoyable for returning viewers, but ensure a wide and extensive reach to bring new viewers to your content. In the case of a Twitch Drops campaign, this can also be extremely lucrative for the streamers involved.
Monetization options
Not only are social media an ideal place for streamers to grow their content, but it also presents an opportunity for streamers to diversify their income and monetize their content on these secondary platforms.
Platforms such as YouTube and Instagram offer monetization options for short-form content, allowing streamers to not only reach new fans and utilise viral trends for their own growth, but enjoy direct profit from these videos. The combination of these factors make social media a must for any growing live streamer.
Short-form content can also be ideal for sponsorship opportunities. Many streamers host sponsored live streams, whether they are sponsored to play a game by the game developers themselves, or any other matter of sponsorship. However, long-form sponsorship deals can often be time-consuming, and both the streamer and sponsor may find more value in sponsorships of short-form content.
Firstly, short videos are ideal for the creator in question to integrate sponsors with. These quick, impactful videos are ideal for streamers to spread awareness of their sponsor, and if the video goes viral, the countless impressions to other users may be more profitable for the sponsor than a dedicated live streaming audience.
Short videos are also better suited for product placement, with short and snappy integration of the product. Compared to long-form live streaming, these videos also allow the streamer and sponsor to include high-quality and professional footage of whatever product is being advertised, which is more difficult to integrate into long-form live-streamed content.
In summary, social media is a crucial tool for any new live streamer or content creator to utilise. Not only can streamers grow their community, they can reach new fans, advertise their own content, and effectively integrate sponsors into their content. Established streamers can use secondary social media as an impactful source of income too, with a variety of monetization options available. Keeping your ear to the ground and staying active on social media is key for any growing brand and hopeful content creator.
