Networking: 3 Easy Tips

Networking: 3 easy tips

Improving your stream and content is always important, but it is not all that matters to building a successful stream, and you don’t want to allow it to consume all your time. You will want to explore the vast landscape that is streaming and content creation well beyond your channel.  Meeting other streamers and getting to know their communities is very important. This will allow you to gain new followers, but more importantly, you will get inspired by new ideas, have someone to bounce ideas off, learn different techniques, and above all make new friends. Networking properly will help you gain streamer friends who will be willing to help you. 

Many new streamers don’t want to put in the work and often opt for impractical practices or tricks that ultimately hurt their growth. We have all heard of the follow-for-follow or support-for-support schemes that fill your channel with empty followers, who will never actually watch or engage in your streams. As we discussed in previous articles going to random channels or social media posts and self-promoting your channel is a great way to get yourself banned. Don’t look for shortcuts or ways to cheat the system, instead put in the work and get to know the people you are watching, and great things will happen. 

How do you actually network? Networking in streaming is done the same way as in any business scenario, with an exchange that is mutually beneficial to both parties. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can make sure you are bringing value to others when networking. 

Be part of other communities

New streamers will often enter streamers' chats with an agenda to only talk about their own channel. Some will have saved comments ready to paste into every stream they join. They might believe these strategies are networking but in reality, they are just self-serving and won’t produce results. 

Understanding that everyone is busy. Most of us have full-time jobs, family, friends, and other commitments outside of streaming. You might think that you don’t have time to truly engage with other streams, but it is not as hard as it seems.

Here are some things to do when networking with other streamers. You will want to start by introducing yourself to the streamer and their community as a viewer. Get involved in the conversation and get to know more about the streamer and the people in chat. Remember there should be a mutual benefit for you and the other person. You can’t do that without getting to know them first. Making a connection with people in their community is one of the best ways to get to know the streamer.  Keep in mind that you are not there to try and poach viewers, you are there to try and build connections and get to know people. Finally, join their discords and follow their social media. It can be overwhelming to join multiple discord communities, but discord is designed to give you control over what kind and when you get notifications. Use those tools to your advantage. Try to actively involve yourself in conversations and community events, it will not only help you to get to know people but will also help people get to know you as both a person and a streamer.  All it takes is spending a few minutes being part of someone’s stream or discord or social media post and making it known you are there.  They will appreciate you being present, and you might even learn something about them that can help you build that connection. 

Raiding

Raiding is one of the single best networking tools available to you.  You provide value to not only yourself but more importantly to the other streamer when you raid. You will increase their view count, but also your viewers coming in with your recommendation are more likely to interact because they trust you to provide them with a safe place to have a good time.

Raiding is a mutual exchange and will help you and the other streamer equally. The channel you are raiding is going to be thankful that you picked them to share your community with, which may result in them following or joining one of your streams. They will automatically know you are a streamer, making it more likely that they will ask about your streams, and they may even shout you out linking to your channel and encouraging others to check you out. Now that they know you are willing to help them, they are likely to return the favor in the future. 

I try to raid after every stream, and as a result, I’ve met many streamers and some have become great friends. We get to share communities where some of my viewers now engage with their content and some of theirs engage with mine. I can’t recommend raiding enough. Even if your view count is low, you should not be missing the opportunity. Raid as often as possible you never know who you might meet. 

Similar Sized channels

You might think that going into significantly larger channels is the best way to reach out to people because even if a small percentage of their followers follow you, it would make a huge difference for your channel. This way of thinking is, however, flawed because you are attempting to get more value from someone than you can give back. The reality is that a large streamer will enjoy getting to know you in chat, but they are very unlikely to join your streams. This isn’t because they don't want to get involved, however, like you, they should be doing is aligning themselves with other channels that are similar in size to theirs. 

As you are going through and choosing people to network with, you will want to look for channels within 10% to 20% of your follower/viewer count. These are the streamers who are more likely to bond with you because you are both at the same point in your journeys and facing the same challenges. If you both have similar follower counts, you are more likely to make an impact on them. A streamer with 5 viewers will appreciate a 5-person raid a lot more than a larger channel with 100 plus viewers. 

Final thoughts

As we have said throughout this article you want to be providing value to others which in turn will form a two-sided bond with someone rather than just trying to get a piece of what they have. People know when your intentions are not pure. This networking strategy might seem difficult to manage as there are no metrics by which to measure how valuable your connection with someone is. This is a good thing as you don’t want to look at what you can get out of a relationship, but rather what you can give. As you continue to bring value to others, you will start seeing an exchange take place. People want to help those they can count on. No matter the size of your channel, there are others going through the same things you are, so forget the schemes and get out there, make connections, provide value, and the rest will fall into place.