Original: How to Build a Stronger Content Strategy on Twitch.
We’ve banged on a lot about how you can’t start a live-streaming career by just pointing a camera at your face while playing a game. And indeed, those days are over. If you want to succeed, you need to have a content strategy on Twitch mapped out.
This will be the roadmap that guides your every decision as you walk the path of being a Twitch streamer.
Related: How To Plan A Stream For Engaging Content On Twitch
What is a content strategy on Twitch?
In short, a content strategy is the “why” and “how” of your entire Twitch channel. This isn’t just about your individual streams; it’s about the overarching core idea of your entire brand as a streamer.
It all starts with the “why”. What are your reasons for streaming and why should people watch you? When you have that figured out, your next step is to consider the “how”. What are the actions, activities, and events you’ll be using to support your “why”?
Once both of these questions have been ironed out, you can begin to map out your content strategy on Twitch.
Map out the journey
Formulating a content strategy is like writing a story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Then, the end has to feed into the next beginning, creating a perpetual cycle of content that keeps viewers coming back.
For example, if your core competency is that you’re a gaming educator, then you’ll want to set your beginning at some fundamentals. Then, the rest of the journey is about your viewers’ growth which can culminate in the final endgame where they can put all the skills they learned from you into practice.
So, knowing how it all starts and ends is the key to developing a good content strategy.
Keep It varied
Viewers on Twitch like consistency and they’ll mainly come back because they’ll be familiar with you and your content. However, you shouldn’t assume it’ll always be entertaining and engaging. It’s important to mix things up in sensible ways.
Taking the educator approach as an example, it makes sense to have “off days” where you take off the teacher’s hat and focus on fun and actually playing games. These can double as opportunities where you invite your viewers to play with you and show you what they’ve learned.
In other words, plan for content that mixes things up without diverting too far away from your central premise as a streamer.
Make your brand visible
The word “brand” is a fancy way of talking about who you are. It encompasses everything central to your stream’s core values and ideologies. And it’s these very things that need to continuously be front and center in your content.
For instance, your educational streams may take an edu-tainment approach to teach viewers how to play a certain game or genre. You should rarely deviate from this approach. It may also be important for you to emphasize good sportsmanship and go against toxicity in gaming. Therefore, you should never demonstrate behaviors that go against these beliefs.
In essence, everything you do on your stream has to reflect your brand and the core ideas that define it.
Post content off-platform
This may seem counterintuitive to your overall goal of building a Twitch channel but when you’re a live content creator, you need to also put content on non-live platforms. The main problem with Twitch is that it’s not a site with good discovery tools. People won’t be able to find and engage with your content as easily. However, other platforms have better discovery tools.
You don’t need to cast a wide net and post everywhere. Rather, you need to pick the platforms that fit your content style. Going back to the educator Twitch streamer example, your best bet will be to post on YouTube. Gamers use that platform a lot to learn new skills and improve their game. So, you can edit your Twitch archives, turn them into videos that fit YouTube’s model and post them there for others to find and get to know you.
What this means is that you need to let the content you create on Twitch go further by posting them in other places. That way, your reach expands, enabling more viewers to discover you.
For more ways to build a strong content strategy on Twitch, check out our Twitch guides.
More content strategy on Twitch resources: