---
title: 'How to Get Your First 50 Followers on Twitch'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=cWOTrZApdBg'
video_id: 'cWOTrZApdBg'
date: 2026-07-16
duration_sec: 946
---

# How to Get Your First 50 Followers on Twitch

> Source: [How to Get Your First 50 Followers on Twitch](https://youtube.com/watch?v=cWOTrZApdBg)

## Summary

This video provides a comprehensive guide for new streamers on how to gain their first 50 followers on Twitch, emphasizing that followers indicate viewer intent rather than direct viewership. The creator shares his personal strategy of using external communities and unique engagement methods to build an audience, and discusses the pros and cons of using YouTube for growth.

### Key Points

- **Followers vs. Viewers** [00:41] — Followers do not equal viewers; they represent viewer intent. A large follower count doesn't guarantee high viewership.
- **Overcoming the First Hurdle** [02:53] — The biggest challenge for new streamers is reaching 5-10 viewers. Below 5 viewers, Twitch discovery is nearly impossible.
- **Choosing the Right Game** [03:26] — Select a game with a passionate community that is underrated on Twitch. The creator chose XCOM 2: War of the Chosen.
- **External Community Engagement** [03:51] — The creator made a roleplay post on the XCOM 2 subreddit, pretending to be a drill sergeant, which garnered hundreds of sign-ups without directly promoting the stream.
- **Building Hype Without Self-Promotion** [04:20] — After streaming, the creator watched the VOD, clipped important moments, and wrote a story post about the session without mentioning the stream. This built interest.
- **Transitioning to Twitch** [04:52] — After several posts, the creator included links to Twitch clips, which brought in viewers. This broke the initial viewer barrier.
- **Expanding to New Categories** [05:07] — The creator moved to party games like Jackbox, which require many players, making it easy for viewers to participate. Then transitioned to other niche games like Darkest Dungeon and Stardew Valley.
- **Core Strategy: Unique Value** [06:21] — The key is to provide unique value to communities without direct advertising, engage viewers during streams, and turn them into community members.
- **YouTube as a Growth Tool** [07:03] — Starting a YouTube channel is common advice but difficult. It requires significant effort and doesn't guarantee Twitch viewers. Call-to-actions only work after providing consistent value.
- **Recommendation: YouTube Shorts** [08:45] — For beginners, YouTube Shorts are easier to create and have larger reach. Tools like Join Combo can help edit shorts without complex software.
- **Streaming on YouTube** [10:20] — Streaming directly on YouTube can be more effective for discovery, as subscribers get notifications when you go live, eliminating the need for Twitch.
- **Encouraging Follows with Intent** [12:00] — Don't ask for follows immediately. Provide consistent, engaging content that matches what viewers followed for. Keep a consistent schedule and make unique content.
- **Redefining Success** [14:15] — Success is not determined by follower count but by effort, learning, improvement, and being proud of your content. Keep striving to make better content.

### Conclusion

Gaining followers on Twitch requires creative external engagement and consistent, unique content. Success is measured by personal improvement and effort, not just numbers.

## Transcript

first 50 followers on Twitch or YouTube and I'm  glad you did because there are a lot of mistakes   you can make early on on that Journey that  will hold you back from growing and even set  
you up to feel really defeated and potentially  quit streaming or generally make streaming feel   kinda sucky and yes sucky is the scientific term  for that now before we break down all the ways   you can get more followers including how I got  my first 50 followers in my very first week and  
I'll also give you an incredibly important tip for  growth at the end of the video to boost retention   first we need to talk about why followers  kinda don't matter but they do but they don't  
but they do essentially followers do not equal  viewers this is a massive misconception if they   did every time I went live I would have  33 000 viewers Spoiler:I don't have 33  
000 viewers would be good but I don't you see  following a streamer is free and most people   will follow because they had fun once maybe  their message got read out or just generally   so the streamer says their name say my name uh uh  thanks for the follow bootyman 69 you're goddamn  
right so if followers don't equal viewers then  what a followers good for well they show intent   and that intent is really valuable to you as a  Creator in fact it is the most valuable thing   in the world let's say you stream a few different  games in one game you get 10 followers in another  
game you get 15 followers and in the final game  you get 500 followers which game do you think   you'll have the most viewers come back for if you  go live again that's right unless you are follow  
boarded and those are in fact real followers who  enjoyed your stream enough to follow it'll likely   be the third game where you got 500 followers I  think that helps you understand while followers   don't equal viewers they do equal viewer intent  and you can continue to stream with that intent  
in mind in order to maximize your growth always  targeting what people liked or wanted more of now   that we understand intent we can talk about how I  grew my first 50 followers with something really   unique and don't worry it actually wasn't with  YouTube videos like everyone else tells you to  
do I did something else but first let me tell you  about our sponsor own.tv specifically the owned   Pro plugin for obf that has over 600 plus overlays  and alerts built in that can be installed to OBS   in just a few clicks if you don't want to buy a  full animated overlay pack only to find yourself  
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50 followers now I knew streaming would be brutal  to gain traction from zero viewers I had seen that   the largest hurdle for a new Creator is actually  getting over that first hurdle AKA reaching 5 to   10 viewers but if you can get over that hurdle you  can get a bit of momentum and then if you're smart  
snowball that momentum but reaching that purely  from twitch is practically impossible if you're   below five viewers on Twitch you'll likely never  be found on Twitch so first I chose a game that I   loved and I knew had a very committed passionate  Community who were always eager for more content  
but I also made sure the game was underrated on  Twitch the game that matched all that criteria   was XCOM 2 War of The Chosen now s-com 2 has an  amazing feature for every streamer involved it  
lets you create hundreds of soldiers and customize  them as much as you want but most importantly you   can name those soldiers after your Chatters before  I even went live I made a massive role play post  
on the rx-com 2 subreddit pretending to be a drill  sergeant in need of volunteers to fight the alien   menace I was expecting maybe 5 or 6 sign ups  but I actually had hundreds of people commenting   to join my playthrough sadly these posts are  now deleted there were too many people going  
and ripping the exact word for word posts and  then reusing them so if you wanted the examples   blame the people who don't come up with a new idea  and just steal okay that's all so was that all I   did did I make this post get hundreds of comments  and then just start advertising my stream to them  
no I didn't tell any of these people it was a  stream i instead made all of their characters   and then I went live to just one or two friends  I streamed for four hours finished the stream and   then watched the entire VOD back and I manually  clipped all of the moments that were important or  
could be a funny thing to write about once I was  done I wrote an entire post that was a story of   everything that had happened in that session and  I shared it to the community without saying that   I was streaming and people loved it so I repeated  this a few more times and on the third or fourth  
time I included links to Twitch clips from the  stream and from there I suddenly had five new   viewers come to my stream they were welcomed  in by the two friends that I mentioned earlier   from there I had my momentum I had broken that  first hurdle so I kept that playthrough up for a  
bit and I was able to build a really nice little  community of about 10 people but I couldn't play   XCOM forever so I decided I had to move to a new  category the first category I chose was jackbox   it's a party game that needs 10 people this meant  I had enough people that could fill a game but my  
stream was also still small enough that anyone who  wanted to play jackbox would come to me and not   the big guys because it was easier to get into a  game they didn't have to fight for a spot The Next   Step was consistency so I repeated this process  over and over naming characters after Chatters  
doing party games and then I moved into other  categories that I loved but not oversaturated   categories where you're in the top few rows like  darkest dungeon which is another game you can name   characters after Chatters another game I chose  was stardew Valley which I had huge success with  
essentially I chose games with huge communities  that are still active but most streamers have   moved on I want to be clear the game choice is  not what allowed me to grow it was coming up   with unique and creative ways to engage and find  new viewers category growth isn't the best way to  
grow but it's important to mention because that's  how I started and how I reached 25 to 30 average   in my first month or so which was a massive  snowball for many people but again it wasn't  
just category it started with external unique ways  to provide value the takeaway of the story isn't   to go do the exact same thing but instead to take  inspiration how can you provide unique value to  
people in communities that isn't just straight  advertising or self-promotion how can you then   engage those people while you stream and how can  you make them community members how can you do  
more than just go live and hope for the best I  hate the words how can you I've said them too   many times okay let's talk about more common ways  to get eyes on your content specifically the most   common advice start a YouTube channel look it's  fundamentally good advice but it's also really  
disingenuous advice and I want to be honest  about the difficulties that come with this   method because a lot of you guys are trying this  method without really being told the truth the   major difficulty being that it's really hard  to grow a YouTube channel you could spend weeks  
planning unique video ideas making the thumbnails  clickable coming up with good titles making the   concept of the video something more than just  gameplay you could spend a whole month editing   it and then release it through zero viewers and  in truth you could release hundreds of videos  
to zero viewers before you even get a single  audience member but that's okay because when   you finally get an audience they'll all go watch  you on Twitch right no because there is no way to   know if people will actually want to click a link  in your description and head over to Twitch let  
alone if they even have twitch accounts so those  things are difficult but there are ways we can   increase the likelihood of them clicking that link  for example spending time researching learning   skills learning how to edit and really Tiding a  specific audience of people say like myself who  
I don't make variety content anymore instead I  make mostly content that's targeting Nintendo   and Pokemon that way every time I release a piece  of content I know that the audience will like it   because I know they like Pokemon and Nintendo and  if I make dozens and dozens of videos and grow an  
audience I can throw a few call to actions in  these videos that show the value of going to my   stream for example I can say something like this  was recorded live on my twitch Channel want to get   a Pokemon named after you then click the link in  the description and check me out while I'm live  
it's important to remember though that these call  to actions only work if you've provided consistent   value someone won't click over from watching One  video and it's important to remember that your   videos aren't ads for twitch they are their own  content and need to be valuable in their own way  
if you just make it in hopes of growing a stream  you'll likely never grow a YouTube channel and   to make a full video so instead I would really  recommend starting with YouTube shorts and if  
you're an absolute beginner I would use tools  like join combo to quickly learn how to edit   full shorts add sound effects music subtitles  and more without needing editing software you   can either record little videos offline and  upload them directly to combo to edit or it'll  
just take twitch Clips directly from twitch and  you can edit them there this isn't sponsored it's   just the best tool for a beginner to learn how to  edit and to create YouTube shorts and tick tocks   nothing else is needed thanks to working with a  few different streamers I've actually managed to  
work out a pretty consistent method for getting  traction on shorts and I honestly believe anyone   including absolute beginners with no experience  can start getting around ten thousand twenty   thousand thirty thousand or even a hundred  thousand views on shorts a day that video  
is coming soon on how I got millions of views on  shorts in a month so subscribe if you want to see   that I apologize it's just a really big video  that needs to be very clear that said I have   to be honest with you guys sadly while YouTube  shorts are much easier to start creating and have  
a much larger reach than most other platforms  they suffer from the same problem I mentioned   earlier viewers are actually less likely to go to  Twitch from a short because nobody clicks a short   its description to find a link to go to another  platform but look growing an audience on YouTube  
and then using those videos to promote your Twitch  absolutely works it's undeniable but there is a   better way these days what if and bear with me  it's pretty crazy what if someone who watched  
your YouTube shorts or videos and subscribed would  naturally get a notification every time you went   live what if they didn't need a Twitch account  or ever to visit Twitch in the first place well  
that's actually possible Now by streaming on the  same channel as you make videos in shorts and if   you really wanted to get 50 followers or build  an audience fast then YouTube shorts and then  
streaming on YouTube will always be faster and  better for Discovery than twitch look it would be   incredibly disingenuous of me to make this video  about growing followers to talk about external   funnels like YouTube and to not bring up the  difficulty of convincing people to leave YouTube  
and go to Twitch instead I wanted to give you the  real solution of just streaming to that audience   directly on YouTube so keep it in mind and don't  shut down the idea of trying out new Platforms   in short the actionable tip here is to start out  by trying to learn more about short form content  
oh and please don't use apps or plugins that just  automatically convert the clips or recordings then   send them out they're often really trash and any  tool that converts content to Vertical format but   doesn't let you then edit it or add graphics and  subtitles isn't worth it you won't grow from basic  
clip converting tools Clips need to be edited and  if you need to use an app that's why I recommend   join combo it is a browser based editor that lets  you make your clips into good content rather than   just a quick converter to help you be lazy it  can just be a Clip Converter but it's not it's  
an actual browser-based editing software aimed  at vertical format so those methods build your   reach you will have more people see you with your  UniQue Ideas like I did on Reddit and with shorts   on YouTube which means you might get more people  dropping by your stream but when someone joins  
your stream they won't follow immediately and you  don't actually want them to follow you immediately   because they aren't actually engaged with your  content at that point so instead you want people   to follow you as I said at the start with the  right intent for example a massive mistake I  
made here on stream scheme was to tell you guys  about my twitch stream and then link it in the   description yes I built huge followers but the  majority of you weren't interested in my gaming   content so I had a large follow account but only  150 to 200 average viewers a better option is to  
make discoverable content that matches what your  stream is going to be about as well and once we   have people visiting what can we do do to increase  the odds of them following and coming back well   that's easy you keep providing the content they  followed for consistently so not changing the  
game you're playing or not changing the style  of content you create every week and keeping a   consistent schedule so they can always find you  when they need to but the most important part is   to make good engaging content unique content that  stands out and they enjoy like giving them the  
option to be an x-com 2 character or just telling  really funny stories and making it a fun stream I   hate to say this but you can't just sit there in  the dark and play a game without talking anymore   you need to do something unique you need to go  further and go beyond and at the end of the day  
that is the actual tip for this part of the video  always be trying to find ways to make your content   better than the others that are out there you  need to stand out so increase your reach with good  
external content and then do something valuable  to keep people watching that is actually how you   increase followers and remember if you're going to  ask someone to follow or subscribe you should make   sure sure you provided value to someone first  so before I tell you my final tip and the most  
important tip of this entire video I just want  to say if this video has given you ideas value or   help at all then consider liking and if you want  to see more subscribe I hope it was valuable okay   so you've done all of these things you made  a really unique interesting way to stand out  
you've made a heap of YouTube shorts that aren't  Just Clips converted you've made YouTube videos   you stream on a consistent schedule and you're  streaming while doing the very best you can to   be engaging but you might not actually be getting  followers yet does that mean you suck yeah it does  
yeah yeah you probably stuck that isn't an insult  though I sucked and I still suck and as gross as   that sounds guys if this video can help you at  all I want you to know that gaining followers and  
viewers doesn't actually determine your success  which gives you these little achievements to aim   for and it makes you feel like that's the goal but  it isn't I hate these things success is determined  
by the things that you control like how much hard  work you did or how much you learned to try to be   a better Creator how much have you as a person  improved heck success is also just determined   by whether you're proud enough to show what you've  made to someone else if you're not proud to share  
your content well then it means you need to strive  to make something that you are proud of though   you might not be getting many followers or viewers  right now but as long as you are aware of what you   need to do to improve and you keep working hard to  make better content than the last piece of content  
you made well then you're succeeding so keep it  up you got this I believe in you despite the fact   that you suck well I believe in you if you put  effort in if you don't put effort in then I don't   believe in you is that harsh I don't think that's  harsh that's fine I'm leaving that in oh and if  
you want to learn more about making short format  content well then click this video right here you   don't need to be an editor you don't need to be  an expert but it will help you learn a lot about   join combo it is specifically aimed at Tick Tock  but I also have a video coming soon about YouTube  
shorts and it'll still help with YouTube shorts  anyway not sponsored I just love the platform   because it's great for beginners so there it  is there and I'll see you guys next week bye