24 Hour Twitch Streams — Are they worth it?
The Experiment
So you just started streaming on Twitch?! Congrats!!! The first step is done, but everyone gets that itch to get more followers and viewers. I had the exact same yearning for success — which got me to thinking…are 24 hour streams a good way to generate new followers and viewers.
A little about me - I am a Data Scientist by day and streamer, with my boyfriend, by night. I am a smaller twitch streamer with almost 300 followers with, at the time of writing this, and an average of 5 viewers. I felt like I was the perfect streamer to see if 24 hour streams were helpful for smaller streamers to generate engagement. Cyberpunk 2077 was coming out, hype was real and I felt like this was the perfect game to test how successful my experiment could be.
About Us:
RangerShibe and I are a streaming couple who love bringing that sense of community and creating a safe space for people to celebrate their differences.
My Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/magicshibe
My Boyfriend’s Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/rangershibe
How did I market my 24-hour stream?
I knew, to be successful, that marketing would be essential to getting more views. Here are several things I did to market:
- Tik-Tok Videos
- Facebook Posts (Personal Page and LGBT Group pages)
- Discord Group Promos
- And a giveaway
On all platforms I mentioned the game and the giveaway. I decided to do a giveaway to try to add an additional incentive to watching. I gave away one copy of Cyberpunk 2077 with the requirements that the person had to follow and type ‘!enter’ in the chat. I am also part of several lgbtqia+ oriented Facebook groups where I have gotten most of my traction for streaming. Overall post engagement was pretty low, in terms of successful marketing. During the stream, very few people mentioned the posts or that they were how they found my stream. I think that it was helpful to do so, but because I had no base to propagate the information out, it was not the key to success.
I will always recommend small streamers market and gain an internet presence. The caveat being don’t expect it to go viral and have a marketing blow up.
The Stream
Now that we had our marketing out, we were set and all that was left to do was wake up at 8a.m. and stream for 24 hours. To determine if the stream was successful, I decided on one key performance indicator; 200 gained followers during the course of the stream. So RangerShibe and I woke up and got to work. And side note: Cyberpunk 2077 is phenomenal, even with glitches, I really loved the game.
So, how did the stream go? It was good! The below summary shows the results of the 24 hours stream. I gained a total of 17 new followers out of my goal of 200. I had a higher than normal average viewership of 6.6. Looks great right! …Well not really.
I find this fascinating but also very strange. Most of the followers gained were in the last hour of streaming. About 12 of them gained in the last hour. It was very clear that these people all came for the giveaway, entered and left. I didn’t gain any real new followers. The high viewership was really contributed to the community I already had. They all pitched in and helped me get through the 24 hours. One of my viewers watched a full 20 hours worth. I was very fortunate that my current following helped push me through and I always had someone to talk to and keep me engaged. They even helped me set up jump scares. (Amazing and Embarrassing Jump Scare Clip: https://clips.twitch.tv/InspiringCoweringCasetteHassaanChop)
So overall, yes, this was my best stream with the best growth and viewership…although I feel like this wont truly help improve my channel. So lets take a look at some further data.
Data From Other 24 Hour Streams
To understand and validate some of my findings, I sought additional data. (As proper data scientist should) I stumbled upon a streamer named Luki (https://www.twitch.tv/luki).
In the above, you can see she did a 24 hour stream on June 11th, 2020 and oh my goodness how phenomenal was that?! That is her best stream since 2017, for viewership, live views and followers. I can only imagine the excitement of that stream. So much excitement that she did it again a week and half later (on June 21st, 2020)…but the results were drastically different. So, I reached out to Luki and had a conversation with one of her moderators (mod[s]) about her two 24 hour streams and why they had such a difference in viewership, live views, and followers.
Her mod was able to shed some very interesting insights. On June 11th, Escape From Tarkov did an exclusive drop. Drops on twitch are when you get in-game rewards for just watching the stream. These drops were enabled on select streamers channels on different days. This created an exclusivity with drops for the game. Luki’s June 11th stream was also promoted on twitches front page, as well as the drop event. All of this combined led to her best stream. On the second 24 hour stream, June 21st, drops were enabled again, but this time to all the streamers. Supply and demand is at play here, the more streamers with drops enabled means more competition.
What we learn here is exclusivity had an effect on the success. Not only that but having a reason behind the stream also played a large role. For my case, I did one to do one, no real cause or reason.
What Does This All Mean?
After all of the data and analysis, 24 hour streams can be beneficial if you do your stream with a purpose. For example, getting partnered, charity events, exclusive drops and/or community driven events. 24 hour streams can also be a phenomenal way to build your community and help them rally around you and support you through the 24 hours.
In our case (RangerShibe and I), we had some momentum but did not have enough of a purpose to drive the stream into further success. I recommend doing a 24 hour stream if you can tie it to some type of event. Reach out to a community or non-profit and get an event started with them. Reach out to an independent game developer and ask to do a pre-release event and help others promote with a purpose. To our original experiment, it may be more challenging for a smaller twitch streamer to benefit from a 24-hour stream but if you can find a unique promotion / cause, it might just be the thing that blasts your twitch career off.
Further Analysis
Context is key. These correlations may not be direct causation. A further analysis of data with regards to more context and other features, to add into the equation, could provide more insight. For example, sub-a-thon stream data and charity stream data could provide drastically different results than what we see here. To further this analysis, I would consider categorizing the stream with features of exclusivity, charity stream, or others to see trends that may emerge.
My Social Media:
Twitch — https://www.twitch.tv/magicshibe
Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/magicshibe_/
