As a streamer, your income depends on your traffic
That is the number one reason why streamers should be on TikTok
Tiktok is a great platform to post videos to gain more viewers during your live stream. The organic potential is amazing and the community that you build there is powerful. Every platform is copying TikTok right now which means repurposing videos is very easy
TikTok is a newer platform
And it is so different that many of the other platforms didn’t take them serious
That was until TikTok viewers exploded and even passed YouTube in watch time in 2020
Anyone that is trying to gain viewers needs to consider TikTok
Do gamers use TikTok?
Gaming dominates every platform that has video capability
I think the only one that doesn’t have a lot of gaming is Pinterest
Over half the video views on TikTok are of gaming content!
So yes, gamers use TikTok
There are 9 reasons you should be on TikTok as a streamer
- Great organic potential
- You can direct people to Twitch and YouTube
- Videos are quick to make
- Videos last a long time
- Momentum is simple to build
- You can repurpose videos everywhere
- Chance to show more personality
- You don’t need to learn SEO
- Great ROI
I am sure there are more reasons, but these are specifically important for streamers to think about
Great organic potential
TikTok has incredible potential for free traffic
There are two kinds of traffic online:
- Organic (free)
- Paid
There are usually pros and cons to both
Free traffic is free but harder to get
Paid traffic costs money but is easier to get
TikTok through that idea out the window by making free traffic easy to get
There are times when people go viral on their first video and get a ton of traffic and followers!
It is rare though
Even though it is rare to go viral on your first video, it is not rare to get traffic
Even if you only get 200 views per video, that is 200 eyeballs that you are not paying for that now know who you are
On every other platform, that is amazing traffic for someone with a new account!
If you are willing to put in the time and effort to get momentum on your TikTok account, you will see a lot of traffic going where you send it
As a streamer, you could be sending that traffic to your live stream
You can direct people to Twitch and YouTube
The TikTok profile allows you to connect your TikTok profile to your Instagram and YouTube right away
And then you can add a link after you have 1000 TikTok followers
That link can be a link tree or just your Twitch channel
People are naturally curious
If they like your videos, they will click on your profile
If they really like your content, they will stalk you online
That means that they will watch everything you have on every platform
Most TikTok viewers are silent observers
They could be watching every video that you have and you won’t know it
So even if you don’t have a lot of engagement right away, keep posting and keep the links to your YouTube and Twitch available
You would be surprised how much traffic comes from TikTok viewers that you didn’t even know were there
Videos are quick to make
YouTube and TikTok are the top platforms for streamers right now
Apart from live streaming on Twitch
One of the major downfalls of YouTube is that videos can take a long time to edit
Even a 10-minute video takes a long time
But TikTok is short-form content
That means that most content that you put on TikTok will be less than one minute long
It is possible to do longer videos, but they are not as successful as usually
It is better to start with 40 seconds or less until you learn how to keep the viewer’s attention for longer
The flip side to this is that you have to post a lot more on TikTok to get good momentum
YouTube can gain momentum on one or two videos a week
But TikTok needs at least one video a day
And even then you might not get momentum
When I was going for my first 1000 followers, I posted on TikTok 10 times a day
3 or 4 of those videos were meaty content
And the rest were more trendy and fun content
So even though videos don’t take as long, you do need to post more
Videos last a long time
One great thing about TikTok as a social media is how long the videos stay in rotation
When you post on Facebook, you are amazed if a video is seen for a week
That has changed a little with Reels since all the platforms are copying TikTok
But TikTok videos can cycle for months or even years!
They are often slow to start and long-lasting
This means you should NOT delete a video just because it didn’t take off in a couple of days
You never know when it will take off
So unless it breaks community standards or goes against your brand, leave it to do its thing!
Momentum is simple to build
When I first wrote this point, I said that momentum is easy to build
I changed it to simply because it is simple, but not always easy
The more you post on TikTok and interact with other people that are similar to you, the more momentum will grow
The goal is to post 10 times a day if you want to grow fast
And interact with other people (like and comment) for at least 10 minutes a day
Don’t be the invisible lurker
The more active you are, the more other creators and their followers will notice you
The longer you do this, the more you will see that momentum grow
I did this for about 6 weeks and that momentum went from maybe one follower a day to several hundred a day
Without going viral
I posted more and way longer on platforms like Facebook and never did grow momentum without paying
You can repurpose videos everywhere
TikTok blew up in popularity so fast that it messed up the plan that all other platforms have
The ultimate goal of every platform is to get as many eyes as they can and then make money off those eyes
Since TikTok is mainly an organic platform and completely different than everything else, TikTok disrupted all the plans of the other platforms
Then they all had to catch up
Suddenly Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest had short-form content
But they are still chasing TikTok
The trends that happen on TikTok, happen to the other platforms next
If you take your video URL and put it into snaptik.app, you can take off the watermark and upload your videos on any other platform
It literally takes an extra two minutes and you can start getting more viewers on other platforms
YouTube is a great choice for that because many streamers are growing there anyways
Chance to show more personality
YouTube is great for streamers, but it is a search engine
There isn’t a ton of room for streamers to show personality outside of voiceovers and text on the screen
TikTok is different
You want to be showing personality on TikTok because that is how people connect to you
TikTok grew during a global pandemic when people needed human connection
That is the foundation that TikTok grew on
So post funny videos or trending videos even if you don’t use game clips
You can be your niche on TikTok and people will love it!
If you look at all the successful gaming TikTok accounts, you will see a face or a hand
That is because people are looking for connection and TikTok is perfect for that
You don’t need to learn SEO
YouTube is excellent for streamers, but SEO is vital for success there because YouTube is a search engine, not a social media
TikTok is a social media
Yes, there are things you can add to your video with a strategy to increase views (like hashtags)
But it is completely possible to have a viral video as a newbie on TikTok without any SEO help
That is because TikTok depends on an algorithm
The longer people watch your video, the more views you will get
The algorithm learns what you are posting about by the content, hashtags, and caption
And then sends that content to people that have shown interest in it before
Every once in a while, they will send out your older videos to see if people are more interested in them now
You don’t depend on SEO as you do on Google or YouTube
You just depend on how much content you create and how much people connect to that content
Great ROI
ROI is Return on Investment
If you are a streamer, you are a business owner
Its just the way that things are
There are two kinds of investments that you can make as a business owner
- Money
- Time
With TikTok, most of your investment will be time
TikTok has a great Return on investment
I know people that got enough traffic to start streaming full-time just because they were posting content on TikTok
Nothing is guaranteed, but the potential of TikTok is amazing
Always look at the things you spend time and money on for your stream
And then look at what you get for those things
Don’t do things because you are supposed to
Do things that give you a great ROI
That is how you grow as a business owner without getting burnt out