How to properly communicate with the audience. Part I.

Hello, guys! Welcome to destream, and today we’re going to talk about how to grow an audience… a huge one.

Yup, the title is not much of a match to what we’re now talking about, but here’s the thing: communication is (at least it must be) the most important part of your streaming career. In fact, streaming is not about playing games, dancing, singing, or cooking. It’s about doing something LIVE, i. e. while COMMUNICATING with the audience.

After all, anything can be free today: people can watch streams of gamers, cooks, dancers, and singers, absolutely free! So what makes them tip? What makes them subscribe, and what makes them buy digital merch? It’s not the stream by itself, but the person behind it. It’s the INTERACTION between streamers and viewers that removes the boundaries and lets everyone feel at home.

So, if you say “how to grow an audience and make them constantly come back to my channel”, you’re, in fact, asking mainly about “how to build proper communication between me and my viewers”. And today we’re going to dive into this topic and give you some interesting tips and tricks.

In the first part, we’re going to talk about how to make people never forget about you. And the next part will be directly about communications between creator and audience. Let’s go!

What is love and how to reach it?

Love is more of a philosophical phenomenon than anything else, but in the streaming industry, we use this word with only one meaning — the constant desire to watch the content of the same creator again and again. If you don’t like the word love you can call it as you want — habit, attention, friendship, maybe reputation-building, or even CSAT-based customer retention? It doesn’t matter. The main thing is to remember the meaning. Anyway, we can talk about love for a very long time, if not forever, but that’s not what you’re here for, is it? So, without further ado, let’s get right into it.

P.S. In case people don’t share your values, with these tips you’ll at least become one of those creators who are remembered at first sight

Create a story.

There is a huge knowledge-body in the business world that’s called “storytelling”. It’s used almost everywhere throughout the globe to talk about things, sell things, promote things, fundraise, and so on. The main idea lies in the basis of storytelling is that people understand and remember everything much better if it contains a narrative.

“Studies have shown that telling a story makes information way more memorable. Psychologist Jerome Bruner found people are 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it has been wrapped in a story. Stanford’s Graduate School of Business took it even further to find that when people listened to pitches, either containing facts and figures or a story, only 5% recalled a statistic, but a whopping 63% remembered the stories…”

So, our advice is — to create your origin story. Make the narrative of your origin, write it in your channel description, tell interested people, and NEVER forget it. It’s the story that helps people identify and differentiate your identity from the others' ones.

Building a story, keep the following list in mind:

• A good story shows who you are and where you come from.
• A good story corresponds with your inner values, and your inner values must correspond with the values of your channel.
• A good story carries not just a narrative, but meaning.
• NEVER lie telling your story. it’s a bad habit that has become a downfall of many successful channels.

HINT: The rest of the tips in this section, in one way or another, will be related to this one, as the story is the most important part.

Create a Creed.

A call-to-action, the main message, a slogan, call it as you want. Once you’ve written a story, you’ll immediately need the creed to follow. Need some examples?

• Just do it (Nike);
• The best or nothing (Mercedes Benz);
• The happiest place on earth (Disneyland);
• There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard (MasterCard);
• The original. If your grandfather hadn’t worn it, you wouldn’t exist (Old Spice).

“According to The Manifest Finds study, 50% of People Look to a Slogan to Understand a Company’s Purpose, Compared to Only 7% of People Who Believe the Logo Is Most Important”

And these percents also work in the streaming sphere (as it’s also a type of business. Surprise, surprise!).

So, the main idea is in creating a message that resonates with your channel values. This message is to become the very core of everything you do. Of course, you don’t have to annoy people with constant slogan repetition, but always keep it in your mind as the basis of your work, and you’ll make people always know not only who you are and what you do, but WHY you do it.

Vocabulary

The majority of content-creators often forget about the main communication tool — the words. And the words you use are directly proportional to the attitude of the audience.

As you’ve already chosen your creed and told your story, it’s time to make a corresponding lexicon and put it to use. The constant use of words with the right emotional color in a conversation directly affects the subconscious of the audience, setting them in the way that YOU need.

Make a vocabulary of words that build your verbal identity. Use them often, these words are your inner state, and your inner state are these words.

To create a correct vocabulary, you’ll first need to form a channel-matching tone of voice. Here’s an article from semrush containing masses of info on this topic. Enjoy reading!

After choosing a tone of voice, begin forming a vocabulary, corresponding to it. Success is granted!

Build a comprehensive image.

Your channel name, logotype, emojis, design, visuals, the color of your hair, the way you talk, the way you move, the main color of your channel, banners fonts, the music, and so on — all these details make you remarkable and unforgettable.

After the story, tone of voice, vocabulary, slogan, and all the details above will be made and interrelated with each other, your channel’s brand image will be born. And once it’s ready, no one can remain indifferent to your Twitch (or anywhere esle) corner. Just one glance will be enough to never forget you.

And remember, honesty is the most crucial thing in making an image. Don’t try to pass yourself off as someone you’re not. You already have a very interesting and deep personality, it’s just about correctly showing it.

“According to Label Insight, 94% of customers are likely to show loyalty to a brand that offers complete transparency. So if you want the audience to love you, never lie to them”.

HINT: In fact, brand image is something far bigger than we’ve told you, but the information here is more than enough for non-professional people to create their own brand image. For other brand image components serious finances, knowledge, skills, and (sometimes) data are needed.

HINT: Never be afraid of haters. Remember, having them means you’re going the right way.

So, here is the first set of tips and tricks for communicating with the audience. Here we’ve made a solid foundation on which we’re going to immediately build the audience-communication system. Stay tuned, and ready for Part II. It’ll be published soon. And have a nice day!