When is the Best Time to Stream on Twitch?

The best time to stream on Twitch is 7 am to 11 am for your specific time zone. The reason is you’ll have the least amount of competition, and therefore you’ll have a better chance at reaching new viewers. Most popular streamers go live in the early evenings, and Twitch viewers are more likely to browse and explore new creators when their favorites are offline.

This is generally the best strategy if you’re a new streamer and looking to build your initial core audience. The process changes slightly, and you can target when your audience is specifically active when you’ve built one up!

4 Tips to Picking the Best Time to Stream

There are several things you should consider when choosing when to stream on Twitch. Each of these will depend on your personal brand, your current Twitch following, and the content you intend to stream. Take each thing into account as you narrow down your options.

1. 1. Choosing the Right Time for Your Time-Zone

   One of the simplest methods is to pick the time that suits your time zone precisely. For example, if you’re a US streamer, and your audience is primarily situated in the US, it’s ideal to stream in US times to catch the most enormous influx of your audience. Some streamers also decide to split their stream into two segments.

   Instead of doing a single 6-hour stream, they’ll split it into two 3 hour streams during the day. This is an excellent strategy if you’d like to stream to two different audiences, targeting both a US and UK audience.

2. 2. Choosing the right Time for your Game

   Sometimes, specific games draw in a core audience at certain times. For example, party-based games or tabletops games typically have a much larger influx in the evenings rather than the mornings. Most streamers in these genres tend to target the evening since the category is quite a niche, they’ll want to be exposed to as large of an audience as possible on Twitch.

3. 3. Choosing the right Time for Viewer Ratio

   A great tool that streamers use is Twitch Strike. Twitch Strike is a service that aggregates data for Twitch’s categories. It displays statistics such as; the most active streaming period for a game, the most amount of viewers at a specific time for a game, and then gives you a ratio between the two. Essentially this ratio is how many viewers are available per stream for one particular category.

   

   For your timezone, you can identify the exact times where your streaming category has the highest viewership potential. Typically, you can easily compare viewer ratio numbers – the higher the number, the more theoretical viewers there are available for your stream.

   In general, you’ll find the highest viewer ratios are available very early on in the day. Most categories have the largest viewer ratios between 7 am-11 am. If you’re a streamer that struggles to grab an audience, it might be worthwhile trying to stream earlier in the morning!

4. 4. Choosing the right Time based on Events

   The last way to choose an adequate time is by holding events. For example, many streamers reward their communities, when hitting a milestone, with 12 hours of 24-hour streams. Consider keeping these sparse, to keep them memorable and eventful, and plan how you’re going to saturate for that time!

What to Do if You Can’t Stream at the Best Time

If you can’t stream at suitable times, whether it’s other commitments that eat up your time or whatever reason, there are other methods you can incorporate to drive an audience to your streaming time.

• Leverage Social Media to gain traction

  If you have other social media with a following, such as YouTube, Facebook, or Twitch, you can leverage your following on those platforms to gain Twitch traction. For example, you can produce a “Going Live” post with a brief description explaining what you’re going to do, and finally letting your audience know the time.

  This way, your existing audience can plan to join your stream when you finally go live. This will also push you up in your desired category, which will attract other viewers too!

• Game Selection

  Choosing a game that has a high following, however generally a smaller live audience can help you get the boost in viewers you need without needing to worry about a specific time. For example, a great choice is Stardew Valley.

  

  The game has an enormous amount of loyal followership, while also have a smaller concurrent viewership number. Another added benefit is that the Stardew community enjoys watching multiple different streamers, as they’d like to grow interested in their game!

Conclusion

In summary, the best time is dependent on many different factors. The consensus is that, if you’re looking to gain an audience purely through Twitch’s directory system, you will want to stream as early as possible. However, other strategies such as streaming less saturated games and using existing social media can allow you to have an audience during a Time that is preferable for you. It’s worth experimenting with these options and seeing what works best for you!