Search StreamScheme

Stream Scheme

How to Make a Twitch Channel Trailer

calendar1 Last Updated

Twitch trailers are an often slept upon means of marketing and communication, especially to viewers who are already within your ranks. They are a brilliant way of getting across the best, most engaging moments of your stream in a fun format that should not only convince existing viewers to stay, but new viewers to stick around too and see what they can get involved with.

Creating a channel trailer on release drove plenty of traffic to my stream even when I was offline! In this guide, I will walk you through how you can do the same for your Twitch channel.

Twitch Channel Trailer Recommendations

In Twitch’s 45-60 second example of what a channel trailer should be, they showed us a sit-down interview-style shot telling us to cover three topics:

  1. Who you are
  2. What you stream
  3. When you stream

Interestingly enough, the second two on this list are actually already covered on your channel in the new update. What you stream is shown on your “Recently Streamed Categories” shelf, and when you stream is shown in Twitch’s new built-in stream schedule.

Twitch Channel Trailer Ideas

  1. Show Off Your Content

    If a potential viewer lands on your channel, they are more interested in your content than a 45-second interview about the information they can get from reading your profile. Edited highlights and clips from your content will give them an overall vibe of your broadcasts.

  2. Add Something Unique

    Taking a few extra steps to create a good trailer will set your channel apart. People will notice that your trailer is different, and you are more likely to get a reaction.

    Examples:

    • Your pet running into the room and greeting you
    • Your reaction to new release game trailers
    • Highlight clips of your favorite gaming achievements
  3. Community Engagement

    Seeing their favorite highlights is a good way to celebrate your community’s involvement in the building as your channel.

    I think that Twitch recommended the sit-down interview style because they didn’t want to make it seem like you need an editor or editing skills to make a good trailer. They wanted a low entry barrier, and that is fair.

    However, I believe that having an edited trailer, that really shows off your channel in all its glory is crucial.

Twitch Channel Trailer Example

When creating the trailer for my channel, I ignored Twitch’s recommendations so that I could create something that stood out and celebrated my community. My viewers are great at creating clips, they love grabbing the good moments, and they have a competitive spirit when it comes to getting the best ones.

https://youtu.be/WymOIM1QNH4

I thought about doing the who, what, when interview that twitch recommended but I felt that highlighting the stupid stuff that my stream is all about would be far better in that it would show newcomers exactly what we are all about.

You should know your audience, channel, and branding very well by now. Figure out what will work best with your channel. I’ve explained how I’ve created my trailer and my viewers love it but a trailer isn’t a one size fits all.

How to Make a Channel Trailer for Twitch

There are three main things you need to do to set up your channel trailer for your Twitch account:

I’ll cover each of these steps in more detail and help you avoid some of the pain points I experienced when going through this process myself.

1. Download Twitch Clips from Your Channel

Even though I was recording all of my streams, my editing software, Premier, couldn’t import six-hour-long video files. Even if it had, I would have needed to scrub through days of footage to find the 30-second clips I want.

Instead, I downloaded my most popular clips in the method I’ll explain below, as there is an odd workaround that is needed.

  1. Step 1

    clips twitch dashboard 1

    Go to your Creator Dashboard (or Channel Dashboard), then to Content on the dropdown menu, then click Clips.

  2. Step 2

    Clips dashboard 1

    Select Clips on My Channel the right, then click the Views button to sort by most viewed. Often these are the best clips but sometimes you might really want to include a new one with fewer views. You can find those by searching for the date.

  3. Step 3

    save as highlight 2

    Click on the clip you want, and click on save as highlight.

  4. Step 4

    tweak the length and title then publish 1

    You can edit the length, title, category, and more here and then publish it as a highlight. Once you’ve published the clip as a highlight it will need to process.

  5. Step 5

    video producer

    Once your clip is done processing, save and go to the video producer.

  6. Step 6

    click the three dots and click download

    Find the highlight, in this case, it is second on our list. Click the 3 dots next to the highlight, and click download

    The Clip or highlight will now download as a full resolution source file, it will look and sound exactly as it did on stream.

  7. Create Twitch Clips if You Don’t Have Them

    If your audience isn’t creating clips for you, take time after every stream to create you own.

    Clips are crucial to growth. If you don’t have clips to download and use for the trailer, then go make some! Find your best moments!

    Look for clips that showcase your stream at it’s best. This will mean different things for each community. My community loves a good meme, so my trailer is centered around jokes. Clips for your trailer may include:

    • Your best plays in a competitive match
    • Reactions to your chat and/or the game
    • Highlights that celebrate your community

2. Mix Audio for the Twitch Trailer

So now you have your clips, you’re going to notice that all of the audio is on one track. Your mic, your game audio, and if you play music for your viewers as I do, that is as well. Can you separate this? Not anymore. This is the downside to getting clips like this instead of out of your base recordings.

To solve this issue, I used a clip of me reacting to a long video with a single track and layered clips in at carefully timed moments. I took the audio out of some of the clips, but the viewer wouldn’t notice since the main track is a few dB louder than the overlay.

Use Royalty Free Music on Your Trailer

Find a copyright-free song, grab your clips, and do your best. If you are broadcasting your voice, and other sound sources at appropriate levels, you should be able to make it work easily.

One of the best places you can find royalty-free music is Epidemic Sound. It’s hard to find fantastic music that won’t get you into trouble with DCMA. But with Epidemic Sound, you can get awesome audio tracks in just a few clicks, all without having to worry about copyright strike. You can choose from a wide variety of 35,000 tracks, and 90,000 sound effects, which can be used in whatever you want, including your channel trailers.

The best part? You can enjoy it through a 30-day free trial by clicking our exclusive link here.

3. Add a Call to Action to the Twitch Channel Trailer

A “Call to Action” on Twitch is a request for a follow. If you have a natural, and not forceful way to push someone to hit the follow button even though you’re offline, then I’d say end on that. If you don’t end on something big, or emotional. Leave people laughing, crying, or just thinking what the F*** was that?

I don’t spend a lot of time on my stream asking people to follow, or sub. I didn’t really have a natural call to action that could inspire someone to follow the channel. I was heavily relying on the overall 45 seconds of the trailer to be enough to get them interested.

Best Twitch Trailer Makers

Now that you know how the basics of what a Twitch channel intro needs, it’s time to start making one. Here is our list of the top places to either create your own channel trailer, or commission a skilled artist to do it for you:

  1. Fiverr

    Fiverr is a very popular website that allows freelancers to sign up for an account and offer their services to users who may want to pay cheaper prices (hence the name ‘fiver’).

    Aside from Twitch channel trailers, some also offer other related services like making emotes, overlays, and offline screen for your personal brand.

    Find a reputable artist that can create your trailer for you. See if they have great reviews and official popups from the website, but there may be people out to make a quick buck or worse, scam. Always check the reviews before purchasing anything.

  2. Biteable

    A more premium and commercialized software, Biteable allows creators to make their very own Twitch channel trailers through their very intuitive and simple user interface and design.

    They have three separate plans; the free plan (which unfortunately features a watermark), the ‘Plus’ plan which features a non-watermarked version, 1080p resolution, and commercial usage rights – and the ‘Ultimate’ plan, which has over 17 million Shutterstock clips, the ability to collaborate in a team functionality and presented video analytics. Perfect for a Twitch intro. And, if you have other channels on YouTube, you can use them, too.

  3. Adobe Premiere Pro

    Often hailed as the ‘industry leading’ video editing software, Premiere Pro is the best of the best when it comes to creating your Twitch channel trailers. It has top-of-the-range capabilities and can edit in any format needed – going up to the ranges of 8K and virtual reality.

    However, the extreme luxuries of Premiere Pro come at a high cost – it costs £19.99 a month to use only Premiere, and £49.99 a month for all software’s in the Adobe cloud.

  4. Sony Vegas

    Vegas is another high-performance, high-cost software that many high-level content creators actually prefer over its Adobe cloud counterpart. Vegas focuses on features such as color correction, fast multi-tracking editing, and a huge focus on the science behind color on screens. In fact, they have their own studies on HDR color, with a focus on topics such as color curves, video scopes, and point correction.

  5. Shotcut

    This is a free, open-source video editor which is favored by thousands for the simple reason of a lack of price. It obviously has limitations that generally come with free software, but it has a wealth of features accessible and easily useable (despite some setbacks – which generally consist of lag, janky controls, and the occasional frame delay).

    Many use this for not only their Twitch channel but also YouTube, website content creation, and much more.

What makes a good channel trailer?

Here are more tips on how to make a great Twitch intro:

  1. Length

    Length is also key for a Twitch channel trailer. The perfect time for a twitch intro, in my opinion as both a streamer and a viewer, is around 45 seconds to a minute. This is plenty of time to pack in lots of fun quirks, jokes, or clips from your channel but won’t have viewers checking their watches come to the end.

  2. Background Music

    Putting some nice background music can also help you in due course with your twitch intro, allowing you to distance yourself from a couple of amateur video makers and allow you to be the main person on the screen.

  3. Engagement

    Engagement is another very important factor; you have under a minute to convince random people to spend their time watching you on the internet. Preferably you want it entirely made up of clips from your stream – the absolute best moments and the ones you will promise potential viewers that they can see again.

  4. Fluency

    Fluency is the final point here, but not in the way you think. You don’t want the trailer to flow absolutely perfectly and be a smooth, relaxing ride without jump cuts.

  5. Recap

    It needs to keep the viewer on their toes, make them feel like by just watching a single Twitch intro, they are fully on board the rollercoaster that is your channel.

If you will be paying someone to make your Twitch trailer, make sure to discuss these key points to the artist or video editor. It’s not exactly a requirement, but many artists would appreciate clear and detailed instructions on what you would like for your video.

On the other hand, you can also use this as a guideline if you need more conversation with them or if you decide to create your own Twitch trailer.

Don’t Overthink the Process

The biggest pain point I faced was overthinking what to do.

“This is going to be the face of my channel! It has to be perfect!” I said, “It can’t be scuffed.”

That’s just it – streaming is never “perfect.” My streams sometimes crash or I forget to switch back to the game screen. Somehow people still watch? Just enjoy the process.

Your channel trailer can be replaced at any point. What’s crucial now is putting something up that you and your community will enjoy because it will attract other like-minded members to your stream.

I am certain over the next month we will see some amazing channel trailers to inspire each other, but right now just enjoy the process and make it “perfect” later.

About the Author

Eljayem

Eljayem_, is a Twitch Partner with a background in video production. He is passionate about combining his love for video with community building. He’s been playing video games since he was old enough to steal his Brothers GameBoy Colour, copy of Pokemon Blue, and accidentally waste his Master Ball on a Dratini.

Back to top