The Impact of Music on Viewer Engagement and Retention on Twitch

Music is important. And the impact of music on viewer engagement and retention on Twitch while live streaming is one of the most important things to keep in mind when building your channel.

How Music Is Used In Film To Keep An Audience Engaged

While live streaming isn’t exactly the same as movies or television, the effect it can have on your community members can be quite similar.

In film, a director will use a musical score to make the audience feel nervous, excited, happy, or sad to help the story feel more real. Long periods of silence are filled with fitting musical overtones to express the emotion the scene is meant to convey.

The viewer is drawn in by the effect of the music, and that interaction has a major impact on how audiences respond to the film.

This ability for sound to make such an impact can be translated quite easily to a community-driven platform like Twitch.

The Effect of Music While Live Streaming

Successful streamers typically generate revenue through advertisements based on large audiences. Generally, more viewers equals more money, and the entertainment value of any given stream is usually indicative of its performance.

So, just like in other video media, the inclusion of music on Twitch streams can not only bring new viewers but engage continuing viewers.

An article by Harvard Health, published online at health.harvard.edu, shows the positive effects music has on our brains. Music helps us focus and is important for creating and maintaining certain neural pathways.

As a Twitch streamer, streaming gameplay or chatting with viewers will be invariably enhanced, whether it’s to millions of people or just a few loyal followers.

• Playing games

  Video game streaming is among the most popular content on streaming platforms. Many creators build their entire Twitch stream around gaming and video games.

  While some games often include fantastic musical scores in them, a lot of gameplay people watch does not. This type of game content often features the streamer playing the game in an incredibly focused manner, making chat interaction a little hard.

  Music in the background can really enhance the gameplay in a way that is not included in the game design. For example, a video stream that only has the sound of cars racing, or characters fighting, can become a bit boring after a time. Music gives the viewer something to focus on while watching the stream content.

• Chat participation

  Music can be a great tool for turning regular viewers into active participants. Many Twitch viewers will sit quietly during a live stream, but this behavior only helps with viewer retention, especially when live streaming to a large audience.

  Because of the wide variety of music out there, individual interests vary significantly. As a streamer, you can use this to your advantage. You can create polls and conversations or ask and answer questions about your viewer’s favorite genres. This will get more viewers to interact, as a debate about the best new song can be an incredibly engaging activity.

  This is just one example, but there are tons of other ways to include music in your stream. Even a small about of time spent creating content based around music will make users want to watch your stream even more.

What Music Twitch Streamers Should Use for Engagement

The type of music Twitch streamers use for their content will depend heavily on the type of stream as well as their audience. This means there is no correct answer to what will work best.

A streamer also needs to worry about copyrighted content. There are a few resources with tons of options that also eliminate the need to request permissions from music producers and record labels. For that reason, you need to use royalty-free music.

Epidemic Sound – Expansive Library to Enhance Your Content

Epidemic Sound is a Royalty free music service that is perfect for live video streaming on Twitch and other live streaming platforms.

There are a number of different subscriptions for both personal and commercial use. For a streamer just starting out the basic package at $15 a month ($9/month if paying for a full year).

A subscription with Epidemic will get you unlimited access to all of the tracks they offer for use on any social media or streaming. With access to 40,000 songs and over 90,000 effects, Epidemic is guaranteed to have the music you are looking for.

Simply search through their extensive library to find what you need and soon your loyal fanbase will be the envy of other streamers.

Epidemic offers a 30-day free trial that you can cancel at any time to see if their service fits the needs of your stream content.

Conclusion

Hopefully, you can see the tremendous effect that music can have on your success as a Twitch streamer. Choosing the right soundtrack for your content can really help your stream rise above other creators.

So, whether you’re using Twitch as a gaming platform, a talk show, or anything else you can think of, generating meaningful audience engagement is the most important part of growth. With music being one of the staples of human socialization, almost nothing else will come close to the impact it can have.