Being a live streamer comes with many perks— one of them being a mini-celebrity to your viewers. The audience is a live streamer’s biggest asset, which is why interactions are so important. However, it is not always easy to get authentic engagement from your viewers without it seeming awkward. 

Well, fear not as we’re here today to show you how to engage with your audience on your live stream! Here are 10 ways to interact with your viewers for a flawless live stream of fun. 

1. Make Use Of The Live Chat Function

The keys to interactions are often already at your fingertips, live streamers! For example, you can use the live chat option that is readily available for every streamer as a way of engaging with your audience. 

This is a way to interact with your viewers in real time, gauging how they are feeling today and asking them for their opinions on how today’s live stream should go. Maybe there will be viewers who want you to react to something, maybe play a game, or just chill and talk. 

It’s one of the easiest methods of interacting with your viewers. There’s no need for a live streaming guide on how to use this step 😉 

 

2. Make Sure To Say Names When Reading Out Comments

The reason why live streaming gained so much popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic is because of the human factor behind it. Viewers enjoy the connection of actually perceiving you as you perceive them, which is why you should read out the names or user IDs of the comments you receive.

When you do this, you are interacting with your viewers directly! The moment they hear you saying their names, you have replicated a human interaction that they are so deprived of during this pandemic. This brings them closer to you, as you’ve now officially ‘noticed’ them. 

Who knows, maybe this will make your viewers try harder to get your attention more… maybe through gifts and various other forms of Internet currencies! 

 

3. Conduct A Live Q&A Session With Your Viewers

Having a Q&A sesh is a sure fire way to interact with your viewers on a live stream. Your viewers will always have questions that they are dying to ask you, so this is the best time to indulge them by allowing them to ask them. 

If you want to control the frequency as well as the type of questions (don’t want to get banned for inappropriate content now!), a tip we have for you is to divide the Q&A session into segments. Plan out what topics you would want to talk about, ranging from streaming related questions for the first half an hour, then perhaps switch on over to hobbies or general questions. 

 

4. Engage With A Co-Host To Spice Up Your Live Stream 

Another way to interact with your audience is by bringing along a co-host or a guest on your live streams. This works in both ways, for engagement and as well as increasing your viewer count. 

Since you’re bringing a guest, there is a high chance of an increase in view count due to something different happening from your usual schedule. Now, there’s also the added factor of the viewers of the said guest or co-host coming to watch your live stream to support their fave creator as well! 

With all the viewers excited and ready for you, pay close attention to the comments and see what it is that your audience wants in order to engage with them. 

 

5. Be Spontaneous During Your Live Stream 

No one likes a boring person, even more so if they’re on a live stream. As a live streamer, you pretty much have to be an expert at keeping your audience’s attention on you. A key to this is simply by being spontaneous and going with the flow during your live streams.

Think of it as a way to interact with your viewers during your live stream. An example would be you planning to talk about the topic of a shooting game during your live stream, but your viewers are asking you about a new dating simulator instead. 

As a live streamer, you should think fast on your feet. Sense that your viewers want you to talk about something different and indulge them instead of denying them what they want for the sake of your prepared material. This is how you engage with your audience in real time and keep them interested.

 

6. Promote or Discuss About Relevant, Trendy Topics

There is always something new happening every day in the world. As pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo said, “It’s brutal out here!” Recently, the loved starlet’s fans were shocked by the unacceptably terrible quality of merchandise they received and were taking it to social media to voice their hurt. 

As a live streamer, this is an example of a current topic that you could speak about to your followers if your content is relevant towards this slice of pop culture pie. And if not, perhaps use this opportunity to speak about social issues that are close to your heart, such as #KitaJagaKita if you’re in Malaysia.

 

7. Choosing A Good Schedule For Your Live Stream

A good schedule for a live stream is crucial when gaining maximum interactions from your viewers. You will want to select a time frame that has the perfect window where your viewers will definitely have time to watch your live streams. 

The guide to getting this perfect time frame is by studying your audience. Read your statistics and find out the general age group your audience belongs to. If they are mostly teenage to university students, your schedule should stray away from the typical school hours of mornings and afternoons. 

Opt for the late evenings instead, where most students would be done with classes and looking for a way to kill time before dinner. This way you are able to interact with a larger number of viewers— which means more interaction in general— instead of going live during a non-peak hour with lower viewers and lesser interaction. 

 

8. Play Games With Your Viewers 

A classic way of interacting with your viewers, it is a live stream favourite to play a game in real time alongside your audience. This way, your viewers can either play along with you from where they are or just watch your authentic reactions as they happen. 

These can include games such as Can Your Pet, which relies on the shock factor of the player who has no idea what fate the game has in store for them. Your viewers are too in a for a wild ride, which can result with interaction of either them already knowing what to expect or their similar shocked reactions as you. 

You could also play opinion discussion games, such as Will You Press The Button?, which gives you two controversial ultimatums to choose from. Games like this are perfect for audience engagement as your viewers can comment which option they would choose and why instead of them just consuming it passively. 

 

9. Conduct Live Polls 

Focus groups hold such value in research because of how much you can learn from the general public. The same also applies to your viewers as a live streamer! Why not learn from your audience instead of just blindly guessing what content they would want to see next?

Kill two birds with one stone when you use this method of interacting with your viewers. During your live stream, give your viewers two options to choose from. Be it content ideas, themes, or even a new type of game you are going to play— and let them vote in real time. 

Based on the results you get or the additional feedback or ideas they have, you will be sorted for your next live stream as well as have gained tons of interaction for this one!

 

10. Take Quizzes With Your Viewers

If your channel or content just does not match the vibe of streaming games, fear not. A foolproof method of interacting with your viewers is through the simple art of taking quizzes with them on   your live stream. 

Unlike games, quizzes are extremely malleable in nature— there are topics and areas of interest for everybody. Depending on what your niche is, all you have to do is find interesting quizzes (or even hilariously bad ones) for you and your viewers to take along side by side with you. 

A tip to encourage more interactions is by asking your viewers to take a quiz too instead of just watching you, especially by asking them what results they got. This ensures engagement as your audience will feel more tempted to write down what result they received, especially if you are going to be looking for it. 

 

With these methods on how to interact with your viewers, you will not be needing any other live streaming guide anymore! Let us know if this article helped you and what other live streaming tips you’d like to hear from us. 

Make sure to start your live streaming career today on Sugarbook LIVE, where being your own boss has never been easier. Visit our page to learn more and get started now!