How To Use Twitch To Promote Your Music (With Examples)

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many performing venues have shuttered, leaving musicians unable to play live shows. But undeterred, many of them are finding creative ways to continue engaging with their fans and getting the word out on their music.

In particular, the Twitch live-streaming platform has been attracting a community of musicians, who use it to promote themselves and grow their fan base. If you’re a musician, this is something definitely worth looking into!

And if you need inspiration, here are three ways musicians can promote themselves on Twitch:

1. Stream live gigs

No physical venue for your shows? No problem. Move them to Twitch, and you might get new fans from a global audience.

One-woman band Sabrina Solo Show is an ace at using Twitch. While Sabrina had started off with doing live gigs, she made the move to Twitch last January and hasn’t looked back.

Showing off her talents in the guitar, kazoo, and kick drum, Sabrina plays originals and covers on Twitch three times a week to her 6,800+ followers. She found Twitch a great platform for promoting her original songs too—with these being requested for more often than the 300+ cover songs she can play.

Twitch also allows you to monetize your channel, and Sabrina’s fans have been generous in supporting her. She shares:

“The Twitch community really rewards you for being your true self. They’ve already spoiled us with some much-needed gear upgrades and sponsored our upcoming album! We have a blast just being goofy and playing classic rock tunes. It really does feel like a dream. Love my Twitch fam!”

2. Share your music-making process

Producing an album from start to finish takes a ton of work. But you don’t have to keep your efforts under wraps. Instead, you can get your fans involved by streaming your process on Twitch!

By doing so, not only can you get valuable feedback from your fans as you work on your music, but this also helps build up hype for your album even before it’s released.

For example, musician Hana Pestle (also known as HANA) had already been streaming her gameplays on Twitch. But after realizing that her fans were interested in her music, she decided to live-stream her whole album-recording process on Twitch.

This involved her being in front of the camera for 10+ hours a day, for four weeks straight. During these streams—which eventually resulted in an album called “Hanadriel”—her fans could follow every step of her journey as she experimented with different notes, sang short lyrics, and even ate Kettle chips as she worked.

Her dog, Eevee, also had cameo appearances, which probably made some of her fans’ day!

3. Teach your fans how to play music

Chances are that some of your fans are musicians themselves. Or even if they aren’t, watching you play may inspire them to pick up a musical instrument.

As they learn how to play their instrument of choice, they may need some help along the way. And who better to ask, than you? After all, with your awesome playing, you could probably teach them a trick or two!
Some fans may take the initiative to reach out to ask you for playing tips, while others may be shyer and would rather not make contact. Whichever is the case, you can help them—and promote your music at the same time—by holding music lessons publicly over Twitch.

Last month, guitarist Andrew Kyne of the band Grayscale held a guitar workshop via his band’s Twitch channel, where he went live to answer their fans’ questions on playing the guitar.

(And to further interact with their fans, he promised to stream himself playing the Call of Duty: Warzone video game after the guitar workshop had ended.)

🎸Dust off your guitars and get ready to shred! This Thursday at 6pm EST I’ll be live on Twitch answering any and all guitar questions followed by some Warzone! See you there. 🎸 https://t.co/7FbjefjNic

— Andrew Kyne (@Vonlionton) April 26, 2021

Jumping onto the Twitch bandwagon

Twitch may be more well-known among the gaming community, but its audience of music lovers is growing by the day. So while we wait for live gigs to make a comeback, why not keep up with your music promotion efforts on Twitch?

Getting started with Twitch is easy. Create a free account and once you’ve done so, you can start adding info about yourself to your Twitch channel page. This includes a profile banner, and you can tap on Twitch banner templates to make an eye-catching one for your Twitch channel.

Spend some time familiarizing yourself with streaming on Twitch. Then when you feel ready, hit the “Go Live” button and take it away. Have fun, and good luck!