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Is Discord for Twitch Necessary?

At some point during their Twitch careers, most streamers will ask the question, “Is having a Discord for my community necessary?”. Most streamers are already struggling enough with configuring their overlays, cultivating relationships with other streamers, and taking the time to edit or design future content. Will working with yet-another platform really help move my streaming career forward, or is it just another item on the endless list of distractions?

Most of the streamers who ask this question fail to understand how Discord fits into their high-level plan for scaling their brand and community. One of the biggest misconceptions is that Twitch can be used for every step of growing your channel, brand, and community. Twitch is only one of many platforms required for success. While Twitch is well-known for engaging and monetizing your active community base, it struggles with content discovery, data collection, and long term retention. Twitch should instead be viewed as a tool to engage and connect with an already-existing community.

The image above categorizes content platforms into 3 primary groups; Discovery, Engagement, and Activation. Content platforms that focus on Discovery are specifically designed to spread new, persistent content that can be viewed later. These platforms are ideal for finding new community members and fans to engage with by inviting them to join another more personalized platform, such as a fansite, email list, or Discord community. It is through this persistent community that you can advertise ways to support and engage directly with the primary content creators by supporting through Patreon or viewing/subscribing on Twitch.

The platforms above can obviously be used for different purposes, but they’re segmented as such because of how their primary business models work. Discovery platforms run on ads and focus on getting you to consume more content. Engagement platforms are more personalized, with content not designed for larger audiences and frequently encourage users to take action. Activation platforms are designed to have monthly or direct recurring payment models that provide an enhanced or personalized version of Engagement content.

Going Live and Back Again

With a better understanding of the primary purposes of each platform, you can begin to design your user experience in a way that provides new community members an easy and direct way to participate in and show dedication to the community. Regardless of how your Twitch viewers discover your channel or content, directing them to a centralized community hub will allow them to share their appreciation with others, and go from being an individual fan to being part of a community.

To get the most out of Discord and encourage members to join your stream, spend time with your community before and after each livestream. Before each stream, spend 15 minutes chatting with your active Discord members to ask them about their day or receive feedback about your content. As you begin your stream, post announcements on your social media platforms and use a bot to alert your Discord community that you’ve gone live. Moderators should continue to oversee discussions in your Discord, but encourage members to watch the livestream as it occurs. Bots and scripts can also be used to remind users to join the Discord community if they haven’t already, as well as following on social media for updates and alerts. Finally, as your stream is ending, remind the community that you’ll be available in Discord for a short time to discuss the stream and answer any questions. Some streamers will also include special events for high-ranking members or subscribers, which can help encourage collaboration and active use of the server.

Playing with Viewers via Discord

One of the most effective ways to engage directly with your community is to create content with them. This can either be done while livestreaming, or else as a scheduled event that the community can participate in. Events need not necessarily be games, but can also include Q&A sessions or discussions about a topic of interest. Special precautions must be made while playing with viewers as you’re live to prevent “stream sniping”, where community members will attempt to disrupt your stream or game while you’re live. Moderators should take note and be ready to handle disruptions while engaging directly with the community, but most situations can be prevented by assigning restrictions or requirements to be on stream with the host. For example, being a subscriber to the community or requiring participants to apply for a spot if the game has a limited number of participants can help ensure everybody understands and follows the rules.

The Discord for Twitch Checklist

As you grow your Discord community, members will have different expectations of what your server offers, how it’s managed and what the server is used for. For example, a community with 500 members may not be expected to have a full events calendar, but they would definitely expect that roles have been properly configured so that subscribers appear as a different username color with more permissions and access to restricted channels. Below is a simple checklist for the functionality your server should have:

Milestones for 50 Members

Establish basic Discord functionality on your server. Early on your Discord community may only have a few channels, but setting the correct discussion channels and role permissions early will help to prevent rule violations and problems as your community grows. More articles in the Support Center can be found on Role Management Fundamentals, Setting up Permissions, and Designing Private Discussion Channels.
Configure your Twitch Integration. Once you reach Affiliate level on Twitch with 50 followers and an average of 3 viewers per stream, your channel will unlock community subscriptions and custom emotes. The subscription status and emotes can be synced to your Discord automatically through an Oauth integration, allowing you to provide custom subscriber-only channels to reward loyalty. Learn more in the support center about Twitch Integration.
Configure your Announcement Bots. While the use of bots for such a small community may seem unnecessary, having your Stream Announcement bots configured as soon as possible will help your Twitch channel grow exponentially. You can have two bots that fulfill this role, bots in Discord to announce Go-Live streams and bots on Twitch to offer invitation links to Discord.

Milestones for 500 Members

Regular News and Announcements. Once you have a larger and more active community consider doing regular posts featuring content released on other platforms like YouTube or information about changes and updates to the community. Many popular Discord bots offer custom alert notifications to encourage your community to load your livestream as you begin streaming. Several Twitch bots also allow for commands you can use to drive traffic to your Discord community.
Bot Automation for Modding and Common Questions. While small communities can be easily modded by a few individuals, larger communities require automated tools to delete posts and enforce the rules. Bots can be used to detect and remove spam, assign roles, kick and ban members or answer frequently asked questions using keyword detection.
Diversified Discussion and Call channels. As your community grows, new discussion and call channels should be created to allow multiple discussions to occur simultaneously. For example, assigning custom channels for promotion, media or other discussion topics help make content in your community easier to find and filter. Create two or more voice channels to allow for serious versus casual discussion and limit the number of active chatters to ensure the call doesn’t become too noisy.

Milestones for 5000 Members

Scheduled Events and Community Activities. As your community grows into the thousands, enough members will be active that you can begin hosting events or activities related to the core theme or value proposition your community offers. These events would be posted as part of your community announcements and may offer a custom role to keep regulars active and informed about similar events. A system that allows community members to create their own events can assist in offloading work and planning from the moderation team, and empower your members to build a stronger culture within the community.
Advanced Functionality Scripts. Finding a skilled developer to create custom bots and scripts for the community will open up new opportunities for what your members can accomplish on your platform. For example, modular discussion and voice channels can allow community members to temporarily create their own call or discussion channels for an activity. These channels can last a certain amount of time or automatically delete themselves once everyone has left, ensuring the total number of channels and messages in the community isn’t overwhelming.

Conclusion

We hope these guidelines have helped you to determine if creating a Discord server for your Twitch audience is the right fit for you. The most essential thing to keep in mind is that your Discord server is not just an appendix to your Twitch presence. It serves as its own entity and community that needs to be fostered with the same, if not more, personal attention and care in order for it to blossom. With the right mindset and efforts, your Discord community can bolster your Twitch presence and bring your community closer together, for longer

Contents

Is Discord for Twitch Necessary?Going Live and Back Again Playing with Viewers via Discord The Discord for Twitch Checklist Conclusion