Posted by Danny Hernandez on Twitch
Today, we’re leveling up Host Mode. Our new auto host feature upgrades Host Mode into a powerful cross-promotional tool. How? By making it easy for you to build and manage a list of channels to auto host when you’re offline. This includes options for auto hosting members from your team, a personally curated list of streamers, and channels similar to yours.
Making Host Mode better
Since Host Mode launched, we’ve been amazed by how our community has used it to share content and grow together. This past Spring, we experimented to see how we could make Host Mode even better. We ran an auto host study and the result was overwhelmingly positive:
- Almost half of the streamers who used auto hosting saw 10% increases in their viewership. [1]
A whopping 97% of participants also said they planned on continuing to auto host, which is why we’re excited to make it available to you today.
Improving host trains
During our research, we heard that here were already communities using host trains for cross-promotion. The problem, however, was that host trains require a ton of coordination. Auto hosting streamlines the intent of host trains, since trains generally involve the same community of streamers repeatedly hosting each other. With auto host, just set up your list and you are good to go.
Like Host Mode, the choice of who to host is up to you. It can be configured any time by visiting your Channel Settings. For step by step instructions and answers to frequently asked questions go here.
Auto hosting will enable communities to come together and grow together on Twitch. On that note — if you’re heading to TwitchCon this week, remember it’s the perfect place to join or create your own “stream team.” And, of course, don’t forget to set up auto hosting while you’re out.
Good Times,
Danny
[1]. 5 stream teams of 45 broadcasters participated in the study. Stream teams can use auto host to reclaim a large portion of the viewership that offline channels were leaving on the table. As you’d expect smaller channels saw the largest bumps in viewership.
