If you’ve read anything from this blog you’d know that I’m a huge advocate of being an early adopter.

So much so that I credit a majority of Ninja’s growth to his ability to recognize if a game is going to be hot, and jump on it before everyone else does.

It seems that the first people to jump on a new social media platform, to jump in a new game category, or jump on a new technology are the ones who benefit from it the most.

Especially if they are able to figure it out before everyone else does.

The same story is true for Janelle, better known as Freya Fox.

We had a few conversations on Instagram about strategies on how to grow her stream while she was sitting around 50-100 concurrent viewers a stream.

The thing that caught my eye about Janelle immediately was that she was very clear about what she wanted. She wants to be an entertainer and wants to grow her audience as far as she can take it. She was a hustler and always trying new things to grow her stream audience. So we had a few good discussions on strategies she could test and implement.

I checked in on her and she responded with great news:

How did she do it? She made a decision to leave the comfort of her Twitch stream, along with her 60-100 viewers (per stream) and around 20 subs and take a dive into Facebook Gaming.

You might have heard about Facebook Gaming. It’s Facebook’s new play in the game-streaming world. They’ve created a pilot program to attract Twitch streamers over to their service and hopefully build more monetization tools based on their feedback.

The Struggle Of Growing A Twitch Audience

Every streamer faces a familiar struggle. You could have great content, could be a skilled gamer, a great entertainer, but it’s still an uphill battle growing your audience. It’s tricky to get it right.

Some streamers feel like their game is saturated. Some feel like they were late to the scene, and all of the streamers before them have a huge advantage over them.

Any time you’re trying to take market share, you have to find a different angle.

You have to find a way to build your own little competition. One that you can win.

And that’s exactly what Freya Fox did. She took her stream to Facebook and used their new platform to put her content in front of a new audience.

Let’s jump into the interview to see what she did, and how she’s looking to continue to grow from here.

You want to share a little bit about yourself for the #GAMEONAIRE world?

“I’ve been playing video games before they were cool. My first game was Duck Hunt on the Nintendo NES way back in the day, I used to rent 007 Goldeneye on the N64, and I played the original Counter Strike as a kid. Haha, perhaps that dates me but it shows my love for gaming started before I could even read.”

“I must have spent thousands of hours playing Halo with my friends as a kid, nothing was better than doing LAN parties at home.”

“What made me decide to become a streamer was my love of gaming and love of entertaining people. I always knew I was a natural entertainer after winning many talent shows growing up and I love being in front of the camera. So streaming is the perfect marriage between those.“

“My goals: My goals with streaming are to entertain hundreds of thousands of people on the daily basis. My streams are funny, interactive, and educational so I hope that whatever entertainment I can provide will help people smile or learn something. I simply just want to be able to have a great community so that my content can reach the world and bring people together through gaming.“

What were your previous streaming stats before switching over to facebook?

“On Twitch I was getting average CCV of 60-100 viewers, maybe 3 followers per stream, and only a few hundred views per 6 hour streams.“

I know you’re a hustler and you were putting in a ton of work, so what were you doing to grow your stream before? What did you feel was working? What wasn’t?

“Yes I am a workaholic! I was running FB ads as I still do, I was spending hours networking with other streamers and posting my content in groups on Facebook, reddit, Youtube etc.”

“I felt networking and getting raids did work (somewhat), but I can’t say that many things were actually working other than asking friends to share my stream.“

Were you doing anything on FB before you started to stream over there?

“No nothing at all, I started from scratch basically. I posted a few twitch clips here and there but that’s it.“

Tell me about the switch. What made you switch to Facebook streaming? What were your first couple of streams like?

“I wasn’t reaching many people and it’s very hard to grow on Twitch with such huge established names. I respect those who’ve paved the way and made it to the top, but I knew it’s very tough to gain an organic following there. When people go to the Fortnite section (my main game) the majority of people want to watch the big guys : Ninja, Myth, Dakotaz, DrDisrespect, CDNthe3rd – and they deserve all the viewers they’ve worked hard to earn. That being said, they do command 80% of the total viewers for that game and it’s very tough for a smaller streamer to get noticed when there are literally thousands of people streaming Fortnite concurrently.”

“I feel like I missed the wave on Twitch, and Facebook seems to be paving a new wave. I don’t want to miss this wave either, so I made the switch. It just comes down to being an early adopter and moving to a place where there is more growth.”

“My first couple of streams were amazing, I didn’t expect it to just blow up. I first started on my personal profile streaming Dragonball Fighterz, and got me a few viewers. But once I switched to Fortnite, I would easily attract hundreds of viewers and I literally had no idea what I was doing because I was so new to the streaming features at the time.”

“Now the stream has exploded with me only doing this for a few weeks now. My average CCV is 1,000 viewers and I’ve hit over 1,600 CCV lasting over 1 hour all organically with tons of engagement. I’m getting thousands of comments sometimes and people love to share the stream or invite their friends. It’s been an amazing audience and opportunity thus far.”

What are your plans for growth from here? What’s the next step?

“I plan on investing in more Facebook ads to promote stream highlights and funny moments to reach a broader audience. I’m also trying to attract more brand sponorships for the stream which would help me grow even further.”

“I’m currently working on a few deals and introducing better branding and increasing the production quality. I’m hoping that Facebook will accept me into their creator’s program so I can stream at full 1080p 60fps, which will really delight my viewers.”

What’s your daily adspend with Facebook?

“$5 a day”

What type of reach are you getting? (Views/Impression/Likes)

“Organically about 150,000 viewers per week, 200,000 impressions, likes 500-1000. Per live stream I average 66,000 unique viewers”

Editor Note: That’s about $0.17 per 1,000 views (CPM). That’s a huge amount of exposure for the price. Skip your Starbucks and invest in your stream.

What type of content are you advertising? Are you boosting your LIVE videos? Or do you have small clips/highlights throughout the stream that you are spreading?

“I am boosting clips and highlights“

What type of data does facebook provide to streamer? Do they give you any insights to help you make decisions as a streamer?

“It provides a ton of great data. It doesn’t provide any details as to who are repeat viewers, but it does provide metrics such as how many people are liking, their age, gender, location, device they watched on, clicked through links on your description, etc.”

Note: You can then take this data and fine tune your advertising to target the people who are most attracted to your content.

Good work on the sponsorship deals! How did those get started? Did you reach out to the potential businesses or did they find you?

“I believe that you have to create your own opportunities, so I reached out to them to get started. I basically send a press kit and pitch them on a unique way to integrate their product into the stream and any other content I create.”

Last Question: What’s your best piece of advice for new or struggling streamers?

“This one is good.”

“They need to have a solid brand and image before they even start or else [they’ll] easily be forgotten.”

“If you don’t have your logos, social branding, stream overlays, and personal image (maybe even a character think: Dr. Disrespect) or like myself with the orange hair and fox ears, then you’ll be forgotten quickly.”

“You have to be memorable. Simply being a god at a game doesn’t cut it anymore. I’ve seen it time and time again.”

You have to be memorable. Simply being a god at a game doesn’t cut it anymore.Click To Tweet

“At the end of the day if you want this as a career you must treat it as a business and like you’re a true entertainer. You need an image and a persona that is truly unique.”

Is Facebook the Twitch killer?

It’s way too early to tell. But they are showing their interest with the plays they are making. It’s also important to note that they are taking a content-first approach. They want their content creators to be happy. And they want to build the tools they need to be successful.

As a streamer, it’s important to know that Facebook tends to REALLY push their new features.

They want to get it in front of as many users as possible to fine tune it, collect data, and introduce get the Facebook community to adopt it. This happens with every new feature they release (videos, pages, groups, stories, ad types, and now streaming). So if you’re at all interested in streaming on Facebook right now would be the best time to jump aboard.

You should have an audience first approach. Build your audience and your brand. Platforms will come and go. Just get your content in front of the masses.

What’s the biggest take away from Freya Fox?

She’s an early adopter and she’s always looking for more ways to promote her channel and grow her audience. She wasn’t going to wait for Facebook to approach her. Or for a big wave of streamers to go to Facebook and start streaming. She was going to check it out for herself and see how she can leverage the platform.

If you follow her social media (you should! Instagram – Twitter – Facebook) you’ll see she’s constantly active. Posting content that her audience can enjoy, and taking it a step further with engaging her audience and other streamers to network with.

You have to find where your audience is and find a way to get in front of them. When something didn’t work, Freya Fox would adjust her approach and try something new.