Want to run a raffle or giveaways on Twitch? Wondering how to make your giveaway engaging and successful?
Running a raffle or giveaway on Twitch is a great way to engage your audience, increase your follower count and ultimately grow your Twitch channel. It can be used as one of many tools to keep your Twitch stream interesting, engaging and growing. That said, running a Twitch giveaway isn’t for everyone.
In this post we’re going to explore giveaways on Twitch, the tools and steps involved, and share some tips on how to make it effective.
Why should you run a giveaway on Twitch?
Running a giveaway on Twitch can have many benefits for you and your stream – but don’t make the mistake of thinking a giveawayt on Twitch will be some sort of shortcut to success. Giveaways work best if you’re already a commited streamer, with a consistent schedule and a small (and maybe growing) community. If you don’t have these things already, it may be worth starting there – especially if you are considering running a giveaway as a means to grow your channel. Saying that, below are some of the things a Twitch giveaway can do for you:
- It’s an engaging way to interact with your audience and grow your community
- It increases your exposure – people who don’t follow you will see your giveaway when it appears in their chat or on their stream page
- It helps you gain more followers and subscribers – which in turn helps you gain more views and revenue from ads and sponsorships
- It helps you generate leads – people who enter giveaways often leave their contact information so that they can be notified if they win (or if they don’t!) This enables you to build a list that you can use for targeted marketing campaigns later!
Twitch Giveaway Prize Ideas
Another big question when it comes to running giveaways on Twitch is what do you actually use as the prize? This one really depends on you situation. First of all, are you making a decent income from Twitch? If so, maybe you can afford to put some of that aside each month to fund your prize, but if not then you should have a think about different prize ideas that maybe won’t cost you anything.
Gaming Giveaways
This is an obvious one – a massive part of the Twitch community is there for gaming content and with new games being released all the time – offering up a Steam Key for an upcoming game is an easy and convenient prize that you can make use of in your Twitch giveaways regularly. Many of the larger streamers will be given Steam keys directly by the developer, but until you get to that stage – shelling out for a couple of Steam keys every now and then will still be beneficial for you and your Twitch stream.
Equipment Giveaways
This is another common category of giveaways on Twitch – using gaming or PC equipment as the prizes. This one can be a little more expensive than simply giving away a Steam key for your favourite game – but giving away something like a Playstation 5 or XBox is the ultimate in hype generation. If you can afford to giveaways like this once in a while, it’s an awesome way to generate hype, increase your engagement and ultimately give back to your community.
In-Game Item Giveaways
This one works best with MMO games that allow players to trade in-game items or currency like World of Warcraft or Runescape. If you spend a lot of time streaming an MMO, it’s likely that a lot of your viewers also play the same game alongside you. This makes an in-game giveaway like this really enticing to your viewers while also keeping your costs very low (assuming you have a lot of wealth in the game).
How to create and set up a Twitch giveaway?
There are a few different popular tools that Twitch streamers can use to create Twitch giveaways. Here at StreamWeasels, we have ran giveaways in the past using more than one of the below tools, so we have personal experience. These tools are specifically built to help you run succesful giveaways, taking care of every aspect of your giveaway like entry tracking and winner selection. There are some key differences between them, most noteably, the price. Take a look below for a deep dive into each of these Twitch giveaway tools.
Running a Twitch Giveaway with Gleam
Gleam is an incredibly popular Twitch giveaway tool that claims to drive more than 1M Twitch actions per month. The Gleam widget can be setup within 5 minutes, comes with it’s own giveaway landing page, allows users to have multiple entries, and integrates with more than 100 different services, including all the major social media brands and email marketing companies.
Gleam has a free plan that comes with everything you need to run your Twitch giveaway. You will only need to pay for Gleam if you want your giveaways to be more complex (more entry methods, multiple winners, multiple different prizes). If you are interested in upgrading your Gleam subscription, the cheapest way to do that is to pay $120 for the Hobby plan, which lasts for one year.
Let’s take a look at what you get on the free plan with Gleam:
- Run unlimited giveaways
- Choose upto 10 winners for each giveaway
- Draw winners randomly
- Free giveaway landing page
- Over 20 different giveaway entry types
- Add as many entry types as you can
Let’s take a look at the entry types available for free Gleam users.
Now let’s take at some useful entry types that require payment.
Important Note: Some important entry methods like Subscribe on YouTube, Follow on Instagram and Like on Facebook seem to have been removed from Gleam due to new policy updates from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
As you can see, Gleam allows you access to enough entry types on the free package to let you run a succesful giveaway in most cases, but the Hobby plan certainly gives you access to a lot more.
Running a Twitch Giveaway with SweepWidget
SweepWidget is a very similar service to Gleam, with some key differences. Like Gleam, SweepWidget has a free plan which allows you access to various different features and entry methods. If you are interested in upgrading your SweepWidget subscription, the cheapest way to do that is to pay $270 for the PRO plan, which lasts for one year.
Let’s take a look at what you get on the free plan with SweepWidget:
- Run unlimited giveaways
- Choose upto 5 winners for each giveaway
- Draw winners randomly
- Free giveaway landing page
- Over 20 different giveaway entry types
- Add up to 5 entry types per giveaway
Let’s take a look at the entry types available for free SweepWidget users.
Now let’s take at some useful entry types that require payment.
Important Note: Important entry methods like Subscribe on YouTube, Follow on Instagram and Like on Facebook seem to be included with SweepWidget PRO but missing from Gleam.
Running a Twitch Giveaway in Twitch Chat
Both Gleam and SweepWidget are great options for running a long-term, multi-entry giveaway across all your social media platforms. There are other options available though, especially if you want to keep the entirity of the giveaway within your Twitch chat. Popular tools that you may already be using as a Twitch streamer, like Moobot, Nightbot or Streamlabs all have their own giveaway tools built in. This allows you to setup your giveaway in a tool you’re already familiar with (and possibly already paying for) and manage it directly through Twitch.
This will allow your Twitch users to interact directly with the giveaway through Twitch chat. If you’re not interested in the other entry options, like YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, then running a Twitch giveaway with one of these tools is probably a better idea for you:
You may notice that many of the bigger streamers tend to use one of the above tools in chat when doing giveaways. The reason for this is that they often don’t need the extra entry options like follow on Twitch, or subscribe on YouTube, as they already have a big following on these platforms. So if you’re also not interested in the extra entry options you should consider doing the same.
Are giveaways on Twitch legal?
Running giveaways or raffles on Twitch (or anywhere else on the internet) does come with some legal boundaries that you need to know about, especially in the UK, US and Europe. The reality is if you stay within the boundaries and don’t do anything which is majorly frowned upon (for example, using tobacco or alcohol as the prize), then your giveaway will likely be completely fine. That said, let’s take a look at some of the legal requirements for your Twitch giveaway:
- If you’re running a raffle or giveaway with a random winner, there must be at least one method of entry which costs nothing. For example, if you run a giveaway and the only option to enter is to subscribe to your Twitch channel, that option requires a payment and therefor you’re technically not running a giveaway, you’re running a lottery.
- If you’re running a raffle or giveaway with a random winner, then there has to be no skill involved at all. For example, if you run a giveaway and the only entry option is to upload an image, which you are going to use to judge the winner, then you’re technically not running a giveaway, you’re running a contest.
- You cannot giveaway certain illegal goods, like tobacco and alcohol. This may apply to other items that are considered illegal in your own country.
- You must include straight-forward rules for your Twitch giveaway which are clear and understandable. If you decide to use Gleam or SweepWidget then their default terms and conditions should have you covered.
- The owner of the giveaway is responsible for making sure the winner gets their prizes. You need to put in the effort to make sure your prize is correctly sent out and recieved by your winner. If this doesn’t happen – you leave yourself open to legal trouble with your giveaway winners.
If you want to read more about the legal issues tied to running raffles and giveaways online, you can check out the following links:
- How to Run Legal Giveaways, Contests & Sweepstakes
- Giveaway laws in the UK: Hosting a legal successful online contest
- Are giveaways on Twitch legal?
Some Final Tips for a Succesful Twitch Giveaway
By now hopefuly you’ve hopefully decided on what prize you’re going to giveaway, which tool you’re going to use and how you’re going to do it. If that’s the case then here’s a final summary and some final tips on how to run a succesful giveaway on Twitch:
- Choose a prize that fits into your budget but also one that generates hype.
- Run your giveaways semi-regularly and make sure your viewers know in advance when it starts.
- Choose a tool that suits your needs. If you are looking to use the giveaway to grow your Twitch and YouTube numbers then consider using Gleam or SweepWidget.
- If you want to keep the giveaway simple and inside Twitch chat only, consider Moo Bot, Night Bot or Stream Labs.
- Try and choose the winner live on stream and make sure your viewers know when that is going to happen.
- When you do choose the winner, make sure and announce the winner on relevant social media platforms.
Run your Twitch Giveaway on your own Twitch Integrated Website
One thing you may see other popular Twitch streamers do is to use their own websites to promote their giveaway. Running your own website for your Twitch stream is a great way to take ownership of your content, that can include your giveaways, blog posts, VODS, YouTube content and more.
For streamers who want to set up their own online presence off Twitch without having to learn much about coding, StreamWeasels is an excellent solution. We can help you get set up with a simple WordPress website, and with our Twitch plugins for WordPress, you can embed your Twitch content in 3 simple steps. Proudly display your Twitch stream on your homepage and allow your users to easily find and discover your regular Twitch giveaways.
Our themes and plugins are already in use on more than 1000 Twitch websites, so why not join them?