Here are the nine best ways to support a streamer on Twitch and help take their channel to the next level.

Follow Streamers You Like

One of the easiest ways to show support for your favorite Twitch streamer is to simply follow them. Create a free Twitch account and click the purple heart Follow button on a streamer’s page to add them to your Followed Channels. Following ensures that you’re alerted of future streams; it also helps build up the channel’s follower count, increasing the odds of getting promoted to Affiliate or Partner status, which would gain the streamer more exposure and additional revenue options.

Subscribe to Twitch Partners and Affiliates

If your favorite streamer is already a Twitch Partner or Affiliate, consider subscribing to their channel. Twitch subscriptions are recurring monthly donations. They are one of the most effective ways to help a streamer pay for their gaming expenses or even transition to streaming full time. Depending on the channel, there may be several payment options to choose from; subscribers are often rewarded with exclusive digital items and an elite status in the channel’s chat. Subscriptions can be initiated by clicking on the Subscribe button on the channel’s desktop page.

Buy Some Cheers

Ever wonder about those special animated crystal alerts that pop up during a Twitch stream? They’re called cheers, and in addition to looking cool they support streamers. Anyone can buy these cheers via the Twitch website. Once they’re added to your account, you can use them in a Twitch chat by typing cheer and the number of cheers you want to use. For example, cheer10 would use 10 cheers while cheer2500 would use 2,500. A Twitch streamer will earn $1 for every 100 cheers used.

Make a Donation

Donations are a fast and easy way to give a Twitch streamer a one-off injection of cash that could go towards a specific donation goal like a new computer or can simply be a way for a viewer to show appreciation. One of the benefits of donating to a streamer is that all of your payment (after transaction fees) goes to the recipient. Twitch usually takes a cut of the money made from subscriptions and cheers. Donations can be made in a variety of ways, however each streamer will likely specify which method they prefer. Some donation methods include PayPal, Bitcoin, or a special third-party donation service.

Buy Twitch Streamer Merch

More and more Twitch streamers are creating their own merchandise to help promote their channels and earn some extra income. Examples of streamer merchandise include official t-shirts with their name or artwork on it, mugs, mousepads, and hoodies. Official streamer merchandise, if it exists, will often be promoted within a streamer’s Twitch profile and during a stream via special promotional graphics on the layout overlay.

Share Your Favorites on Social Media

Any Twitch streamers who are serious about growing their channel will also have accounts on social networks such as Twitter or Facebook, which they use to announce livestreams and promote themselves. If you want to help your favorite streamers, track down their social media accounts, which are usually linked to from their Twitch profile or promoted during their streams, and follow them. On Twitter, you can retweet their stream announcements, and on Facebook you can invite friends to like their page.

Auto Host Twitch Streamers

Do you have a good number of Twitch followers or friends? Why not add your favorite streamer to your Auto Host list to give it some free promotion? Once you turn on Auto Hosting in your Twitch Channel Settings, any time someone on your list begins streaming while you’re not streaming, your channel will play their stream and encourage viewers to follow them. What’s particularly great about this form of support is that once it’s activated, you don’t have to be online for it to work. It’s fully automated.

Be Active in the Twitch Chat

When considering channels to promote to partner or affiliate status, Twitch takes into account not just follower numbers but activity and engagement within the Twitch chat. A stream can have over a hundred people watching, but if no one’s using the chat then it looks like the streamer isn’t entertaining or being professional. This means that it’s not enough to watch your favorite streamer if you want them to be promoted. You need to be active in their chat during their streams. Some ways to be active include asking the streamer questions, having conversations with other viewers, or even just spamming it with emoticons and cheers (probably the only social network which encourages this). A nice side effect of this is that the streamer will get to know you better and might invite you to play a game together sometime.