If you are grinding for Twitch Affiliate, or are just looking to grow your following on Twitch, you may have considered doing a follow for follow (F4F) with other Twitch streamers to help you reach your goals? But is follow for follow allowed and is it worth it?
Is Follow For Follow Allowed On Twitch ?
Follow for follow is considered “fake engagement” on Twitch and is against Twitch’s terms of service. Twitch has even said that “participating in or organizing these activities may lead to the suspension of your Twitch account.” If two people are to follow each other it must occur organically.
What I mean by organically is if you hop on a stream and follow a streamer, and then they think you are cool and so they hop on your stream and follow you back, then you are fine. It wasn’t planned and you both didn’t conspire or agree to follow each other.
But if you or someone else sets up a Discord, or creates a Twitter account specifically for the purpose of doing a follow for follow on Twitch, then you could be in some trouble.
Twitch just wants to make sure that the engagements on their platform are legit and that people aren’t using techniques such as follow for follow to inflate their numbers.
Follow for follow is also bad for streamers because it creates fake numbers for your stream, but I will touch on that more below.
For now I want to explain what exactly follow for follow on Twitch is.
What Is Follow For Follow On Twitch ?
Follow for follow, or F4F, on Twitch is following another user with a mutual understanding that the user will then follow your channel in return. It is basically exchanging your follow on their channel for their follow on your channel.
Like I already touched on, if you and another user like each others content and choose to follow each other then no harm no foul. Follow for follow only describes those who follow each other intentionally to increase follower count.
Here is a quick video on how I gained 50+ followers on Twitch in just one week.
Another thing that people on Twitch use to increase follower count are follow bots.
What Are Follow Bots On Twitch ?
Follow bots on Twitch are bots that have been designed to continuously create fake Twitch accounts to then follow certain Twitch channels. These bots are often created or purchased to help inflate the number of followers on a certain channel or to harass another channel by spamming follows.
Are Follow Bots Allowed On Twitch ?
Follow bots, view bots or any other form of “fake engagement” is not allowed on Twitch and any user who uses follow bots or view bots runs the risk of having their Twitch account suspended or even banned.
However, if someone is follow botting your channel don’t worry, you won’t get in trouble. As long as you are not in on in then you are good.
Twitch has made it clear that they know that follow botting and view botting occurs and that they will not hold a streamer accountable for something that they did not participate in.
If you have been follow botted, or are aware of a user who is follow or view botting, you can report them to Twitch by following the steps here.
My own Twitch channel was follow botted once and it was horrible. I ended up having to turn off all of my alerts and stopped giving shout outs to new followers because it was hard for me to tell which accounts were legit and which were just follow bots.
I didn’t get in trouble from Twitch though, obviously, because I had nothing to do with it.
Unfortunately, users use follow bots to target and harass channels. If this happens to you just remain calm and do your best to not let it get to you. Turn off alerts if needs be.
And on a positive note Twitch will usually go through and delete these “bot” accounts in time. It may not be right away though so don’t be alarmed if your numbers stay inflated for a bit after being botted.
Now you may be tempted to use these bots temporarily to give your channel a boost, but let me explain why fake engagement is never a good idea.
Is Follow For Follow Or Follow Bots On Twitch Worth It?
Follow for follow, follow bots and all other forms of fake engagement on Twitch are not worth it. Participating in these things can get your Twitch account suspended or banned as they are against Twitch’s terms of service. You may see short term growth, but it is not worth the risk in the long run.
When you do things that could you in trouble on Twitch you have to really ask if these short term wins are worth it in the long run.
If you plan to make something out of streaming does it make sense to get banned from one of the largest live streaming platforms in the world? I would argue it is definitely not worth the risk.
Not to mention what is the point of getting fake follows and fake views? Since they are just fake bots they won’t be typing in your chat, they won’t be subbing, they won’t be doing anything so why have them around?
Doing these kinds of shady tactics may give you small time wins in the beginning, but in the long run I really think you will be doing more harm than good to your stream by participating in these shady tactics.
Put in the work and grow organically and then you will be much more likely to have steady, long term success as a streamer.
In the next section I will talk more about how to do this.
How To Get More Followers On Twitch The Right Way
The 5 best tips I would recommend for getting more followers on Twitch are:
- Create a Youtube Channel and drive your viewers from Youtube to your Twitch channel.
- Create Social medias (in particular Twitter) and drive those users to your Twitch channel.
- Visit the streams and be active in the chats of other smaller streamers.
- Be active in Discord.
- Be consistent.
This is my brief list and the tips that I find most helpful for gaining more followers on Twitch. For my complete list to getting more followers on Twitch you can check out my article here.
If you need help following and unfollowing someone on Twitch you can check out my article here. And if you are looking how to get to Twitch affiliate fast then check out this article here.
For even more streaming tips and how-to content check out my Youtube channel here. And if you want to check out my streams then stop by my Twitch channel here.
Eric streams 3 days a week on Twitch and uploads weekly to Youtube under the moniker, StreamersPlaybook. He loves gaming, PCs, and anything else related to tech. He’s the founder of the website StreamersPlaybook and loves helping people answer their streaming, gaming, and PC questions.