What is a Twitch Raid?
Twitch raids are a way to send your viewers and community over to another streamer while they are still live. They're a powerful networking tool for any streamer, even those who aren’t Twitch Affiliates or Partners, as they can help you connect with other creators on the platform. Imagine the exciting collaborations and new friendships that could emerge from such interactions!
How Does a Twitch Raid Work?
A Twitch raid sends all the viewers connected to your chat to the recipient channel at the time of the raid.
Raids can be started from mobile or desktop. To start a raid, all you need to do is type in /raid followed by the name of the channel you wish to raid. For example, if you wanted to raid AllCreatorTools, you would type in /raid AllCreatorTools and hit send.
If you aren’t sure who to raid, you can always check the Raid Browser. The Raid Browser brings up a list of suggested channels for you to raid in your creator dashboard. You can also type in /raidbrowser in the Twitch chat to bring up the same menu. The Raid Browser is not available on the Twitch app.
Once you initiate the raid command, a pop-up message with the number of participants will appear at the top of your chat, and a countdown will begin until the raid can start. Viewers can also choose to opt out of the raid if they wish. After 10 seconds, the raid will be ready to go, and all you need to do is wait until everyone is ready, prepare a raid message if you have one, and then click Raid Now to redirect everyone from your channel. The raid will automatically continue if the Cancel or Raid Now button isn’t pressed within the purple countdown bar at the bottom.
When a channel is raided, a message in chat will notify everyone in the raid target channel about the raid and how many viewers have come from the participating channel. The broadcaster can also see it in their Activity Feed.
How to Choose Someone to Raid
As we said before, you can raid people via the command, and it’s much faster if you already know the name of the streamer you wish to raid. You simply type /raid followed by their username, and the raid will start.
If you choose the Raid Browser, you will see a few parameters to choose from when filtering. The Quick Filters at the top of the screen will allow you to filter out live streamers you are following, those in the same category, or those with an event going on.
With this menu up, you can scroll through all the current live creators. It will show a thumbnail of their stream, what they’re streaming, how long they have been streaming for, the game, tags, and any special events they have on, such as a Hype Train, Drops Enabled, or anything else that would be considered a special event.
You can also sort the results by:
- For You (Default)
- Viewers (low to high)
- Viewers (high to low)
- Channel Name (A to Z)
- Uptime (low to high)
Before clicking Start Raid, you can preview the stream.
Then, when you are ready and everyone in the chat is prepared, you can hit the Start Raid button and send your community to your raid target to finish your stream.
Now that you have raided someone, here’s a little about raiding etiquette for those new to raiding:
- Don’t enter chat spamming with all capital letters, as it could be flagged on the streamer's chatbot and get you timed out.
- Don’t promote yourself in someone else's raids.
- Don’t just follow for the sake of following. Only follow if you enjoy the content.
- Don’t post links, and respect the streamer's rules.
- Introduce yourself to chat.
- Make sure to follow the streamer and interact if you enjoy their content
- Don’t just talk to the community you came with; try to speak to the streamer and their chat, too.
- Follow the streamer's rules, as they will differ from the streamer you came from.