Ever since the launch of multiple online streaming websites, getting good viewer retention has gotten progressively difficult. You need to hold occasional activities as a pace changer in order to stand out. This is where Subathons come into play – you get to entertain your viewers while gaining a multitude of subs through your goal hijinks.
Having fun and interesting ideas is a must since boring goals aren’t a good enough incentive to make people subscribe. While eating chili peppers or doing an ice bucket challenge might sound mildly entertaining, it’s better to do something that makes people believe they have control over the stream.
That being said, let’s dive headfirst into the 15 subathon goal ideas that make you stand out from the rest.
15 Subathon Goal Ideas
We’ve made a curated list of 15 subathon goal ideas you can implement in order to make the event more iconic for your viewers. Since a good subathon equates to a higher subscriber yield, it’s recommended that you pay close attention to the ideas mentioned below:
Silly Cosplays
Viewers love seeing streamers look silly. Therefore, what better way to appeal to their fantasies than donning an embarrassing or silly outfit for the rest of the stream? You can choose to wear proactive cosplays or you can wear something straight out of a children’s comedy show.
If being comedic is your strong suit then you can even try to keep the costume up for a week. Being unique will give you an edge over your competitors, so make sure to milk such ideas as much as possible.
Since you are essentially creating ‘content’, the goal does not seem that unattainable.
You may also be interested in How To Set Up A Subathon!
On-Stream Dancing Sessions
Dancing is a great outlet for self-expression. It helps you bond with your viewers while boosting your self-confidence. Furthermore, you can choose the song you want to dance to. For example, a Final Fantasy streamer might choreograph a dance on Aerith’s theme while a League of Legends player might be more interested in a Worlds opening song.
Ultimately, it’s a good way of connecting with your viewers on the games or shows you love. Plus, they get to see you doing something silly again, so more added subscribers for your channel.
Co-Op With Subscribers
Any fan would want to play at least one game with their favorite streamer. You can help in fulfilling their dream by making this a subathon goal. You can play your most-streamed games with them, but if you don’t stream video games then consider playing multiplayer drawing games to keep your viewers engaged.
Consequently, the genre can also be related to a mystery where your stream can help you in solving multiple riddles and vice versa. Of course, you can even add bets on the line. For example, every time you die, you gift a sub to your stream.
As long as your viewers are feeling the tension with you, you’re good to go!
Do Giveaways
It’s really important to give back to the community when it comes to having a successful streaming career. This is where the giveaways come in handy. However, you don’t have to give anything too out of your pocket since it is the sentiment that matters more than the actual gift.
That being said, you still need to scale the gift’s value according to your channel’s growth. Imagine Ninja giving out gift cards at his subathons. It would feel underwhelming, wouldn’t it? However, a small streamer doing the same wouldn’t feel too out of the place.
Therefore, scale your gift according to your fanbase. You could theoretically get out by giving your merch away to a selective few subscribers. Whatever you decide to give away at the end, make sure it’s worth remembering.
Sabotage Your In-Game Controls
Have a gaming session where every milestone will sap away a keybind from you. This game devolves really quickly. Therefore, you and your viewers are bound to have a fun time while watching you struggle at defeating Margit from Elden Ring without the attack keybind.
That being said, make sure to retain the basic functionality unless you want to loose all your movement mechanics early on. Consequently, this challenge is supposed to get progressively difficult so you better put your best performance while you still can.
Do A Group Karaoke
As mentioned, music is a great way to bond with people. Furthermore, the advancements in technology has made online karaoke far easier than you might think. Simply use your streaming microphone and play some good music.
That being said, karaoke is best enjoyed with lots of people. Therefore, you can invite some of your subscribers for a group karaoke session. You can use your computer screen to display the lyrics and have the viewers sing along with you to create a good harmony.
Play Party/Horror Games
Playing reaction inducing games is always a great entertainment factor for viewers. There is nothing better than seeing your favorite streamer getting spooked. Therefore a plethora of these games out there and most of them are shiver inducing enough to make you scream.
Consequently, trivia and online board games can also help in engaging your audience. They are tough to solve, but extremely entertaining to play. Plus, they are a great substitute if you can’t handle horror games.
Make sure to pick a game that’s fun to watch. No ones gonna enjoy you playing shogi in contrast to something like a card game and vice versa.
Add New Emotes To Your Channel
Stream chats yearn for emotes no matter the occasion. It’s their tendency to spam as much emotes as possible. Therefore, any new editions are always welcome since they just give your viewers another jpeg to remember you by.
Emotes like the Kappa and Pepelaugh are good, but a customized emote is often a better option. This is because it helps you brand yourself and it gives an exclusive token to your followers that isn’t used anywhere else.
Therefore, it’s a great goal/milestone to go for since it will cater to a much wider audience than one might think.
Do Influencer Impersonations
As the name suggests, you will be trying to imitate certain personalities. While your impersonations might not be the most accurate ones, they will surely give your viewers something more to remember you by. That being said, you better practice some impressions beforehand to lessen the chances of utterly failing live.
Nonetheless, it’s an easy goal to go for and provides enough of a stimulus for the stream to continue being entertaining. Who knows, you might just discover a new hidden talent for yourself.
Cooking On-Stream
Streamers are usually well-reputed for their disastrous cooking skills. The cooking-focused streaming channels usually have a professional level production quality that is better suited for individuals that are genuinely trying to learn. Therefore, mixing some light hearted comedy with some shaky cooking skills is a great way of being unique yet entertaining.
If you are able to make people laugh and make them have a good time watching your stream then it is all very worth it. Plus, a lot of people seem to enjoy cooking channels, so you’ll be checking out an untapped territory that might help your channel grow in the future.
Have A Story-Time Session
People enjoy listening and gossiping about personal stories that seem to comical to be true. Therefore, you can make a list of such experiences for this goal and reveal them once the milestone has been hit. You don’t have to go for anything too spicy or personal, but just keep it informal enough to make it feel like your viewers are listening from a friend.
With that said, such sessions strengthen the bonds between a streamer and their community and allow you to establish a better likeability factor for anyone who watches your streams.
We recommend you refrain from sharing anything to personal just for the sake of safety as it can usually bite you in the back.
Dye Your Hair
Extreme goals tend to have a better chance of fulfillment just because of the fact that they’re unnecessarily daring. Dying your hair can provide just the stimulus your subathon needs. Plus, you’re getting a more colorful look at the end, so there is nothing to loose here.
However, you don’t need to get crazy with your own hair. Therefore, brace yourself for mistakes. We recommend keeping it simple yet stylish. So if anything goes awry, you don’t have to pay more than what you brgained for.
Do Special Shoutouts
While a streamer creates a community, it’s the community that gives to the streamer. Therefore, it’s a good idea to show your appreciation towards it. However, most channels have a viewer count topping thousands, so it might be impossible to do a shoutout for every single one of them.
With that being said, you can go for top 10s or top 100s instead. For example, you might give a shoutout to the top 10 highest donators of your stream. Weave in a special gesture to properly showcase your appreciation towards them.
Consequently, you could also pick random names and give them a shoutout if you want to be more discrete. As you might expect, it’s your channel, so the choice is upto you.
Fundraiser
A fundraiser is a good method of raising awareness and helping others out. You can set certain goals for donations where you try to match the donations done by the community. For example, you could donate $250 for every 200 subs and so on. It’s for a good cause and gives a big enough incentive for your viewers to actively participate.
That being said, matching donations in fundraiser is bound to drain your wallet quickly. Therefore, don’t set unattainable goals and make your viewers feel like they’ve achieved something at the end of the final goal.
Moreover, you can let the community decide which fund to donate to. Doing such fundraisers with your influence is always nice.
Speedrunning
As far as unattainability is concerned, you can try to speedrun community voted games. For those unknown to the term, speerdrunning essentially means that you try to clear a certain game or a level as fast as possible. While the concept is simple, it’s implementation can be nightmare fuel for you, but peak entertainment for your viewers.
Consequently, you can deliberately pick a harder game if you’re fairly confident in your skills. This goal can help you flaunt your mastery while also making your fans feel the tension with you.
However, getting stuck at the very first level for hours is a no-go. Therefore, make sure to pick games that you’re confident in. Otherwise, there is no point.
Wrapping Up
All in all, you should aim to head into the subathon with a concrete plan. This is because on-the-fly decisions are risky and can reduce the quality of the event in most cases. As for the subathon goal ideas, we’re sure you’ve found the ones you like by now. Try them and let us know how your streaming subathon went in the comments below!
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