38 fun things to do on a live stream

If you want the popularity of your live streams to grow, you have to engage your audience. Your viewers are more than just viewers — they’re a community. Interacting with your community is a must if you want to connect with your viewers.

Think about your favorite broadcasters. Why do you always return to their channels? You like something they do, how they look, how they behave, or what they say and how they say it. They’re charismatic, humorous or just downright entertaining. So if you want a loyal audience that subscribes and tunes in each time you go live, do the same as your favorite streamers — be more entertaining!

Easier said than done, right? But not to worry; we’ve come up with some excellent ideas for fun things to do on a live stream to help you out.

Top-notch fun live stream ideas

1. Go shopping with your viewers. Do a live shopping stream; you can talk about your favorite products and show your viewers where to buy them. If you sell your own products, you can demo those and add a QR code link to them on your stream so viewers can buy.
2. Show off your streaming setup. A sneak peek at your setup and the equipment you use will help your audience get to know you better. It also provides your viewers with some useful live streaming insights. Fans who’ve learned something always come back for more, don’t they?
3. Organize a Q&A session. A Q&A stream boosts interaction, draws more people in, and helps your viewers connect to you more personally. In today’s world, people appreciate authenticity. Either write some questions beforehand or ask viewers to send questions via chat.
4. Do a house or studio tour. You’re building a relationship with viewers. A live home or studio tour is fun and offers a look into who you are. Just be sure not to give any info away about your address or let people find your physical location. Safety is important!
5. Share your expertise. Whether you’ve got great tips on setting up audio for live streaming or you want to share your experience with stream scheduling and brand collaborations, your viewers will love to learn. You can even do a screenshare tutorial if it’s something software-related, like how you create streaming overlays or tips for moderating your live chat. Harris Heller is an excellent example of how it’s done.
6. Newsjacking is an awesome way to jump up in viewer ratings and enjoy more publicity. Connecting to a trendy news story isn’t super original, but it’s a very effective way to amp up views on your streams. TWiT does it well on their Twitch channel.
7. Have a special guest appearance. Invite an influencer or colleague for a live interview. Do a Q&A, AMA, game or just have a friendly chat. Interviews liven up your streaming sessions and let you tap into your guests’ audience as well as your own. An amazing example of engaging interviews is Joe Rogan’s podcast.
8. Share your thoughts on an event in the live streaming industry, then invite your audience to participate in a poll on the topic. Polling gives your audience a chance to weigh in and feel included in the stream.
9. Plan a spontaneous live session. Scheduling streams is important, but being spontaneous from time to time may bring you a bunch of new viewers. Go live during a popular time of day with an interesting piece of content and you might be surprised at the engagement you get.
10. A quiz will get your audience thinking. People love taking quizzes — especially in real time. You can do a “guess that tune” quiz: play clips from songs and see if your audience knows the name of the song and the artist. You can do the same with movies too.
11. Arrange a challenge or bet. There are countless fun challenges out there for you or your viewers to do. Try something like what MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) once did. People love challenges, and the sillier, the better!
12. Cook your favorite dish. Wouldn’t it be fun to demonstrate your cooking and eating skills? A live stream dedicated to eating and interacting with the audience actually has a name. It’s called a mukbang, made popular in South Korea. Show your audience how to prepare a dish, then eat it together!
13. Eat sour candies live. Have you ever watched one of those “trying sour jelly beans live” videos? They’re hilarious, and all you need to pull it off is a packet of candy. A more general version of this activity could be picking up the most random or oddest foods you can find at the grocery store and sampling them live for your viewers!
14. Talking to your viewers may be as much fun as challenging them. Ask them (and yourself) open-ended and thought-provoking questions like “What would I advise my younger self?” With this type of content, you can get an interesting and in-depth conversation going with your viewers.
15. Take your viewers out. Head out to your favorite coffee shop, hit up a local street concert, make your way through a farmer’s market, or do whatever it is you like to when you go out. Audiences love to see parts of your real life, which is what makes IRL streaming so appealing.
16. Do a live stream fundraiser. Going live to raise money for a cause you care about will attract others who are interested in the same cause and may get you some new loyal viewers. You can add donation links as QR codes on your stream so it’s easy for viewers to donate.
17. Performing a talent on a live stream is hugely popular among live stream hosts in China, with some of them making up to $40 million per year doing so. And you don’t have to know how to sing or play an instrument to entertain people. Whatever talents make your real-life friends happy are sure to please your virtual audience too!
18. Arrange a flash sale. Do you have merch? You can promote it and sell it at a live flash sale and use QR codes to easily display links to it. It may sound gimmicky, but it works. If you have high-quality merch or products you’ve worked hard to develop, then why not? It’s not like you’re selling your bathwater or anything.
19. Play dress-up or cosplay on your stream. How fun would it be to dress up as your favorite movie character? Make it interactive by challenging your viewers to copy your look and send pictures during your next stream.
20. Host a giveaway contest. Live contests are an exciting way to boost views and add subscribers. People love competing in giveaways, and they love receiving prizes even more. This kind of event helps your live stream get noticed — especially if you leverage your social media to spread the word.
21. Guide viewers through a meditation session. Do you use mindfulness and meditation in your daily life? Then share it with your viewers! After the session is over, you can ask viewers to let you know their thoughts.
22. Get crafty. Arts and crafts are the perfect activity for a live stream, whether you’re doing a tutorial or just letting viewers watch as you work. Show your audience how to make cute crafts for an upcoming holiday, or challenge yourself to craft something unique out of random materials. If you do your art stream with Restream Studio, you can even set up multiple cameras so you can capture more than one angle.
23. Lead a workout session. Live streaming doesn’t have to be sedentary. Get up and get moving, and encourage your viewers to do the same. Come up with your own routine, or teach a dance lesson! There are plenty of ways to get active and have fun with your audience. You can even set up a virtual background for your fitness stream using a green screen and the chroma key feature that’s available in Restream’s live streaming studio.
24. Introduce your pets. People love animals. If you have a pet cat, dog, hamster, lizard or anything else, introduce them to your streaming audience. They’ll love seeing your animal and getting to know a little more about you.
25. Try a new recipe. It can be a fun recipe or a serious one. Pick a dish, buy the ingredients, set up a camera and mic in your kitchen and then let the magic happen. Better yet, ask your viewers to choose a recipe for you.
26. Play a game with your audience. You don’t have to be a video game streamer to play games. You can play a trivia game, a simple web-based game or even a virtual card game with your viewers. Choose a game that they can easily access at home for free.
27. Have your audience design your merch. If you don’t already have a line of merch to support your brand, design it on-stream with your viewers. Set up polls to ask which colors they prefer or open it up to the chat for design ideas. They’ll be more likely to purchase it if they helped design it too.
28. Talk about your hobbies, favorite music, favorite movies, etc. If you don’t often talk about yourself, try it. Your regular viewers will appreciate hearing about what you like. You can also ask your audience what their favorites are. You might just find someone else who secretly loves the original Top Gun movie as much as you.
29. Do a themed stream. Ask your audience to vote on a theme such as “Under the Sea” or “90s Disney” or something you think your audience would find relevant and interesting. You can poll your audience to choose the theme for your next stream, or run a poll on your social media channels. If you go live with Restream Studio, you can easily customize your stream to your chosen theme by uploading your own graphics, like overlays, backgrounds, captions and more.
30. Unbox a product live. Choose a product from a company you love or one of your own products and unbox it for your fans. Give your opinion of it and even include a link where your viewers can buy it using a QR code.
31. Do live truth or dare. Play “Truth or Dare” with your chat participants. Ask them to send you dares or questions in the live chat and do or answer them on the stream.
32. Rank things with your viewers. Choose a category like movies, books, TV shows, foods or something relevant to your audience and make a “Top 10” list for it. You can have a pre-made list of movies, for example, and then rank them together in the chat.
33. Answer random questions. Use an online random question generator and answer the questions live for your audience. Also, have viewers type their answers in the chat.
34. Draw your viewers. Have some of your viewers submit photos of themselves before the stream and then try to draw them live on your broadcast. You can also ask your viewers to draw you and send you a photo of their creations.
35. Take requests from viewers. Ask your audience to suggest topics to talk about or things to do on your stream. Keep it simple by choosing a theme or particular product. You could ask them to suggest software for you to try out, or certain foods to try, for example.
36. Have viewers call in live. See if any of your audience members want to appear on the stream to answer questions, do a short interview or do a challenge with you. If you go live with Restream Studio, you can easily invite people onto your stream by sending them a link. They can join via their web browser and all they need is a camera and microphone.
37. Play videos from your viewers. Ask your audience to film videos you can share on your stream and have them send them to you before the broadcast starts. Then, play them on-stream and give the person a shoutout. The videos could be of them completing a challenge, answering a specific question or something completely random. When you use Restream Studio to go live, you can easily play local videos from your computer on your stream.
38. Do a live reaction video. Choose a popular video, article, TV show or other piece of content and then give your reaction to it live on your broadcast. The more provoking the original piece of content is, the better.

To be a good host, you not only need great content ideas, but you should also be generally pleasant and entertaining to watch. You can also boost your live streaming efforts with multistreaming. Broadcast your fun, interactive live stream on multiple channels when you go live using Restream. You can choose from over 30 social channels like YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook and more to stream to.

Now that we know what to do on a live stream, let’s discuss some things you should not do.

What to avoid when live streaming

A few things that may turn off your audience are:

• Alcohol consumption. Consuming alcohol live is usually never a good idea. Even if you do not get a penalty from the streaming platform, you still risk embarrassing yourself in front of your crowd while intoxicated.
• Spamming your streaming URL into somebody else’s community! Shamelessly promoting yourself on another streamer’s channel is extremely bad etiquette and will not entice viewers to come watch your stream.
• Keeping silent during your stream. A quiet stream is like a nightmare on Twitch. Imagine sitting there for three hours straight with only ten whole words to say!
• Leaving for long periods of time during your scheduled live stream. You’re scheduled to go live, so stay in front of your camera almost the entire time. If you get up and leave, people will not tune into your stream next time.
• Arranging events, quizzes, talent shows, etc. without preparation. If you don’t have time to prepare, pick an easier activity.
• Bitter talk. Some people like to gossip, but if it is too much and becomes toxic, viewers will leave.
• Copying somebody else’s style. Viewers will notice instantly, and they will call you out on it.

Most streaming platforms also mention prohibited activities on live streams.

Let’s wrap up

There are plenty more fun things to do on a live stream — this list is just the beginning! The more you stream and engage with your community, the easier the ideas will come. But it pays to break out of your comfort zone every once in a while.
By choosing to branch out and spice things up for your viewers, you’re adding value to your content. A streaming software like Restream can help you make your stream more interactive with lots of customization features, as well as broadcasting to multiple platforms at once thanks to multistreaming.