Tbh I programmed myself to not look at viewer counts and to just constantly talk about random stuff ranging from the game I'm playing or something interesting I found online. If lurkers find it interesting they stick around and if they end up talking in chat even better so that a back and forth conversation can occur.

For my best tip for this is be yourself and don't worry about it too much

You made a mistake with looking at the viewer count. You are there to entertain people as much as possible so act every stream like theres people watching. I have my viewer count off since I started streaming 🤘