As a brand or business, it’s important to keep track of emerging social media platforms so you can take advantage of new avenues for audience engagement and maximize the visibility of your products and services. With over 140 million active users per month, Twitch is a great platform for brands to execute social media marketing strategies.
If you haven’t heard of or aren’t using Twitch for influencer marketing, then you’re in the right place. Below, we’ve created a simple guide to help your brand leverage influencer marketing on Twitch.
What is Twitch?
Twitch is a live streaming platform owned by Amazon where users can watch or host live broadcasts. Twitch is most popular among the gaming community, but as more users have flocked to the platform, the type of streamed content has diversified to include other niches. Streamers host talk shows, cook, play music, and share unique experiences (like skydiving) all in real-time.
Twitch stands out from other social media platforms that allow for live streams because its sole focus is live content and long-form streams (sometimes for 2+ hours). Users can come connect with their favorite Twitch influencers and watch content they’re interested in in the form of a live broadcast.
Understanding the Twitch Platform
How to Stream on Twitch
The process of starting a live stream on Twitch itself is fairly easy. Once you create an account, you start streaming by tapping the “Go Live” button in the top corner of your screen.
How to Host a Successful Twitch Stream:
- Make sure you have a strong internet connection to avoid lagging or low-quality video and audio.
- Consider using streaming software with unique features and customizations to elevate the experience for viewers.
- Streamers should interact with their viewers through the chat feature and talk during the stream to avoid awkward silence.
- Streamers should make sure their content is valuable and relevant to their audience.
- Streamers can customize their channels to make them stand out and create unique emojis, loyalty badges, and pop-ups to drive audience engagement (most of these features are available through streaming software).
What is Twitch Prime?
In 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch for $970 million. Twitch prime is a game-specific version of Amazon prime that offers exclusive benefits to subscribers like free Twitch TV and in-game assets along with all of the regular Amazon prime benefits.
What Does the Twitch Community Look Like?
Twitch fosters a sense of community among users and streamers by facilitating small-scale virtual meetups, hosting an annual convention called Twitch Con, and creating avenues for users to encourage and support their favorite Twitch influencers like Twitch Bits and streamer subscriptions.
What is a Twitch Influencer?
Twitch influencers are Twitch streamers who have amassed a large, engaged, and loyal following on the Twitch platform. Yes, they sound like other influencers! What makes Twitch influencers different is that they share content as a live stream and connect with their followings in real time through the platform.
What Makes a Good Twitch Influencer?
Twitch has their own parameters for defining Twitch Affiliates and Twitch Partners. As a brand, you don’t necessarily have to search for Twitch influencers according to Twitch’s requirements. Twitch Affiliate or Partner status are avenues for monetizing channels on the platform. Users don’t have to monetize their Twitch channels to execute effective influencer marketing campaigns.
An ideal Twitch influencer for your brand will stream content relevant to your brand or niche or relevant to your target audience, host a large following, and command a consistently high viewer count per stream.
How to Use Twitch Influencer Marketing
The purely live format of Twitch streaming creates a unique marketing opportunity for brands. Traditional social media marketing involves creators recording sponsored content, posting it, and then responding to their audience’s reactions after the initial promotion. There’s a barrier between influencers and consumers in this traditional campaign format that Twitch doesn’t have.
Live streams allow Twitch influencers and their audiences to engage in real-time via the Twitch chat feature. Both sides of the marketing initiative – representative and consumer – are actively engaged during a Twitch influencer marketing campaign. What makes this ideal for brands is that consumers can ask questions and get answers immediately. Eliminating confusion or uncertainty about a product on the spot can help consumers make a purchase decision faster. Plus, being able to engage directly with their preferred influencer about a product strengthens trust and allows the influencer to exercise their, well…influence!
How to Find the Right Twitch Influencer
To execute a successful Twitch influencer marketing campaign the first step is to find the right influencer for your brand. A few key factors to keep in mind as you build your campaign strategy is who you’ll actually reach through Twitch.
- 65% of Twitch users are men
- Of those male users, 41% are under the age of 25
- 23% of Twitch users are in the US (Twitch is an American platform)
- Twitch holds 73% of the market share for live stream gaming platforms
(Source: Stream Scheme)
Across the board, Twitch will put your brand in touch with a young demographic of men interested in gaming.
What If My Brand Has Nothing to do with Gaming?
With that being said, there are still those outstanding percentages to account for. Thankfully, Twitch continues to expand its content base to attract more users, which creates a wider variety of opportunities for non-gaming brands to reach consumers.
To start your Twitch influencer marketing search you need to consider:
- What your marketing goal is
- Who your target consumers are
- And what kind of live content they’d be interested in
For example, a company that sells cookware for busy moms is not going to sponsor a streamer who plays Fortnite (a game that appeals to a demographic of 16-24-year-old boys). That cookware company might look for streamers in the Hobbies & Crafts, Food & Drink, Just Chatting, or Talk Shows & Podcasts channels for potential partnerships.
Another option is to work with an influencer marketing agency like Sway Group who can show you targeted lists of Twitch influencers relevant to your niche. This would save you valuable time, and with Sway Group specifically, you can feel confident that the influencer’s engagement data is accurate and current and that you’re working with a vetted, high-quality Twitch influencer.
Creating a Successful Twitch Influencer Marketing Campaign
When creating a Twitch influencer marketing campaign, you’ll want to consider how live streaming factors into your product or service promotion. With traditional influencer marketing, brands have the opportunity to review content before it’s published and request any necessary revisions. With a live stream, you and your Twitch influencer have to be on the same page so that the live promotion is clear and effective as it is.
Here are a few ways to run a live promotion:
- Send influencers merchandise that they can unbox on screen
- Ask influencers to give live reviews or demonstrations of your products
- Have the influencer place your product or logo in the frame of their stream
- Use an influencer as an avenue to host a giveaway
- Create Successful Twitch Influencer Marketing Campaigns with Sway Group
Partnering with the right Twitch influencer can bolster your brand and increase the visibility of your products and services.
Sway Group has been facilitating highly-effective influencer-brand partnerships for over a decade. We are ready to help you find the best Twitch influencer for your brand needs and assemble a successful Twitch influencer marketing strategy for your products and services. Connect with us today!
