Twitch is home to influencers who share live-streamed video content with their online fan base. Viewers can tune in to watch influencers doing activities such as gaming, cooking, and crafting. With Twitch viewers in the US expected to grow from 44 million in 2021 to 51.6 million by 2024, it isn’t surprising to see brands of all shapes and sizes testing this strategy and platform.
Why use Twitch?
Live video boasts some of the highest viewer engagement. This is in part due to the niche interests available on the platform. Features such as ‘live chat’ allow the audience to interact directly with streamers in real-time, helping influencers to build rapport with their subscribers and drive even more engagement. Twitch provides users with experiences that are truly unique to the platform. Watching several hours of live-streamed content, seeing your favorite streamer navigate challenging game-play, and being able to share in their successes and failures, builds a strong connection between subscribers and streamers and helps the platform to thrive.
The combination of a highly engaged and growing audience plus innovative content formats makes this a great platform for brands to leverage in their campaigns. If you want to get started working with Twitch influencers, then look no further! We’ll explore how to choose the best Twitch influencers for your brand, how to run a Twitch campaign, plus download our free Twitch campaign checklist!
Twitch influencers’ audience
Before getting started with Twitch influencers, you want to be sure that the platform is a good fit for your brand. Twitch has become synonymous with online gaming and esports, which generally appeal to a largely male audience, and that’s no different on Twitch, where the majority of users are male (at least 65%). The platform is also most popular with young streamers, as according to Twitch 55% of the audience is aged between 18-34, with 14% aged between 13-17, showing the huge potential for brands to reach a Gen Z audience. If your brand can appeal to a young, mostly male audience then Twitch is definitely a great platform for you. But don’t be put off if your brand doesn’t fit neatly in the gaming niche, many non-endemic brands have found success with Twitch too. Food, drink, and tech brands have been able to secure partnerships with Twitch influencers, it’s simply a question of getting creative!
Understanding Twitch influencers’ performance metrics – A Glossary
When selecting Twitch influencers, you should make sure they have a strong performance and a valuable reach for your brand. Understanding the viewership and engagement figures will help you along the way in selecting which influencers to work with. Twitch metrics are a completely different world to the ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ measured on Facebook and Instagram, so let’s go over the main ways to measure the performance of Twitch streamers.
- Followers
The number of users following a particular Twitch account. The higher the number of followers, the larger the Twitch streamer’s audience.
- Live views
The number of live views in real-time during a live-stream.
- Unique viewer peak
The highest number of concurrent viewers of a live-stream over a set period.
- Concurrent viewership (CCV) / Average Concurrent Viewers
The number of simultaneous viewers of a live-stream. The average is calculated by adding up the minute-by-minute concurrent viewership and dividing by the total stream duration over a set period.
- Impressions
The number of times a piece of content was displayed to users.
- Unique chatters
The number of unique viewers who used the live chat during a selected time period.
- Keyword mentions
The number of times a keyword or brand name was typed into the live chat during a selected time period.
- Sentiment
Interpretation of emotions expressed in the Twitch live chat as positive or negative using textual data analysis.
Types of Twitch Campaigns
Twitch can be leveraged for several different types of campaigns that capitalize on its long-form video format to promote brand messages and drive sales. Take a look at the selection of campaigns below for ideas on the type of activations that will work for your brand.
Unboxing
This type of campaign works well for brands looking to promote a particular line of products. Gaming brands can send influencers a complimentary piece of new gaming equipment and have the influencers film the unboxing of their new equipment in a live-stream to their audience. Unboxing campaigns generate excitement about a new product launch giving fans a chance to see the product up close and see what the best features are and how easy it is to set up. Gaming computer brand, Micro Center ran a successful Twitch unboxing campaign with Upfluence to drive sales of their new MainGear Vibe 2 computer.
Channel sponsorship
This type of brand partnership takes the form of traditional sponsorship where the streamer will have branded visuals and banners on their channel page and visible during a live-stream. They might even agree to make brand mentions during the stream or in the live chat, in return for monetary compensation. With more money to invest in their streaming setup, it helps smaller influencers become more professional and attract a bigger audience. A win-win for both brands and streamers!
Giveaway/discount code
Here’s an example of how non-endemic brands can partner with influencers to boost sales in a fun and creative way. Fast food, convenient eating, and speedy ordering are pretty appealing to gamers! That’s why Wendy’s and Uber Eats teamed up to drive sales of a specially curated menu with the help of 5 top Twitch streamers. The ‘Never Stop Gaming Menu’ campaign was a unique menu of 5 Wendy’s meals created by a selection of popular streamers: TFUE, FLIGHT, itsHafu, xChocoBars, and Myth, only available for order during the 5-day campaign in December 2020. The streamers encouraged their audience to order their signature meal and offered them the chance to win Wendy’s discount codes during their video game streams that took place during the event. The campaign benefitted the streamers who could reward their followers with discount codes, whilst Wendy’s had a unique and instantly popular new menu to sell thanks to the seal of approval from top influencers.
Planning Twitch campaigns
Now you’ve got some idea of what a Twitch influencer campaign might look like, it’s time to get practical with planning! As Twitch campaigns are based around influencers sharing live content, it’s important that early steps in the campaign such as influencer onboarding are done well, as the campaign content will be produced live, without an opportunity for brands to intervene.
We’ve outlined the key steps in our Twitch influencer campaign checklist, taking you through all the key steps in preparation for your first campaign.
Influencer campaign checklist for Twitch
Pre-campaign:
- List of campaign goals – Share with your team and be prepared to share them with the influencers too.
- Campaign brief – Detail the scope of your campaign and include information about your brand and key dates.
- Influence selection criteria – Consider the location, age, gender, and niche of your Twitch influencers. Look at KPIs such as the average concurrent viewers, total views and impressions.
- Influencer contract – Decide whether you will compensate your influencers with free products, payment, or a mix of both.
- Influencer onboarding – Communicate your brand values and any dos and don’ts to your influencers to ensure live video content will serve your brand.
During the campaign:
- Promote and amplify the campaign on brand social media channels.
Post-Campaign:
- Analyze influencer performance according to Twitch KPIs to measure the success of the campaign.
- Make payments to your influencers and share feedback. Consider which relationships to nurture for future campaigns.
- Repurpose video clips, quotes, and still images from your Twitch campaign for brand social media content, ads, website imagery etc.
Click here to download your free Twitch Influencer Campaign Checklist!
