Twitch influencers are in high demand for brand partnerships. Discover the 4 reasons to run a Twitch influencer campaign for your brand.

Ninja, the Fortnite player who runs the most-popular Twitch channel, has been named one of the top 100world’s most influential people of 2019. The 28-year-old gamer is listed by Time together with such outstanding personalities, artists, entrepreneurs, and activists as Michelle Obama, Pope Francis, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, and Mark Zuckerberg. Followed by over 14 million gaming enthusiasts Ninja proved to have a significant effect on his audience and the industry.

Twitch, a rapidly growing video games streaming platform, has a surprisingly highly enthusiastic fan base. Since its launch in 2011, the platform has expanded its features and has become one of the most influential platforms for gamers and beyond. Even a politician Bernie Sanders decided to create an account on Twitch. Senator became one of the first presidential candidates with a presence on the video game streaming service.

Since it was purchased by Amazon in 2014 for $970 million, Twitch has shown even stronger growth pace. Having extensive organizational capacities Amazon promotes Twitch via multiple channels; for instance, Amazon Prime subscribers now get easy access to Twitch Prime benefits.

Twitch Influencers can make a huge impact on their loyal audiences, increasing sales of certain products. Top streamers, like Ninja, are ultimately valuable for marketers as large-scale Twitch Influencer sponsorships open new opportunities for promoting a brand.

The tendency of using the popularity of gaming Influencers and streamers to promote various business ideas is increasing, as it has become a trusted and efficient way to win new audiences. Cloutboost has put together a list of 4 most important factors that make Twitch so unique and effective.

Audience

Twitch is the platform focused on the gaming industry, thus, the vast majority of its users are people, passionate about video games. However, gamers’ demographics can be considerably wider than you think. Over 66% of the US population play games, with 30% of them being women. On average, the age of the users varies from 18 to 24 years with over 61% of them having higher education.

Apart from gaming, the audience is usually interested in entertainment content, available on social media, with Facebook and YouTube being the leading platforms. Gamers actively interact on social media in order to keep in touch, find news about different games, get advice from trusted people and make purchasing decisions.

Definitely, social media is a beneficial way to reach modern gamers, but brands need to integrate into their world and resonate with them. Relevance and authenticity of the communication are the key pillars of a successful influence over the gaming audience.

Therefore, the effective targeting, appropriate way of communication and a relevant message all contribute to the final result. Stay flexible, know your audience and adjust to the needs and preferences of the gamers in order to be heard. You can learn more about this segment of customers and find out what their interests are in our recent blog post.

Platform

Live streaming is the leading format used by gamers to win their audience. Twitch is an expanding streaming platform, which has become a favorite media channel for gamers and their fans. Additionally, it offers impressive opportunities for precise targeting available due to the platform’s very specific audience demographics.

Here are several convincing Twitch statistics that show the increasing reach and crucial influence of streamers:

• There are more than 15M daily active users on Twitch;
• There are over 1.2M average concurrent viewers on the platform

• There are over 4M broadcasters, 220k affiliates, and 30k partners;

• Hours spent watching reach almost 1 billion per month in 2019.

• Publishers that are actively promoting their games on Twitch attribute from 5% to 25% of game’s sales to the platform.

• Ninja’s live-streams were watched for more than 151M hours within the last year.

These statistics prove that Twitch is a highly influential media. Top streamers have enormous audiences of fans and followers, who take into consideration every recommendation and value personal opinion of the gamers.

While the vast majority of non-gaming brands still focus on traditional media when planning a marketing campaign, some forward-thinking companies started reaching this new target audience with Twitch. For example, Ninja in collaboration with another popular streamer DrLupo promoted Hershey’s Reese’sPieces mashup bars. Many famous brands are quickly following the tendency of successful Twitch sponsorships, offering top streamers to advertise their products.

Influencer

When you decide to work with creators on Twitch, the most important factor to look at is which streamer(s) to partner with. Streamers differ in a variety of ways:

• Channel Size. Based on the number of followers streamers can be categorized as top-tier, mid-tier or micro.

• Game of Focus. Some streamers focus on playing only one game, becoming true experts and stars of this game. Some prefer to switch between different games, genres, and even content categories.

• Experience with e-Sports. There are some big names that come to Twitch from e-Sports. Having competed in a number of e-Sports tournaments and having built careers as professionals gamers, these gaming veterans attract huge audiences of competitive gaming fans. Other Twitch Influencers emerge on the platform without having any professional gaming background, simply by making their gameplay streams captivating pastime for others. Their audience is a broader gaming crowd interested in less hardcore genres.

• Twitch Status. Affiliates are small channels that are given an opportunity to make a living from their passion for gaming. They start earning money on Twitch by building their audience and working towards Partner status. You can learn more about Twitch affiliates here. Partners are true celebrities in the world of gaming. Streamers, who create diverse content from games, art, talk shows, and other things can level up from affiliates. Their audience is much wider, therefore their rates and income are considerably higher. At the same time, becoming a Partner doesn’t depend only on streamer’s desire and efforts. It is the Twitch platform that selects the role model streamers to become perfect examples for the community.

Sometimes, Twitch Influencers are true icons for their followers, which means most of their recommendations are likely to be taken into account and followed. The audience is highly involved in each and every stream, which creates a perfect background for the promotion of various gaming and non-gaming products.

Still, collaboration with a Twitch Influencer is not an easy task, as you need to be selective in order to hit the mark.

Content

Twitch achieved its success in user engagement due to unique content format and the way users interact with it. When it comes to gaming, Twitch provides the most authentic preview of a game you’ll find on the internet. That’s because it replicates the experience of watching your friend playing from their couch.

There are 2 key pillars of Twitch content’s boom:

1. Real-time experience. Live streams offer viewers a unique feeling of excitement from engaging and interacting with a streamer.
2. Emotional exchange. Passionate gamers are able to share their gaming experience with like-minded enthusiasts through streaming, watching others stream, and commenting on the game.

Launching a successful Influencer marketing campaign on Twitch is quite a challenging task, especially for a non-gaming brand. Opting for appropriate and trusted Influencers, contacting them, and discussing the details may be quite overwhelming. At this point, finding help from a gaming Influencer marketing agency like Cloutboost may be the best solution.

Our team will help you select the top Twitch Influencers who can speed the launch and promotion of video games and other products. We use technology, skills, and connections to build the perfect alliance between a brand, Influencers, and the audience.