Twitch: How Can It Help Your Brand? (Updated for 2021)

Even though Twitch has a reputation as a game streaming site, the platform doesn’t play around when it comes to marketing opportunities. Twitch isn’t just about video games – it’s an emerging platform that thrives off a variety of entertainment, providing a creative outlet for many brands to promote their products. With more than 15M daily active users, any brand can reach their target audience and start optimizing the platform for brand awareness, lead generation, and more. If you have plans to launch a marketing campaign for your brand, here’s how Twitch can help. 

What is Twitch? 

Twitch is the world’s leading live-streaming platform for gamers and other streamers alike. It was founded by Justin Kan in 2011 and quickly became a great tool for creators who wanted to broadcast their content and gamers who wanted to stream themselves playing their favorite games. The platform has grown tremendously over the years, as there were more than 3.8M streamers broadcasted on Twitch in February 2020 compared to 2.2M streamers in 2018. Plus, as of April 2020, Alexa ranked Twitch #33 in the world for engagement and traffic.

It’s become a top choice for digital creators wanting to grow a following, which has also attracted brands looking to advertise. Through its impact on online communities, live-streaming has become one of the most popular forms of online entertainment today. With its boost in popularity, Twitch has also become a place for millions of people to chat, watch live streams, and connect with millions of other users from around the globe. 

How Has Twitch Evolved?

When Twitch launched back in 2011, the platform focused on esports and gaming. After years of growth (3.2M unique visitors per month in 2011 grew to 20M visitors per month in 2012), tech giants like Amazon and Google tried to acquire the site in 2014. Amazon succeeded and became Twitch’s parent company after a deal was made worth $970M. Twitch Prime, which gave Amazon Prime customers benefits on Twitch, helped grow the site until it became a major competitor against other online platforms.

By 2018, Twitch had the 6th highest traffic for streaming video in the world, and in January of 2019, Twitch had nearly 1B hours of streams watched on the site. Due to its popularity, it has launched the careers of huge creators like Ninja, a streamer and professional gamer turned Internet personality with over 24.1M subscribers on YouTube. 

How Can Twitch Help Your Brand?

Since Twitch attracts a large number of viewers every day, it can give brands a larger community to connect and interact with. Taking note of Twitch’s value, many brands have jumped on the bandwagon to integrate themselves on the platform through brand deals, ad spaces, and even owning their own channel. While some marketers make the mistake of ignoring Twitch in their media strategies, it can actually be extremely beneficial in a lot of ways, especially in these areas:

1. Working with Influencers

Twitch Partners are streamers that can make money through paid subscriptions, advertisements, and sponsorships. These partners are top-performing streamers on the site and reach worldwide audiences and multiple demographics of viewers. By working with them, your brand will be promoted live to large audiences ranging from the thousands to millions. Especially if your brand wants to target Gen Z and Millennials, Twitch is a great place to do it, as 73% of Twitch users are aged under 34.

Currently, the top-performing streamers on Twitch are: 

2. Producing Creative Content

When working with Twitch streamers, they’re accustomed to posting unique, fun, and engaging content. Despite showcasing your brand or product live while they stream, it doesn’t mean that they have to make the promotion any less unique. Influencers on the platform can promote brands in a ton of ways, including:

• Giveaways
• Let’s Play (If you have a gaming brand)
• Shout outs
• Product unboxings
• Digital events
• How-Tos and classes
• Interviews

3. Going Against Outdated Traditional Media

Nowadays, it’s a common belief that traditional gaming media is becoming outdated and irrelevant.  Since gaming relies so heavily on visual appeal, it makes sense why consumers looking for gaming reviews would turn to a video from their favorite gamer instead of reading a review online. This has been a common trend even with non-gaming media, as a study from MuseFind found that 92% of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement.

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4. Pre-Roll Ads

Similar to YouTube, Twitch utilizes pre-roll ads for brands. So, if you’re struggling to narrow down which Twitch streamer you want to partner with, you can try this method. All streams start with pre-roll ads and streamers can even set up their broadcast in a way that allows more ads to be shown throughout their live feed.

Plus, you don’t have to worry about ad-safe content, as Twitch closely monitors the content posted on their site, making it less likely that your ad will show up next to offensive video material. It’s a safe way to market, and that’s why many brands prefer advertising this way instead of on YouTube where content doesn’t seem to be monitored as closely. Even Netflix, Apple, Nike, and Kellogg advertise this way.

How Brands Use Twitch 

There are plenty of ways brands advertise on Twitch, but here are some that go above and beyond with influencers:

• 1,000 Dreams Fund (1DF)

This non-profit is devoted to providing 1K university women with grants for their school expenses. 1DF partnered with Twitch to expand the programs to streamers, and it was a huge success. The partnership not only gave 1DF a whole new audience, but it also created a positive brand image for a diverse user base.

The fund now gives financial assistance to female streamers currently attending university. During Women’s History Month, Twitch’s Facebook account ran an ad supporting the fund and bringing awareness to the brand and what it does for streamers.

• Nissin Noodles

This instant noodle brand partnered with Pokimane, a streamer with 6.1M followers. When she’s not playing games, Pokimane streams live mukbangs in which she eats a ton of food, so Nissin Noodles decided to produce a branded gaming broadcast where Pokimane made their noodles and ate during the stream. As Hubspot pointed out, Pokimane kept the stream fun and engaging by adding a “Slurp Meter”graphic on the bottom left of the screen.

Through this campaign, Nissin Noodles utilized the power of an influencer to show younger viewers that their product was easy to make and eat while streaming all while broadening their audience to a younger, gaming community.

Twitch is all about providing a worldwide audience with engaging and interactive content – which is a huge plus for brands. In a digital age where online activity matters to marketers, few platforms have as high a level of engagement as Twitch. The higher the engagement, the greater potential that your ad makes a significant impact on an audience. There’s no better time than now to stop taking full advantage of the benefits Twitch can bring to your brand.

Check out more up-and-coming Twitch streamers: