Livestream content on Twitch offers influence marketers a new channel for reaching target audiences on a deeper level than other platforms. But as with TikTok, the other social network upstart of our times, Twitch comes with clearly defined codes which must be adhered to if campaigns are to have the desired result. In this interview with Kolsquare, digital marketing agency The Metrics Factory consultant sport/sponsoring Clément Joffrin explains the appeal of long format live content, and how influencer marketers can take advantage of all that Twitch has to offer.
Live formats have become a real vector of proximity with the fans. It’s important for content creators because, without having to invest heavily in production, they can create hours and hours of content that directly reaches their community. With just a microphone and a video game they can easily create very long content and be very visible.
Twitch is clearly the preferred platform for live formats. It is a very gaming-oriented community, even if with Covid other themes like creative arts and music have developed on the platform.
In France, Twitch has a large share of the live format, while YouTube is more developed in the American market where it has invested a lot to attract influencers and develop the format.
It shows there it is a real market [for the live format]. A few years ago, it was just people at home playing video games in front of a few hundred people. It has developed quite quickly from communities that followed one particular streamer, into content with multiple games, discussions, and closer relationships.
There has been more and more content backed by professional productions, like ZeratoR’s charity formats which are big productions held over several days, or talk shows like Domingo’s Popcorn (Webedia). The logical next step is IRL formats, things that are out of the box from the home-made stream.
Squeezie’s GP Explorer event was really an extreme case. Obviously, he has the means [to stage such an event] and was able to produce an incredible car race on the same level of Le Mans 24 Hours. They sold a huge number of tickets. The audience was there and interested. It demonstrates a shift to a point where streamers and influencers need to see their fans, to offer them something IRL and not just on the stream.
The difference is the age of the people watching. One of the key challenges for F1 racing, for example, is to rejuvenate its audience, which is aging. Reaching young people is a challenge for all sports, and Twitch has a large majority of 18 – 25 year-olds, or 18 – 35 year-olds, who use the platform. It’s an incredible opportunity.
The other differentiator is the ability to interact during the events through the Twitch chat. You see what people are feeling and how the mass reacts to the content.
This is important. The relationship between streamers, who tend to do a lot of events together, is specific to France. Streamers often have common communities on live games and the big streamers often game together. The rising streamers often benefit from the help of other streamers because the ‘Raid’ function at the end of a Twitch live stream allows you to send your community to another streamer. It’s how tens of thousands of viewers discover new channels. The community aspect is quite Francophone. In Spain, but even more so in the US, it’s a bit like everyone for themselves.
All brands can work with streamers. The difficulty is identifying the community that will be most receptive to the message. Twitch has very defined codes; communities are very close to the streamer because they spend hours each week with that person. If a brand pushes a product too directly or abruptly, there will be an outcry because people won’t understand why it is suddenly appearing in their favorite streamer’s stream.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking ‘he’s a big influencer, I want my logo there’. You have to work to find the right way to incorporate the brand into the streamer’s content.
At The Metrics Factory, we look at brand exposure time which is a key differentiator compared to other platforms. Annual partnerships that lean on a sports team or an individual streamer can amount to thousands of hours of exposure for brands. Mentions in real-time chats allow you to see the impact of a brand activation; you can immediately see the audience reaction, and what they’re thinking about the brand at that moment. For brands, you can evaluate the qualitative on the audience questions, or quantitative part of exposure time.
It is still a very male audience interested in gaming, for sure. Content has diversified since Covid. More streamers have emerged who are offering content that finds an interested audience. Often communities try to find streamers who resemble themselves, who are of a similar age, [which means] they have similar cultural references. Communities on Twitch are not only very young; there are streamers with communities aged over 30 which can be interesting for brands because the content will be a bit different, and the communities will have significant buying power.
The big events will continue. Clearly it works; the audiences are there and streamers are able to fill the stadiums. For brands, the entry price to such events is pretty high, so they need to be profitable. Often we see other TV personalities or sportspeople associated with the event. Obviously, the brands are the facilitators to get them there.
I don’t think there will be a sudden, big spike in the audience but it’s going to continue to grow. More people are using Twitch like television.
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Kolsquare’s advanced technology helps marketing professionals seamlessly identify the best content creators by filtering their content and audience, while also enabling them to build, manage, and optimize campaigns from start to finish. This includes measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors.
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