When digital marketers are talking about the campaigns they are running or about the influencers they are working with, they are usually talking about projects carried out on Instagram, Facebook, and/or YouTube.
Most community managers and marketers are sticking with the platforms they have worked with in the past and the platforms they feel most comfortable with. Instead of investing time and money in exactly the same places as your competitors, it might be interesting to actively look around for niche channels and new places to buy inexpensive ads to maximize the return on your investment.
It’s the basic law of supply and demand: the price tends to fall if the supply for ads is greater than the demand. With more than 560 billion minutes of content that has been watched in 2018, the demand is great, but the amount of (Belgian) advertisers active on Twitch is still trivial.
What is Twitch?
Twitch is a very popular online service for watching and streaming video content, mainly used by video-gamers. To many of these gamers, Twitch is the place they spend many of their evenings into the early hours of the morning, playing games and engaging with their audience in real-time.
Twitch streams can be watched for free on the official Twitch website, without even creating an account. However, participating in the chatrooms, streaming your own content, following users, or sending direct messages to other users requires a free account.
What are Twitch affiliates?
The Twitch Affiliate program is essentially a program for medium-sized streamers with the purpose to give them incentives for their hard work while giving them the opportunities to grow.
The requirements?
- Reach 50 followers on your account
- Stream for at least 8 hours in 30 days
- Broadcast on 7 different days in 30 days
- Have an average of 3 viewers in those 30 days.
“The Twitch Affiliate Program puts qualified streamers one step closer toward the dream of making a living from their passions. Twitch Affiliates can start earning income on Twitch while they build their audience and work toward the coveted status of Twitch Partner.”
– Twitch
What are Twitch Partners?
The Twitch Partnership program is for the broadcasters who are committed to streaming and want to level up from being an affiliate. They will receive the same streaming capabilities, but they’ll get some extra customization perks in addition to a bigger share of the revenue generated by their broadcasts.
The requirements?
- Stream for 25 hours in the last 30 days
- Stream 12 unique days in the last 30 days
- Have an average of 75 viewers in those 30 days
Note: Becoming eligible for Partner does not guarantee Partner status. Once you become eligible, you will have to apply and your application will be reviewed manually.
Why would you invest time and money on Twitch?
With ad blocking on the rise and the increased fragmentation of media consumption, Twitch is becoming an incredibly powerful channel for advertisers to reach and engage their target audiences.
- Reach: The platform has an average reach of 1.25 million online viewers at any moment of the day.
- Not often tapped by competitors: Twitch isn’t saturated with ads like other platforms, leaving a lot of opportunities on the table who might be beneficial to reach an audience who are still untapped by your competitors.
- Gamers: The core audience of this platform.
- Millennials and Gen Z: The platform is filled with millennials, so you have a bigger potential to reach a higher return-on-investment because they can still follow the demand.
- Specific niches: Streamers are actively building specific niches, which can help you in narrowing down your target audience. For example: If you are selling race-seats, you’re only interested in gamers who are playing racing games.
- Worldwide market: Twitch has a variety of gamers from all over the world, giving it a worldwide scope of viewers.
- Strong relationships and high engagement rate: Streamers on Twitch spend a lot of time communicating with their viewers (who are spending approximately 95 minutes a day watching the streamers they follow), creating a lot of impact on their audience and having a lot of influence on them.
How to leverage Twitch as a marketer?
With so much engagement on the platform and so many streamers gaining huge followings, you should pay close attention to the ways you can leverage Twitch with your brand.
With streamers being the tastemakers of the platform, influencer marketing is the way to go. Just like any other social media platform, the main possibilities are the same: Giveaways, unboxing products, product placement, and shout outs. The only difference? Their audience is live and highly engageable. They will ask the streamer questions about the product and the streamer his/her experience and preferences.
Obviously, Twitch has his own traditional advertising options with IAB display, video media, and native opportunities. Twitch doesn’t publish their rates on their website, but the pricing for pre-roll and mid-roll video (ad’s triggered by the streamer when he’s taking a break) should be around € 20,- CPM. However, this is impacted by a few factors ($ exchange rate, amount of ads you are buying, etc.) and can vary a bit
One important detail… know your memes!
Just like most social media platforms, memes are a way of communicating and Twitch is no different. It’s important to know Twitch emote meanings and popular memes because you’ll definitely encounter them on streams and want to know how to react
The American gamer DrLupo was known for playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), a game that shouts, “winner winner, chicken dinner” whenever you win a game. He partnered up with KFC, to raffle gift-cards whenever he wins this game. His followers could enter the raffle by using a specific KFC-emote in chat, which triggered a debate about racism and took the focus out of the actual KFC campaign.
What about local (Belgium) gamers?
While Twitch doesn’t officially publish any statistics about their users or fanbase, some unofficial websites are using the Twitch API to generate and calculate specific statistics. However, the API is very limited and doesn’t allow us to filter on specific assets like locations
While there aren’t any official statistics published about the Twitch usage in Belgium, Ruben Ceuppens – Head of Social at Havas Media Belgium – gave us some insights into their demographics; They have 1.2 million monthly active users in Belgium, with 70% of their Belgian audience being younger than 34 years old, while 75% of the users are male. This info is in line with the trends that we’re seeing on the Belgian discord-channels that are focussed on specific niches like streaming on Twitch.
Another handy website out there, to discover Belgian streamers is Spawnpoint.be. The website is a manually curated list of the better-known Twitch streamers who are originating in Belgium
Belgian cases and success stories?
There are already a few Belgian marketers who are actively investing in Twitch, but none of them have published a case study yet. So while we can’t help them brag with their numbers, we can tell you about their campaigns!
Speedseats
The Belgian based gaming chair company has been partnering up with quite a few LAN parties and gaming events, where they install a live streaming booth and invite Belgian streamers to do a live-stream onsite. Showcasing their talent to their online fans, while also getting some onsite attention.
Omen
Omen, HP’s gaming PC line, is the official sponsor of the Belgian gaming talk show “Ragequit”, with Belgian comedian and gamer William Bova as the main host.
Standard Liege
The Belgian Football club Standard Liege has appointed a Professional FIFA player to compete in the Proximus ePro League, called “Twikii”. He received an official team outfit, which he wears while he is live streaming his Fifa training matches.
Orange
The Belgian telecom company, Orange, teamed up with the Belgian esports team Sector One. They are an official team sponsor, with a premium spot on the sector one jerseys. This way Orange receives visibility during LAN-parties, official esport competitions, and live streams.
Game Mania
The Benelux game shop Game Mania has their own Twitch-channel, in which their employers are actually testing out games and live streaming their gameplay.
