How to use Twitch Influencer Marketing in 2022 title

How to use Twitch Influencer Marketing in 2022

In 2022, an increasing number of brands recognise that Twitch has become one of the new hottest platforms to reach massive audiences. The dominance of traditional social media such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter means that many marketers are still unaware of Twitch’s potential.

This potential is wasted even though the global increase in time spent on video gaming during the COVID-19 pandemic was 39%. More streamers are attracting large followings, and with large followings come huge opportunities to collaborate with these influencers for marketing. In this article, we’ll show you how to use Twitch Influencer Marketing to expand your reach, generate more leads, and increase sales.

What is Twitch?

Twitch is a live streaming platform owned by Amazon. Users can either broadcast a live stream or watch other streamers. While it is commonly used for video gaming and e-Sports competitions, there’s a growing number of streamers doing music, creative, DIY and lifestyle content. In addition, influencers are now using the platform to upload videos of everything that they do.

You’ll see a screen similar to this when you visit Twitch:

Twitch app home screen
Twitch

The platform has earned its reputation for growing mega-stars in the world of content creation. In August 2021, almost 2 billion hours have been watched on Twitch. They include more than 2.5 million daily active users who have a duration of 70 million hours daily on average viewing Twitch streamers. Impressive, isn’t it?

Who uses Twitch?

According to GlobalWebIndex, 65% of Twitch users are male, and 73% of audience members consistently fall within the age range of 16-34 (GlobalWebIndex).

A study of the web behaviour of these Twitch users illustrated “games”, “computers”, and “technology” to be the primary keywords searched. It suggests that most of them are interested in games and the equipment necessary to play or stream them.

Within the same report, those from the U.S. make up 21% of the traffic, followed by Germany, Korea and France.

The audience of Twitch is diverse and illustrates that there is a wealth of advertising potential due to different segmented groups. Brands and influencers are flocking to Twitch to target these segmented groups – a key reason why Twitch Influencer Marketing is steadily becoming popular.

What is Twitch Influencer Marketing?

Like many other types of influencer marketing, Twitch influencer marketing is the process of collaborating with streamers who can influence others and share your brand values and promote your product. The brand typically contacts twitch influencers to negotiate promotion details before signing a contract via email.

It is important to note that finding the right Twitch streamers is essential for successful influencer marketing. With the relevant influencers, you’ll more likely have their enthusiasm and even make the collaboration appear more natural and credible to their Twitch followers.

Let’s take a look at a few ideas about how you can fit these Twitch influencers into your marketing strategies.

5 Ways to Use Twitch Influencer Marketing

1. Product Placement

Product placement can be an effective strategy for Twitch marketing if your objective is to create more familiarity with your brand.

By giving your branded merchandise to influencers on Twitch, they can showcase them in their live streaming videos and test them out for viewers to see. First, however, ensure that your influencer has high-quality Twitch visual content so that they can keep your merchandise in the spotlight.

This was how the Sims 4: Cats & Dogs was promoted with the collaboration of the video gaming company, Electronic Arts, (EA) and Twitch influencer, RoryPlays. Although she only has around 19,000 followers, many of her streams receive a lot of engagement.

She created a sponsored live streaming session in which she featured the EA logo and discussed the game in detail, from features to its charming characters. Finally, a link was provided to her audience so that they could buy the game.

Roryplays
Rory Plays

2. Challenges and Giveaways

Brands often offer a free product or service for the influencer to give away to their followers. Not only are they sometimes the best way to create some buzz around your brand, but they are also fantastic for creating a positive brand perception and generating more leads.

UberEats partnered with Tyler Blevins (famously known as Ninja in 2018. In this collaboration, Ninja was given a challenge on Fortnite. For every kill within a time limit, his followers would receive a 1% off on their UberEats orders. When he ordered Quizno’s via their service, this challenge would begin and last until they delivered food at his door. As a result, he won a total of 25% off for his fans all over the world. The response was so staggering that the offer had to end in a single day rather than in three days.

Ninja
Ninja

3. Long-term Brand Ambassadors

Unlike in short-term campaigns, an influencer who partners with your brand for an extended period is known as a long-term ambassador.

These influencers keep your brand at the top of their mind for their audience through multiple showcases of your merchandise or services. Subsequently, allowing promotions can give more opportunities to demonstrate the versatility of your brand’s offerings. Those loyal to long-term ambassadors will likely trust the brand due to its credibility and authenticity in the relationship between influencer and brand.

For instance, Jardy Lazar (also known as Summit1G) has repeatedly worn Monster Energy merchandise while live streaming. His demeanour as a high-energy person matches Monster Energy’s brand image, making their marketing strategy unique via subtle branding.

Summit1G
Summit1G

4. Reviews

Many Twitch influencers have loyal fans who trust the influencer’s words and actions. If you have a new product and service launch, you could consider collaborating with an influencer and getting them to review it.

Besides being one of the easiest marketing techniques, it can also help boost brand awareness and sales. One of the most typical reviews are ‘unboxing’ videos where the streamer has never used the product before, and they are testing it out on camera for the first time.

LilyPichu, a Twitch streamer and a Youtuber known for drawing and playing the piano in her live streaming sessions, recently live-streamed herself unboxing a Yamaha keyboard. She did a performance review to entertain her 12k viewers upon opening this brand-new keyboard.

Lilypichu
LilyPichu

5. Events

Brands can also use the opportunity to host a product launch event, a charity event or a gaming competition with multiple Twitch streamers. When involved in such campaigns, they will often go live on their streams to have their followers interact and engage with the event. It’s a fantastic method to create traction with Twitch influencer marketing.

Not all brands that use Twitch need to be linked to gaming. For example, a mobile payment service, Cash App, conducted a big promotional show that lasted almost eight hours on Twitch. They invited 21 top content creators as guests and co-hosts of #CashAppPayDay to entertain throughout the day. Participants joined a rap battle, played a quiz game and ran a UNO championship with prizes. In between these fun activities, Cash App showed commercials to viewers that illustrated the app’s benefits and had people sign up for it. Besides earning a total of 1.3 million views, almost 484k users followed the Cash App channel.

Cashpayapp
Cash App

Conclusion

As we’ve seen, multiple brands use Twitch to promote their brand by catering to a young audience. Influencers can expand your audience by endorsing your brand, as we’ve seen with Ninja and UberEats. Added with an increasing trend in online activity due to COVID-19, Twitch is growing at an insane rate as emerging streamers are engaging in different subjects that interest them.

Are you interested in jumping on board?

Amy Liang
Amy Liang

Amy Liang is a final year undergraduate student pursuing her Bachelor of Commerce with majors in Marketing and Management at The University of Melbourne. As a former intern at Telstra, she has worked in a fast-paced environment that enabled her to leverage data analytics to shape and support the design and implementation of Telstra’s marketing strategy. Her interest lies in empowering organisations and people to strike a path through changing markets.