Twitch

Twitch is a live streaming platform known primarily for gaming content. Online gamers and e-sports athletes share their gaming experience with their users and followers. To do this, their own screen is recorded live with programmes such as XSplit or Open Broadcaster Software and transmitted to Twitch. At the same time, live comments and chats can be added. Due to its popularity in the gaming industry, Twitch is slowly working its way into the category of SOCIAL MEDIA networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp or TikTok in terms of popularity, especially among the young target group.

Twitch - The channel for the gaming industry

There are 2.6 billion gamers worldwide. This means 1/3 of the world's population regularly plays video games via various consoles. Gaming is an established means of mainstream entertainment across generations. Growth is especially visible on mobile devices.

Statista - Visits of Twitchtv in Germany

The number of gamers has been rising steadily for years, the market is huge. New young people are constantly discovering this medium for themselves, and at the same time many first-generation gamers remain loyal to their hobby. Thanks to constantly optimised consoles, the gaming experience is constantly on the rise, and the increased realism continues to cast a spell over many gamers.

The creation of Twitch

Twitch began with an idea by American Yale University graduate Justin Kan. In 2007, he decided to stream his life permanently on the internet. With a webcam on his baseball cap and a laptop in his backpack, he let interested people take part in his life. Thus, the first private streaming platform Justin.tv was born. Due to the media attention, other so-called LifeCasters joined in.

After only one year, the company already had 30,000 registered broadcasters. At that time, in addition to the categories of sports, music or news, the gaming and e-sports area was also created. This column in particular gained so much popularity that it was spun off in 2011. Twitch.tv was born. In 2014, the online retailer Amazon finally bought Twitch Interactive Inc. for 970 million US dollars.

Twitch in comparison

Among all live streaming platforms, Twitch is the leader. A gigantic 72.2% of all hours watched live on the internet fall on this channel.

Statista: Estimated revenue development for TV and video

Twitch is thus well on its way to climbing further up the rankings of the most popular networks.

Statista: Ranking of the most popular social networks and messengers by share of users among Internet users in Germany in 2020

Mainly male

The majority of Twitch users are male. This is shown by Statista statistics in 2019. Female users come predominantly from other streaming categories.

Gaming = young target group

In fact, the majority of Twitch users are young. 41% are between 16 and 24 years old. But the proportion of older users is also still surprisingly high.

Source: Statista

Twitch Marketing

There are several ways to use Twitch for marketing. One way to advertise on Twitch is to use traditional advertisements. Twitch offers a variety of advertising options such as videos and banners in different places.

Influencer Marketing

Another option is Twitch influencer marketing. This is almost identical to all other types of influencer marketing. The only difference is that the advertising is broadcast live. Influencer advertising can only be done with Twitch partners, i.e. streamers with a higher reach. These are under contract with Twitch. Twitch partners can place advertisements in their streams or advertise products themselves.

One example is the Cologne-based fashion retailer Snipes, which cooperated with Twitch for the first time for a new collection and organised the world's first "Fashion Unboxing" with influencers. A total of 52 influencers streamed live for over 20 hours at a time and presented the new Snipes collection. In order to reach a mainly young target group, Twitch is certainly a useful instrument in the marketing mix. However, it must be checked in advance whether influencer marketing is actually sensible and worthwhile for the respective company.

Conclusion

Twitch is currently and in the medium term the undisputed number 1 in live streaming with a perfect connection to a huge target group. Whether Twitch marketing also makes sense for SMEs must be decided on a case-by-case basis. Currently, however, it is a valuable instrument for branding and customer loyalty, especially for larger companies.