We all know the powerhouse social media platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter. These have become staples in the marketing industry… but there are some new platforms coming to the scene that you should be looking into for marketing purposes.
Twitch is a popular live-streaming platform, mostly featuring video gaming and esports. While this may be the main demographic of users and creators, it’s now focusing on other creative topics such as music, art, DIY, and lifestyle.
Millions of viewers are on Twitch daily to view their favorite streamers – with more viewers joining every day. The average viewer spends about 95 minutes a day watching Twitch streams. This is a crazy number considering short form video content is sweeping the industry like crazy… 95 minutes a day is a long time to capture someone’s attention!
The most common way of marketing on Twitch is through influencer sponsorships. Many Twitch streamers will partner with brands to promote their products or services on their live streams. Twitch viewers are in general very supportive of these sponsorships, and many younger viewers prefer this method of advertising to the traditional ad placements.
Shout-outs, giveaways, and unboxing tends to be the most common promotions on Twitch. There is also the option of running banner and in-video ads to increase brand awareness. With so many viewers on Twitch daily, these ads are very likely to result in click through and sales.
Twitch has recently updated their site for a better ad experience for streamers and viewers. In order to have less disruptive ads, they have created Stream Display Ads.
This is what a Display Ad looks like while you are viewing a Twitch stream. They don’t disrupt the stream of video or audio, but will appear in the viewer’s line of view clearly enough to allow for brand recognition. They appear for 15 seconds and are less likely to annoy viewers.
Discord is a popular VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) system that uses voice, video, and messaging communications. It has over 300 million registered users. While it is most commonly used for gaming, it has grown to include many other communities such as art, study groups, and other shared interests.
One way Discord can be used for businesses is to communicate with customers or clients in new and inventive ways. It also makes it easy to reach out to new, potential customers through servers or channels made for your business. Discord allows you to set up a FAQ section, as well as using chatbots.
This is an example of how Discord appears when you go to set up your server. Joining Discord is a fairly simple and straightforward process. It has a similar interface to Slack, a channel-based messaging tool.
Discord allows you to view server insights to give you a better understanding of how your customers are coming across your server, and if you are retaining members, engagement, or geography.
Streaming services seem to be the move in the marketing industry, with more and more companies coming forward with new platforms and businesses using them to advertise. What do you think will be the next platform to surface in the industry?
References:
https://influencermarketinghub.com/twitch-marketing/
https://twitchtracker.com/statistics
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/10-new-social-media-platforms-apps-to-have-on-your-radar/
https://neilpatel.com/blog/discord/
https://www.businessofapps.com/data/discord-statistics/
https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/stream-display-ads?language=en_US