Your Game Needs to be on Twitch, but is that enough?

Twitch is a behemoth in gaming that acts as a kingmaker for both content creators and games. Your game needs to be on Twitch to reach its maximum potential audience. You know your game is good, but with hundreds of games coming out each month, how do you convince content creators to stream it? How do you break through that noise? Twitch Influencer Marketing Campaigns help increase brand awareness and convert viewers into players.

Why is Twitch Important?

Twitch is, by far, the largest live streaming platform, with 140M monthly unique viewers and it’s continuing to grow. Most live streamed content is watched on Twitch, which yields 70% of total hours watched. It’s one of the preferred social media networks for gamers and for good reason: 82% of Twitch viewers regularly watch gaming content; with music, esports, and live sports behind that. This is a large audience that is actively invested in discovering more about games.

How Does Twitch Influencer Marketing Work?

Twitch Influencer Marketing is similar to other forms of influencer marketing: you pay someone to promote your product. The difference with Twitch Influencer marketing is that it’s happening live on streaming platforms which means that the influencer can react and inform your potential customers about your game in real-time. Twitch Influencer marketing isn’t strictly limited to games; streamers will also partner with different brands to do live streams and product promotion like this campaign by Wendys. Costs for Twitch Influencers can vary wildly, so it’s important not to just pick the big names to stream your game. Find streamers who regularly stream your game category and have a personality that fits your brand; these Twitch Influencers will be your best game ambassadors.

Pros of Twitch Influencer Marketing

So now that you know a bit more about Twitch and Twitch Influencer Marketing, let’s discuss what makes it so great. Traditional marketing doesn’t have the same impact or ROI capabilities that live streamed influencer marketing does.

Here are the Four Key Advantages:

1. All Promotions are Live Promotions

Rather than static content like a post or pre-recorded video, streamers can react to chat. This allows them to actively answer questions and react to your game providing an authentic, relatable, and informative experience.

2. Deep Connections and Interested Audiences

Twitch audiences watch their specific streamer, which means that they trust endorsements by that influencer. So not only is that audience likely to be already interested in your genre of game, they’re more likely to buy because their favorite streamer is playing it.

3. Scale of Reachable Audience

We already covered the size of Twitch’s user base, but that same user base is also actively curious and regularly looking for new games to play. Twitch has been growing annually since its initial launch in 2011, so that 140M number is only increasing.

4. More Measurable Data Compared to Most Traditional Advertising

Track overall impressions, concurrent viewers, hours played, and search to find people playing your game.

Cons of Twitch Influencer Marketing

All of these are great advantages that help you to measure the success of your campaign. But there are still some issues that will make it difficult to measure your success and guarantee future budgets.

Here are the Three Biggest Problems:

1. The ROI is Deeply Limited

While you can see the hours your game was watched and viewership, you can’t see if those viewers considered purchasing your game.

2. Streamer Effectiveness is Opaque at Best

You know you hired streamers and you can see your game sales, but you can’t attribute sales or referrals to specific streamers for future marketing campaigns.

3. Will Other Streamers Pick Up Your Game?

Unless the streamer was specifically aware of and looking to pick up your game, streamers not in your influencer campaign aren’t likely to play your game. Especially if it’s in a more difficult to stream category like RTS. How do you entice them to play?

These negatives can make it difficult to justify the necessary budget to effectively run your game marketing campaign. Thankfully that’s solvable with Muxy’s Twitch extension technology.

What are Twitch Extensions?

Twitch extensions are live apps that help audiences engage with Twitch streamer content. They can exist on top of a stream or interact with chat. Twitch extensions have limitless potential: design a mini game or directly affect the streamer’s game. Streamers love Twitch extensions that allow them to directly connect with their audience.

Muxy’s specific technology lets the viewers take control of a streamer’s game. They can help by healing or hinder by causing fires; they can even name in-game characters after themselves. This immersion memorably connects viewers to your game.

Watch this video of the Expeditions: Rome extension we made to see a Twitch extension in action:

What the f**k does Muxy Do?

Muxy is a SaaS platform for developing Twitch extensions faster and easier while providing a seamless experience. We are one of the longest running companies to provide Twitch tools and have been building extensions since their launch in 2017. Our battle-tested technology can handle up to 2M concurrent viewers on a single stream. This shared team knowledge makes us experts in the Twitch streaming environment and Twitch extension building.

Our platform includes:

• A full framework to power interactive audience features to your game

• Stability battle-tested to handle the large, unpredictable Twitch traffic loads

• Fast Twitch extension building with our ready-made Typescript Libraries
  

So, Why Build a Twitch Extension with Muxy?

Building an extension gives you a few benefits that a regular streaming campaign can't, because of two things:

• The Analytics Gathered

And

• The Streamer Incentives

I’ll break these into two parts alongside the benefits.

What Analytics?

There are three key ways that Muxy’s analytics capabilities will help you run smarter and more effective game marketing campaigns.

1. See who actually clicked through to buy your game and whether or not they bought the game - you can track who clicked to look at your game. These dormant players can be re-targeted later to reignite their interest after initial launch.

2. See which streamer channels those clicks came from- previously we covered the black box between a live stream and sales. With Muxy, you not only see the clicks to buy your game, but what channel those are attributed to as well. This helps you see which influencers helped your campaign succeed.

3. See actual conversion from viewer to player-if you have a link to sign in to your game, attach analytics that track viewer, to click to get the game, to creating an account in your game. That’s an entire purchase lifecycle that you can track.

The Streamer Incentives

Streamers Want to Play Games with Muxy Extensions

Streamers need to engage with their viewers to be successful, so tools that help them do that are important. They also, like most of us, like to make money. Muxy-powered Twitch extensions help them achieve both of those goals. By allowing viewers to directly impact gameplay, streamers are actively engaging with chat in a less superficial way than shout outs for donations. Muxy extensions also allow them to earn Bits for each interaction which can be converted into real money.

Definition: Bits are a virtual good you can buy on Twitch, 100 Bits= $1 USD

The Advantages of Creating a Twitch Extension for your Game are:

1. Streamers get 2.5x more viewers with higher peak viewers when streaming with an extension. That’s more eyes on your game and more impressions means more sales.

2. Streamers play 4x Longer with Muxy extension-enabled games. The increased engagement and audience encourages streamers to play these games longer. It’s a net benefit for you and the streamers.

3. Streamers are more likely to play your game. Not only are they getting higher viewership and greater engagement, but they’re also making money. This encourages streamers outside of an influencer marketing campaign to grab your game and play for their audiences.

Get more players, greater brand awareness, attributable data, for less money with a Muxy-enhanced Twitch extension.

You can start now or contact us here to chat!