Twitch: What Marketers Need to Know

Want to know how Twitch is growing live video audiences?

Wondering how Twitch supports loyal, engaged communities?

To explore what marketers need to know about Twitch, I interview Luria Petrucci.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Luria Petrucci. She's the cofounder of Live Streaming Pros, a website that offers incredible content and services for live streaming and helps you master live video. She's also helping the next generation of young entrepreneurs build their business skills.

Luria explains how the Twitch ecosystem supports creators and influencers focused on a range of topics.

You'll also discover tools and tips for building a loyal community via live video.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
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Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Twitch
What Is Twitch?

Before Twitch was Twitch, it was called Justin TV, which was one of the earliest live-video platforms along with Ustream. Today, Twitch is a live-streaming platform owned by Amazon.

Each month, Twitch has more than 100 million unique users and 2.2 million broadcasters. It also has about 15 million active daily users, which means they're either watching or broadcasting content. Nearly half of the users watch more than 20 hours of content each week. Currently, about 81.5% of users are male and 55% of them are 18-34 years old.

For about the last 5 years, Twitch has been known as a gaming platform where you watch people play games. However, for the past year, Twitch has been actively expanding its content base, which will make it relevant to more businesses.

After posting some videos back in 2007, Luria recently returned to Twitch and goes live 5 days a week for her Geeks Life channel, which covers geeky topics. Luria has a lot of fun with this channel. It has a weekly show as well as content about gaming, behind-the-scenes details about producing video on demand (VOD), and a live vlog.

However, Twitch's popular communities go beyond geeky topics like programming, video editing, and comics. It also has communities for music, art, and DIY. Music broadcasters play guitar or piano or sing, sharing covers or original compositions. Visual artists share painting, drawing, and sculpture. DIY enthusiasts focus on a range of topics such as sewing, cooking, and LEGO.

On Twitch, community is the number-one priority for the platform and the people who use it. For example, Twitch has big yoga and LGBT communities. Although the yoga community will learn by doing yoga, the live-streaming content is focused more on hanging out than being educational. You can watch and interact through your computer, a mobile device, or TV box.

Listen to the show to hear Luria share more about the different types of content on Twitch.

How Twitch Differs From YouTube

YouTube is primarily recorded video, whereas Twitch focuses on live video. You can upload videos and watch them even if you missed the live broadcast. However, Twitch users don't watch as much on-demand content. Luria says that user behavior might change as the platform changes, but Twitch is only beginning to evolve.

Like YouTube, Twitch has a search feature that works really well. However, Luria finds that the results deliver live content first and then VOD. Also, Twitch has a Browse tab where you can discover popular communities such as gaming, music, and art.

Unlike YouTube, Twitch is 100% focused on community. It's about people, not marketing. Twitch has no algorithms so you see only the notifications that you ask for by following someone. On each person's channel is a Follow button at the top. After you click that button to follow someone,