Twitch

Launching a leading streaming platform on TikTok

More than 31 million people around the world visit Twitch on the daily to engage with a global community of livestreamers.

With more than 70% of their audience between the ages of 18 and 34,Twitch identified TikTok as the perfect platform to engage with this demographic off-stream, strengthen brand love, and recruit new audiences.

DEPT® helped launch the platform’s TikTok presence and establish Twitch as the best place to stream.

Keep a fast-growing fanbase hooked

The mission to establish Twitch as a best-in-class streaming platform, for gaming as well as music, e-sports, and more, began in March of 2020 as global lockdowns introduced new creators and fans to Twitch’s online community.

We dove in early on as Twitch’s full-service partner to cement their place with this fast-growing fanbase. Our team provided support re-establishing Twitch’s presence on Twitter and Instagram across markets with a successful rehabilitation that demonstrated the wider breadth of content on Twitch post-lockdown.

During this initial effort, we identified TikTok as an untapped social platform with vast potential. Just like Twitch, creators are at the heart of TikTok. It also helped that, amongst gamers, TikTok was the only social platform showing consistent growth year over year. And already the hashtag #twitch had 38.5 billion views, with other Twitch-related content also racking up impressive numbers.

In 2021, we approached Twitch about launching on TikTok to increase engagement and further enhance the brand.

Understand a hard-to-understand audience

Nailing introductions is key, especially with a global brand with a rabid fanbase like Twitch. To ensure we got it right on TikTok, we made sure that we understood Twitch’s audience.

We honed in on four key qualities within the Twitch audience, which gave us a sense of understanding of a group of users who are hard to pinpoint.

Hard to find – 8 in 10 males aged 16-24 – and 85% of esports fans – are either deleting cookies, using private browsing windows or blocking ads.

Community-focused – “I would buy a product or service simply for the experience of being part of the community built around it.”

A desire for distinctive qualities with brands – “I want a brand to be bold, funny, and feel young.”

Skeptical – 21% less likely to trust word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family.

Bring an insiders-only joke to TikTok

Right off the bat, we knew neither traditional advertising nor content that felt too much like advertising would win over an audience like Twitch’s.

These were folks that were part of a community with a knack for spotting outsiders and razzing marketing campaigns that didn’t fit their vibe.

To deliver content with the Twitch community’s preferred flavor, we built Twitch’s launch on TikTok around a longstanding inside joke.

See, a funny thing happens when Twitch Creators step away from their streams. The phenomenon that’s known to the Twitch community as (drumroll)… the chair stream.

We created a full minute-long chair stream video, boosted with paid support, for Twitch’s TikTok. To keep viewers engaged, we used a drool-worthy setup and strategically placed several Twitch easter eggs to keep folks waiting for the payoff.

In the last five seconds, we gave fans what they were looking for by ending our mock chair stream with a special cameo from prominent FaZe clan member Swagg, as he walked into frame and acknowledged what everyone had been waiting for: Twitch is here and ready to take on TikTok.

Results that speak for themselves

The careful thought that went into our production didn’t go unnoticed by Twitch’s audience.

In total, we racked up:

+60MM views
+364K likes
+9,000 comments

Best of all, we successfully gained Twitch’s brand new TikTok account with more than 60,000 followers.

As an added bonus, the project even earned us a Silver Distinction in TikTok at the 14th annual Shorty Awards, created to honor the best in social media.

Growth that keeps on growing

TikTok numbers continued to grow after the success of Twitch’s initial launch. In less than a year, Twitch saw a 234% follower increase and its videos amassed an additional +1 million views across social.

Quarter over quarter, we also observed a 200% increase in impressions, 269% increase in engagements, and a 23% increase in average engagement rate.

Our four-year partnership with Twitch also continues, in work helping uncover new ways for Twitch to expand its reach with reactive opportunities and live events like TwitchCon.