Twitch Aims to Boost Streamer Visibility with Netflix-Inspired Strategies

Twitch has announced its intent to market streamers similarly to how Netflix promotes its flagship shows.

In recent years, content creation and streaming have solidified themselves as viable career options for gamers and online entertainers. Successful ventures on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, or Twitch can act as a springboard to mainstream recognition.

We’ve witnessed this trend with personalities like Ninja, the D’Amelio sisters, and Jake Paul. Despite Ninja’s surge in popularity a few years back, the streaming scene has seen fewer new breakout successes lately.

Undeniably, Twitch boasts many prominent figures within its community, and if you follow the streaming landscape closely, you’re sure to recognize them. To amplify their reach, the Amazon-owned service is drawing inspiration from Netflix’s promotional strategies.

Rachel Delphin, Twitch’s chief marketing officer, shared with The Drum that the emphasis should be on “marketing and supporting” streamers outside the platform.

“Much like a streaming service that showcases content rather than the brand itself… we operate as a collection of brands, so a significant part of our mission involves enabling, empowering, and educating streamers,” she remarked.

kick, twitch and youtube logos side-by-side — Kick/Twitch/YouTube

Although Kick and YouTube serve as direct competitors to Twitch, the latter embraces a Netflix-like approach.

This approach echoes the sentiments of Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, who previously indicated that Netflix represents Twitch’s main competition, rather than YouTube or alternatives like KICK.

“Viewers often engage with Twitch for extended periods, sometimes up to two hours. In a sense, we function as a social, long-form, user-generated content [UGC] platform. Thus, we find ourselves positioned between streaming television services and social media networks,” Clancy stated in an interview with Fortune back in June.

While Twitch has recently toned down its practice of offering substantial contracts to streamers, it used to heavily promote these agreements. There may soon be a resurgence of such promotional efforts.

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