As I walked into my first TwitchCon at the San Diego Convention Center this past weekend, I didn’t know what to expect. Maybe I would see hordes of young men playing games on their phone or participating in e-sports competitions. Maybe I would see everyone doing cosplay. Yes, there was some of that. What I predominately found instead were thousands of men and women from all different walks of life coming together to connect, learn, and, most importantly, have fun. The whole vibe was: “Come as you are. You are welcome here.”

It’s unfortunate that the vibe of this event was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding Twitch’s handling of streamer, Emiru’s, assault on the exhibition floor.

In my personal experience walking through the main exhibition area, I didn’t see the tops of people’s heads, absorbed in their own phones. No, I saw confident young people putting themselves out there, meeting their digital friends IRL, looking at each other, talking, laughing, dancing the electric slide, and even making friendship bracelets. I saw young creators sitting on the stage, graciously answering questions from newer streamers about how to build their own following or the best way to tag your content for optimal reach. I saw people helping people. And I just thought to myself, what is happening here?

Twitch Preserves The Social In Social Media

Social media engagement today looks more like a mindless doom scroll on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, rather than real human connection. Most social media platforms don’t feel very social anymore — they’re media distribution platforms. I think this is why we see community-based platforms like Reddit and Twitch getting increasingly popular. With these platforms, community participation and connection sits at the heart of the product.

Twitch lives by its mission to empower communities, believing in helping people find the communities where they belong, whatever type of community that might be. This mission drives its product decisions and updates, as seen in this year’s TwitchCon with the introduction of new mobile features and even an integration into Meta’s AI glasses for livestreaming on the go. In a conversation with Twitch Head of Community Mary Kish, she expressed, “the community always tells us what to do.” It seems like, for the most part, they listen. Twitch is more social than social media because:

  • Twitch users watch content live, concurrently. On Twitch, users don’t just watch video on demand or scroll through short-form video, like they do on other social media platforms. They spend a significant amount of time (an average of 3 hours) watching streamer content live, together as a group. This format fosters excitement because nobody (sometimes not even the streamers) knows what’s going to happen next.
  • The community has a say in what happens during each stream. Viewership on Twitch isn’t passive. The chat functionality that’s core to the experience makes viewing more active. When users watch a stream, they chat and actively participate in that stream in real time. Many times, they even have a say in what the streamer will do next. DoorDash recognized that streamers get hungry during these long streams, so they partnered with streamers to deliver them food. The catch? They let the community decide what the streamer should eat. This type of participation makes viewers more invested in the content.
  • The Twitch experience balances scale and intimacy. Livestreams can have thousands or even millions of people participating all at once. Twitch builds in social cues, like badges and emotes, which give the streamers context cues for community subscribers. For instance, if a user has a Founders Badge, the streamer knows this person was one of the first subscribers to their channel, so they might want to call them out directly. These cues make the interactions feel more intimate and personal, at scale.

How Do Brands Successfully Activate On Twitch?

There’s something special happening on Twitch. Yes, you might get the scale on YouTube, the virality on TikTok, or the efficiency on Meta. What you get on Twitch is real human engagement. You also get the power of Amazon Ads, which makes for excellent targeting and attribution capabilities across the Amazon ecosystem. Buyers should beware, however: Community-based platforms such as Twitch and Reddit have savvy users who are wary about advertising and will be the first to call you out if you take away from their experience. Here are some tips on the right way to do it:

  • Engage with streamers — don’t make ads. Partner directly with streamers to create memorable experiences on Twitch and add scale via Twitch ads that connect to the experience. Twitch is investing heavily to scale and formalize its brand/creator partnerships. In fact, 10x more creators scored brand deals this year compared to 2024. Twitch is nothing without its streamers, so to make an impact, you need to go right to the source. Cosmetic brand e.l.f. created its own community on Twitch called “elfyou,” where they do makeup tutorials and play games live. By creating its own space, e.l.f. has established credibility in the Twitch community, making the brand an ideal partner for streamers.
  • Find streamers that you can trust. The live, unpredictable nature of Twitch makes it both exciting and a potential liability. Fortunately, Twitch takes platform safety seriously and has made many recent improvements to make it easier for brands to find suitable streamers. For instance, it added content classification labels that follow GARM standards so streamers can self-tag their content.
  • Create experiences that add, not interrupt. When you’re doing it right, the activation doesn’t break the flow of the Twitch experience. In influencer marketing, you often hear people talk about how brands should trust the influencer because they know their audience and what they want to see from them. On Twitch, it’s about knowing what the community wants to experience and cocreate with them. This is a nuanced but important distinction. As popular VTuber Miss Lala put it in one of the TwitchCon panels, your brand partnerships need to be a seamless experience for the viewer, the creator, and for the company you are working with.
  • Do something that’s never been done before. I heard this sentiment repeatedly at TwitchCon, and Mary Kish put it well: “See if you can construct what the next big thing is. […] Remember you are not hiring a host.” Twitch is a place for innovators, and streamers want to create the next new thing, not host your brand sponsorship. Lean into the streamer’s expertise and cocreate something brand-new for Twitch that gets you outsized attention and buzz. When Oliver Widger, a social media influencer, decided to sail from Oregon to Hawaii with his cat, e.l.f. Beauty delivered a care package to him via plane in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Upon arriving in Hawaii, he hopped right on a livestream with e.l.f. to talk about his experiences.
  • Lean into live event sponsorships with a streamer. Twitch streamers participate in events around the world, such as F1, the NBA, and the upcoming World Cup. These might be events your brand already sponsors — think about extending that partnership into the Twitch space with livestreamers who are already on the ground at these events. Involve their community in an event they wouldn’t otherwise be able to experience.
  • Integrate a charity component into the partnership. Twitch users love raising money for their favorite streamers’ charities. One VTuber, Ironmouse, who suffers from common variable immunodeficiency (CVID), raised over $1 million for the Immune Deficiency Foundation by leveraging the power of her streaming community. Consider how you could help a streamer raise money for their charity, or one of yours, via a streamer partnership.

Forrester clients, schedule a guidance session to talk more about the rise of community-based platforms, like Twitch, and how you can start activating there.