Twitch: The Most Underrated Platform in Your Influencer Strategy

Engagement, unexpected audiences, creative freedom and a sponsorship-friendly culture: Twitch has assets that most brands barely scratch the surface of. Here's what you need to know before diving in.

Posted on

June 26, 2026

●

TOC item

●

TOC item

Brands that still write Twitch off as a niche platform for gamers are leaving one of the most engaged, conversion-ready audiences on the table. Lucien Melki, founder of Jump Influence, and Cem Dagli, Influence Strategist at Jump, make the case for the platform and break down how brands can activate it in 2026.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of Twitch from an influencer marketing standpoint?

Lucien Melki: Let's start with the strengths, because there are a lot of them. In France, Twitch started out very gaming-focused. But it's grown enormously since then, and today it's something very different. It's a meeting place with an exceptional level of authentic engagement.

TikTok is great for reach and discovery. But you don't really build a regular appointment with someone there. A TikToker posts a video, and you might not see them again for three weeks until the algorithm pushes their content back into your feed. On Twitch, you're showing up daily. It's live, you're talking directly with the community in real time. There's a subscription model where the community is used to financially supporting streamers — not to access exclusive content, but simply to show their support. In France, that kind of voluntary financial backing of a creator is genuinely rare. On Twitch, it exists because viewers actually care about the people they watch. That says a lot about the depth of the relationship between streamers and their audiences.

Cem Dagli: I'd add that the platform's audience is becoming increasingly female. For a long time it was very male, very gaming. But events like Squeezie's GP Explorer brought in a much broader, more diverse crowd. Twitch today is genuinely lifestyle, and the range of content is now strong enough to make it a serious proposition for almost any type of advertiser.

What's your argument for a non-gaming brand that says "Twitch isn't for me"?

Lucien Melki: We have two. The first is about conversion. When brands run their first campaigns on Twitch, early performance is often very strong, because they're reaching a genuinely new audience — people who don't watch traditional TV, who aren't on Instagram, who don't convert on TikTok.

The Aroma Zone launch is the best example. It's one of the most beloved beauty brands in France, but it had a very specific challenge: growing their male customer base. On Twitch, they found an extraordinary number of new customers. And the format was remarkable: streamers talked about the brand for more than 45 minutes, openly, in their own voice. That's a very different dynamic from what you see anywhere else.

The second argument is creative freedom. On Twitch, you can build a concept from scratch with live interactivity, real-time games and genuine brand storytelling — then repurpose it as short-form content for Instagram, TikTok and highlights on YouTube.

Influencer marketing is increasingly shifting toward micro-creators. Does that logic apply on Twitch too?

Lucien Melki: Going too micro doesn't work on Twitch, because absolute audience sizes aren't the same as on YouTube or TikTok. But there's something that works really well with more mid-size creators, and it ties back to our platform partnership. We can get a creator placed on Twitch's homepage. So if you have a creator with a great on-screen presence, very brand-safe, but a smaller audience, you can significantly boost their reach through the homepage discovery feed. That's something that doesn't exist on other social platforms. It's a real advantage.

How do Twitch creators build their audiences, and what does that mean for a campaign?

Lucien Melki: A lot of them do it through TikTok. They stream continuously on Twitch, clip the highlights and post them on TikTok. The algorithm is unpredictable — a creator can post 100 videos and one of them can hit a million views, which brings a wave of new followers back to Twitch. TikTok is the lead-generation engine; Twitch is where those leads are converted and where the community actually gets built.

For campaigns, that doesn't mean you need both. You can absolutely build something Twitch-first — a concept with real production value that stands on its own. That said, for a brand used to Instagram and TikTok, a 360 package that includes Twitch alongside short-form content is often reassuring. It bridges the familiar and the new.

What KPIs should brands track to measure the impact of a Twitch campaign?

Lucien Melki: The metrics are specific to live content. Peak concurrent viewers is less telling than total viewers over the duration of a stream. A streamer who averages 1,000 concurrent viewers across an 8-hour broadcast can accumulate between 20,000 and 40,000 total viewers, because people tune in and out throughout the day.

The second key metric is average watch time. And here's one of Twitch's most compelling advantages: you can build a brand concept that runs four hours, and viewers will genuinely watch it for four hours. That's practically impossible on YouTube. On YouTube, Squeezie would never make a video dedicated to a brand — his editorial direction doesn't allow for it. But on Twitch, you can build an entire show with a brand at the center, run games and contests in real time. That kind of creative freedom doesn't exist anywhere else.

Are Twitch audiences accepting of brand partnerships?

Lucien Melki: There are far fewer brand partnerships on Twitch than on Instagram or TikTok, which means the format still feels fresh and unsaturated. Audiences are receptive, as long as they're done intelligently — the chat is actively engaged, viewers can participate and win things.

Cem Dagli: Viewers understand that streamers need brand deals to make a living, and they want their favorite streamers to be able to keep doing what they do. You can have multiple sponsors in a single stream and it doesn't create controversy — the opposite of what happens on YouTube. And in gaming and esports especially, there's a genuine culture of long-term partnership. Brands that show up consistently over time and become part of the story. It's a space that rewards authentic presence.

Why is Twitch seen as a less tyoxic environment than other platforms?

Lucien Melki: The chat is the community, it's the connective tissue. Some streamers' entire format is Just Chatting — no game, no set topic, just talking with their audience for hours. Someone mentions a piece of news, the streamer picks it up: "Did you see the tax hike? What do you all think?" And suddenly you have a real community discussion happening in real time. That kind of two-way relationship is unique to Twitch.

On toxicity: anonymous hate-scrolling is much rarer on Twitch because viewers feel a genuine connection to the streamer and to each other. They know the person on screen, they're in conversation with them. Active moderation does the rest: every streamer has their own moderators. That creates a healthier environment, and it's one of the reasons we work with nonprofits on Twitch. We ran a charity livestream with Doctors Without Borders that went really well.

How do you handle brand hesitation around the unpredictability of live content?

Cem Dagli: The fear of going live is real, and we take it seriously. Our job is to put brands at ease. Streamers are professionals, even with complex or sensitive briefs, campaigns with major banks for example, they always go smoothly because there's rigorous pre-qualification work done upfront. We try to be educational about it: explaining clearly what's going to happen and why.

Is Twitch accessible to brands with modest budgets?

Lucien Melki: Yes, you can absolutely test Twitch with a limited budget.

Cem Dagli: What's important to understand is that Twitch is less a social network in the traditional sense and more of a media platform. On Instagram and TikTok, you do integrations. On Twitch, you build things: shows, panels, concepts, experiences. It requires a slightly different creative mindset. We've worked with brands like Emma, whose target was very family-oriented, very mom-focused, that now speak primarily to men and gamers on Twitch. The platform has that kind of transformative potential, if you come in with the right strategy.

About Kolsquare

Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, offering a data-driven solution that empowers brands to scale their KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing strategies through authentic partnerships with top creators.

Kolsquare’s advanced technology helps marketing professionals seamlessly identify the best content creators by filtering their content and audience, while also enabling them to build, manage, and optimize campaigns from start to finish. This includes measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors.

With a thriving global community of influencer marketing experts, Kolsquare serves hundreds of customers—including Coca-Cola, Netflix, Sony Music, Publicis, Sézane, Sephora, Lush, and Hermès—by leveraging the latest Big Data, AI, and Machine Learning technologies. Our platform taps into an extensive network of KOLs with more than 5,000 followers across 180 countries on Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat.

As a Certified B Corporation, Kolsquare leads the way in promoting Responsible Influence, championing transparency, ethical practices, and meaningful collaborations that inspire positive change.

Since October 2024, Kolsquare has become part of the Team.Blue group, one of the largest private tech companies in Europe, and a leading digital enabler for businesses and entrepreneurs across Europe. Team.Blue brings together over 60 successful brands in web hosting, domains, e-commerce, online compliance, lead generation, application solutions, and social media.