Video game influencers are the next big thing. For a long time marketing to the ‘nerdy’ part of the society was a niche thing. It was new, a bit different and exotic. Not many companies cared to advertise to the gaming crowd, because it was considered minor, with small purchasing power and very narrow interests.
Fast forward a few years. Out of sudden, a bunch of big video game channels overtook YouTube. Mobile gaming is booming with almost $137.9 billion in revenue forecast for 2018. Twitch emerged as a major streaming platform — Steam.tv, YouTube Live, Facebook and Mixer are trying to get into that market with streaming services on their own.
Gaming is all the rage and with Twitch recently revealing that they now generate more ad revenue from non-gaming brands than video game-related ones it turns out that everyone is a nerd and gaming may be the best way to reach people. Who would have thought?
here are hundreds of thousands of video game channels out there ranging from small to mid-range that have great, close-knit communities. Their engagement is much better than that of massive celebrity channels because they interact with their viewers on a daily basis and they do so in a more personal way. The best thing about those gaming influencers is that they are fresh, curious and fully open to sponsorship and endorsement.
If you want to try and work with this kind of crowd you need to be prepared to either work hard and do your research on every single influencer separately or join up some kind of social media aggregator. Both methods will work, but they may not be ideal.
Because of how new they are to the scene most up and coming gaming influencers don’t quite realize that they have something great and potentially valuable for you. That means no ‘About’ or ‘Contact’ pages, no media kits, no business emails. So…how do you actually reach out to those people?
Go to a meetup
If you happen to be in town and are willing to do the legwork, you can go to an influencer meetup! There are the Twitch London Meetup, New York Streamer Meetup and many others going on regularly, but you can also organize your own.
The true power of a meetup lies in 2 things: There’s no telling who will show up (which can be great…or far less than great) and it allows you to get to know the real person behind the channel (which gives you a great chance to connect with them, check out their personality and see if you’d like them to work with your brand). Also, a meetup allows you to work and have fun at the same time — it’s the pinnacle of networking.
So, enjoy the party, but don’t forget to get your phone and notebook full of precious contact details. Keep tabs on the people you will email the day after and what content can they produce for you.
Find a stream team
Stream teams are a way for content creators on Twitch to get together and promote each other. If you find one streamer that you’d love to work with and he is a part of the team, be sure to check it out. Chances are you will find a massive community of channels that are very compatible with your brand and it will save you hours of browsing.
What makes stream teams even more relevant to you and your search for new influencers is that since its a team, all influencers that actively participate and contribute will have something in common. A thing to bring them together and make them want to cooperate with each other. This is either language, choice of games, physical location, size or the theme of their channels. If you are looking at channels that are very specific — speaking French, New York-based, playing Fortnite, then teams are a lifesaver for you.
Explore Discord
Gaming people are a bit different from your run of the mill influencers. They do interact with their viewers in comments and in chat, but they tend to drift to Discord for their social activity. Discord (if you are not yet familiar with it) is a forum-like discussion board for people. Everyone can create their own channel, its free and it’s big in the video game community. You can check out Discord here. Once you have an account, you are free to join any channels you’d like and chat with people there.
The catch here is that first, you have to find channels you’d be interested in. Do you have any YouTuber or streamer you’d like to work with? Pop into their profile or check out their video credits and I bet there will be a Discord link somewhere in there. Join it and voila — you are able to write messages and whisper anyone in there.
There’s an added bonus to joining Discord. Majority of YouTubers and streamers love networking and cross-promoting, so you can find channels full of clips and shoutouts for other, similar content creators. If you are lucky it can be a goldmine of quality pre-screened and pre-approved contacts for you.
Ask for recommendations
Did you notice that influencers always come in groups? Since social media is, well…extremely social, every content creator has friends they work, talk, write and interact with. Good chances are that, if you found one great influencer to collaborate with, they know other people in the same scene that you can approach as well.
Go ahead and ask your existing influencers for leads. If they decide to recommend someone to you, they are more likely to point you in the direction of content creators they like and respect. This means less research time and great quality content for you.
If you are trying to rapidly expand your influencer base, you can try and incentivize recommendations. A great way of doing it can be a flat fee for every recommendation that ended in a successfully completed campaign. Your influencers will be happy to help you out and score some points with other creators at the same time!
Set up a shop
Let the influencers come to you — Tribe offers a unique service where you are able to create campaigns and pay influencers for the posts you really love. The best bit is that you don’t pay for the material you reject. You can cherry-pick and get only the great bits you genuinely want to go with.
After you create a campaign thousands of influencers can browse it anonymously and submit posts for you to choose from. If you like it — go for it, if you don’t — either suggest changes or reject it. You can get great bang for your buck here and you don’t lose anything by just trying it out. It literally couldn’t get any better.
Since Tribe is anonymous, it is great for you if you don’t mind what kind of influencers you work with. If you are only interested in quality content, not in every individual channel and personality it will suit you really well.
Go for a gaming influencer marketplace
..and let someone else do the heavy lifting for you. Finding, researching and contacting influencers takes a serious amount of time. Even when you think that you have found the right person, you are never guaranteed a positive response from them (or any response if they don’t monitor the specific inbox you managed to contact them on). That is where the marketplaces or agencies come in.
Marketplaces like Adshot have hundreds of gaming influencers ready to start creating content for you without any fuss on your side. They act as a real-life marketplace where you can easily find the right content creators and invite them for a campaign in a matter of clicks. Are you looking for a let’s play Youtuber with 10–20k reach to create a video for you? An English Battle Royale streamer with average of 100 viewers to unbox your product? Adshot got you covered. And the nicest thing: Free entrance. You only pay a fee when an influencer actually replied to your offer and executed your campaign.
Since they already have a big and versatile crowd, they did all the research and cherry-picking for you, their influencers know what they are doing and what will be expected of them, the whole process is streamlined for you. You just need to create a campaign, pick the kind of content and influencers you’d like and look at the amazing response you will be getting!
Navigating gaming social channels can be tricky. How do you usually connect with your influencers? Any tips that you are willing to share with us? We’d love to read more in the comments!