The biggest concern of streamers nowadays is the revenue they can generate from their Twitch lives. Indeed, it takes time and personal investment to develop a Twitch channel and it is not built in a few days.
The more you stream, the more your content improves and finds its audience and therefore the more you increase your chances to develop your channel. But streaming can quickly become a full-time job when you have to offer several hours of live content per day.
It is these live hours (minimum 25 hours, over periods of 30 days in a row) that allow you to obtain the status of "Partner" and therefore to start generating income from your livestreams.
To do so, Twitch offers many options such as:
Subscriptions or "subs" : With this option, the most loyal viewers can pay a monthly subscription to support the creator and unlock exclusive content. This is now the main source of revenue for the platform's creators. But you will have understood, your audience must be strong enough, loyal and committed before wanting to subscribe to your channel.
Donations : it is possible to make direct donations, via solutions like TipeeeStream or via the Bits. Both solutions generally allow viewers to post a message on the live stream, which guarantees (or almost guarantees) that the creator will read it. This solution depends on your community, but also on its means and its level of engagement on your channel. In order for your viewers to be willing to donate to you, you must first have created a strong link with them and have a fairly loyal audience. The same principle applies to Bits which are the virtual currency of Twitch. With Bits, viewers have the possibility to send Cheers, i.e. paid encouragement emotes in the streamer's chat.
Bits in extensions: Bits can also be used to power special features on the Creators Channel. If a subscriber agrees to enable this feature, you receive 80% of the bits used. The remaining 20% goes to the developer of this feature.
Sponsors: Finally, when the size of your audience is sufficient, some brands are interested in sponsoring creators on a long term basis, and will pay them a fixed fee each month in exchange for their logo or a banner permanently displayed on their broadcasts.
To attract brands, you need to have a certain number of viewers on your livestreams, followers and also be able to guarantee a number of live hours that is attractive to the brands in question. However, be careful to choose brands that match your content, otherwise you and the brand may not make the partnership beneficial in terms of image, nor profitable. If your partnerships are successful, you can then move on to product placements. For this, you receive a fee in exchange for visibility for a product or a game for example during your lives, but this can not be done on the long term.
Twitch ads : A classic! With this option, creators can launch the famous "ad break" during a live stream whenever they want, but it's not the best way to generate revenue on the platform since it may strongly displease your audience who will eventually get tired of ads and therefore may not watch your streams until the end.
Brand affiliations: Creators have the ability to embed links to products under their broadcast (often material that the creator uses, and that the audience is likely to want to purchase). If a user buys the product through this link, the creator will receive a commission.
Now let's move on to another way to generate revenue that Twitch won't tell you about: duplicate your lives by exporting to YouTube !
Although YouTube has also launched its livestream service, it is not about doing the same thing twice. Instead, we advise you to offer a different format on your YouTube channel, for example by making best-of videos of your lives. You will be able to reach a wider target and generate new revenues through this.
YouTube remains the most used video platform in the world today. Here, the "on-demand" format appeals to users who don't necessarily have the same schedule as their favorite streamers, allowing them to catch up on a missed live show in a few minutes.
So you can generate additional income by monetizing these second formats. Some streamers who started on YouTube already have a large community on this platform.
To do this, you just need to call on YouTube video editing experts who will select the best moments of your live show and apply the codes that viewers of the platform like. Success guaranteed thanks to a shorter, more dynamic and more entertaining video!
You don't know how to do it and want to go further with YouTube? Contact our experts by clicking on the button below!
