Video game streaming platform Twitch announced several new features at TwitchCon Paris this week aimed at helping streamers discoverability, engagement, and monetization. Two key additions are Stories and a Discovery feed, borrowing formats popularized by Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.
The Stories feature, launching in October, will allow streamers to share vertical full-screen video clips, images, and text updates with followers in between live streams. This gives streamers a way to engage viewers even when they’re not streaming live. Streamers can share Stories with all followers or just subscribers.
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Twitch Introduces a Discovery Feed to Increase User Engagement
The Discovery feed, rolling out later this fall, will suggest non-live streamers’ clips to viewers based on their interests. This gives viewers a way to discover new streamers to follow even when those streamers are offline. Streamers will be able to mark certain clips as “featured” so they appear more often in the feed.
Other improvements include better clip editing tools like trim functionality and the ability for streamers to grant access to video editors. The clip editor is coming to Android and iOS devices.
To help moderators manage bad actors across multiple channels, Twitch is introducing “Shared Mod Comments” so mods can share ban reasons with other streamers. New alerts are also coming to reward subscribers and celebrate streamer milestones.
Streamers will soon gain more control over ad breaks through a chat countdown timer showing when an ad is about to run. This will allow streamers to pause or adjust the ad break to avoid interrupting important moments in their streams.
The Discovery feed, Stories and other additions aim to increase the time viewers spend watching non-live clips on Twitch’s platform, similar to how features like Instagram Reels and TikTok’s video feed have driven growth for those competitors.
However, Twitch CEO Emmet Shear emphasized that Twitch will continue prioritizing live and interactive streams. The new features are meant to complement, not replace, that core experience.
Advertisers Like Standardization and Creators Now Have Some Bargaining Power
The fact that most social media platforms have mimicked the novel AI-powered recommendation model that TikTok pioneered is becoming an issue as nearly all social networks have pretty similar interfaces nowadays.
For once, users are getting more and more used to platforms that deliver engaging content and shunning – either deliberately or by design – the follower-centered model that initially propelled platforms like Instagram.
Now, content creators have taken the center of the stage as the algorithm that powers these platforms is designed to promote the most engaging, shared, and viewable content for each user based on their unique preferences.
As a result, the content that is being pushed forward is becoming more and more similar as creators are just trying to replicate whatever goes viral so they can stay at the top of their followers’ feeds, even if that means stepping out of their area of expertise or comfort to achieve that goal.
Advertisers are attracted to the standardization of content formats as they can focus on designing whatever is working at the time for that particular format to gain followers, monetize their channels, convert customers, or increase their user base.
Meanwhile, in a content-centered social media landscape, creators are gaining an edge that they previously did not have as platforms are more prone to make multi-million dollar deals with influencers who can keep large audiences engaged.
Things have changed in the social media space and TikTok has been primarily responsible for this tectonic shift. Advertisers are happy, creators are earning more money, users are no longer just viewing what their family shares, and social networks have become a place where whatever goes viral is what millions of people will ultimately see.