Twitch Is Testing A Feature That Lets Viewers Pay To Promote Streamers

Twitch is experimenting with a new feature that will allow viewers to pay money to promote a show, only days after introducing new safety features meant to shield streamers from hate raids.

The new feature had been rumored to be in the works on social media and now, a Twitch spokesman has now confirmed to The Verge that it is being tested with a few broadcasters.

Well, this is how the promotion works! During a stream, a notice will appear notifying viewers that the boost option is available for 10 minutes. Viewers who participate can then pay for a variety of recommendations. There are two purchasing options in the demonstration: 1,000 suggestions for.99 cents and 3,000 recommendations for $2.97. These boost buy windows appear at random for participating streams and can occur as frequently as every time a broadcast goes live.

“We are launching an experiment to a few growing channels that enables their communities to purchase promotions to highly visible parts of Twitch.”
Twitch

According to Jacob Rosok – Twitch’s Product Manager, this new sponsored program was inspired by user feedback. Streamers wanted more opportunities to have their streams promoted and for that marketing to be more effective. That meaningfulness, then, appears to be Twitch just assigning a monetary value to “effect.” The more money spent on recommendations, the more front-page exposure a streamer receives, and the greater the “effect” a boosted broadcast has on its originator.

We think that paying to help a creator grow their community will be worthwhile to their supporters.
Mr. Rosok

Source: The Verge

There are other methods for viewers to assist streamers and for streamers to reach a bigger audience. Viewers can use tags to find streams that fit their unique requirements. Raids (of the non-hate kind) combine the viewers of one author with those of another.

Smaller streamers are also pushed on the front page during Black History Month, Pride Month, and Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Rosok also notes that the free community challenge version of stream boosting will continue to be accessible for those who do not want to pay money but still want to support their favorite streams.

The initiative is now limited to tiny streamers with fewer than 250 followers and will run for the next four weeks. Twitch will share statistics with creators in order for them to analyze the impact of a boost on their traffic. Twitch also adds that this is simply an experiment and that there is no assurance that the program will be implemented across the board or even in its present form.

Twitch went into detail about the new paid boost feature during its Patch Notes program. Check out the relevant portion of the program here.