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The Marketing Stream

The Marketing Stream

Written by: Steve Wiseman
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 The Marketing Stream is a podcast that covers the world of esports and gaming with a marketing perspective. Data driven topics are discussed to help bridge the passion of esports and gaming communities with the business and marketing world.2020 - The Marketing Stream Podcast Economics Marketing Marketing & Sales Science Fiction
Episodes
  • A Ruined Campaign For Burger King and How They Can Fix It

    A Ruined Campaign For Burger King and How They Can Fix It
    Aug 20 2020
    This week a tweet came out from Ogilvy, an advertising agency, promoting the work they did for their client Burger King. The campaign, called ‘The King of the Stream’ turned Twitch's donation feature into a marketing campaign, specifically streamers that had their tips read live on stream. If you are thinking to yourself, hey this seems wrong or problematic then you are right. Let’s dive in to why this was wrong, is blowing up, and I’ll even give Burger King two free campaign ideas that would’ve worked.
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    17 mins
  • Why Does Microsoft want TikTok and what does it mean for gamers?

    Why Does Microsoft want TikTok and what does it mean for gamers?
    Aug 7 2020

    On the last two episodes, I discussed the collapse of Microsoft’s streaming platform Mixer and how you can grow your stream by using TikTok to reach a new audience. 

    Now these two topics are colliding. If you missed the news, the President of the United States wants to ban TikTok and has now issued an executive order to ban TikTok by September 20th . There is two fields of thought on why he wants it banned - that it has national security concerns, publicly expressing worry that the Chinese-owned company will share user data with the Chinese government. The other thought is it has to do with Trump’s Tulsa rally and how TikTok users trolled the president by rsvp’ing for seats with no intention of showing up. This led to the president’s team boasting about getting over a million rsvps to the event, when in reality, only 6200 people showed up.

    After the initial threat to ban TikTok, Microsoft has become the front runner to purchase the app in the United States and has been laying the ground work for decades on this type of purchase according to a recent article from the Financial Times. Microsoft has had research labs in China since the 1990s which have functioned as incubators for local talent and many top Chinese tech executives (including the founder of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance) have worked for Microsoft in the past.

    What does acquiring TikTok get Micrsoft and what does it do for gamers? The biggest thing Microsoft gets is D A T A, data.

    In Q1 of 2020, TikTok had 315 million downloads worldwide. 130 million of that was from just the United States. In June, it was downloaded 7.5 million times. That is a lot of users that Microsoft can use to pull data from and it will help shape everything their company will be creating or selling which leads to the other point of buying TikTok, a platform that is made up of almost 50% of 16-24 year olds. This is a prime demographic for buying, oh I don’t know maybe a new gaming console that is coming out holiday 2020 or recent high school grades that need new laptops for college.


    The advertising power the platform has to push Microsoft products is huge, but it can not become a shill for their own services as users will burn out on the promotion.

    Here is where TikTok could get interesting for Gamers. Microsoft could easily integrates a clip system on Xbox or in PCs, which would allow you to directly upload to TikTok or maybe even allow streaming directly to the platform because they already have done and built that application.  And yes, I know Microsoft just closed down Mixer, but the whole point of that platform was to appeal to a larger audience, ie why it was viewable on all xbox systems. With TikTok it would allow them to do that immediately. If we look at the numbers, TikTok had 7.5 million downloads in the United States in June which is the end of Q2. At that same time, Mixer had just over 5 million unique channels.

    TikTok already had plans for gaming too. In January is was reported that ByteDance, parent company to TikTok, was setting up actual gaming studios. Their new CEO, former head of streaming at Disney Kevin Mayer indicated gaming and music as two possible expansion possibilities for the platform.

    At this point, it is pretty radio silent on whether the app will be banned or purchased. But as a content creator, you can still be pushing videos to the app but you should also be funneling them to your other channels in case it does suffer the same fate of Mixer.

    If you can’t live without short form content, there is alternative apps you can be posting to.

    The big ones are Triller, Byte (created by one of the former vine creators), Instagram Reels just dropped, and there is another app created by a former viner called Clash Video which focuses more on the monetization side and gives creators more control.

    At the end of the day, just make sure you aren’t putting all your eggs in one basket and be posting consistently.

    Thank you for Listening to the marketing stream podcast! If liked the show please leave a rating on whatever platform you are listening to the show on. Got a question or comment, you can email me at podcast@stevewisey.com

    Again thanks for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode of The Marketing Stream.
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    7 mins
  • Can TikTok Grow Your Live Stream?

    Can TikTok Grow Your Live Stream?
    Jul 25 2020
    Whether it stays or is banned in the United States, if you aren’t on TikTok sharing videos - you are missing out on some of the easiest views in Social Media right now.While you may think that TikTok is just dancing kids and memes, there is also an insane amount of content in the gaming space too. Looking at the hashtag gamer on TikTok, it has 13.8 BILLION VIEWS at the time this podcast was recorded.On this episode, I’m going to take you through a few creators and a brand that have grown substantially by using TikTok to funnel viewers in to their other channels.TikTok OverviewTikTok is a short form video sharing platform that has 800 million monthly active users worldwide. As of April 2020, the app has been downloaded more than two billion times worldwide on both the Apple App Store and Google Play. The number comes at less than 5 years  (Facebook took 13 years to hit that number) - making it the 6th largest social network on the planet.41% of those users are between 16-24 and 90% return to the platform multiple times a day. Users are spending close to 80 minutes per day on TikTok.It is not just the view and time spent that is big on TikTok, so is the engagement rate on posts. The average engagement rate on posts is 52%. Do you know what the industry average was on Instagram last year? 1.6%. Facebook - 0.09% Twitter - 0.048%Streamer OverviewWhat really inspired this episode was three streamers that I found first on TikTok and not on Twitch. When I started doing research and looking at the numbers, I found that all of these creators experienced huge growth due to TikTok. One of them had a video go viral, one was featured in a video that went viral, and the other one is consistently posting clips from her stream and has inspired a video format for a lot of other gaming creators on TikTok.SteelSeriesBefore I get in to those 3 creators, I wanted to highlight a brand that is doing great work on TikTok. In my marketing experience, I’ve had a lot of people say “hey can we make this go viral” or why can’t we be funny like Wendys or Moonpie. Nothing is more cringe worthy than those comments. First off, if I could just make things go viral and was funny like Wendys, I would be making a hell of a lot more money than I am now. Social media isn’t that simple and there is so many things go in to those moments and especially on TikTok it can be hard to find a place as a brand.At the moment, SteelSeries has one of the best tiktok accounts in the gaming space. They are on trend with popular memes and songs, they lean in to the meme of all their fans asking for free headsets and keyboards, and the most important thing the users they have are converting in to their other platforms.I’ve been in their twitch chat numerous times while their Global Social Media Manager Jon is streaming and he’ll get comments from viewers saying they saw their video on TikTok.They’ve only been on TikTok since December of 2019 and have over 535,000 fans with almost 11 million likes over 299 videos. Jon and SteelSeries have gotten to this place by being consistent in their posting. At minimum 1 video per day, in some cases 2 or 3. They are also true to their brand voice and message. Yes, they will jump on trends but there is always a headset or keyboard in the video. Being consistent and being true to your brand voice lead to growth on TikTok.Broxh - The CarverThe first creator is Broxh the carver. He is a creative creator from New Zealand. On his streams, Broxh does wood carvings live using a phone to read chat and what I guessing is another phone or webcam to stream. That is it, no crazy gimmicks just wood carving and an extremely positive and humble attitude. Broxh’s channel has absolutely exploded since May of 2020, due to a few things that all happened within about 3 weeks with the biggest tipping point being a TikTok video.Broxh prior to May, he had been averaging between 5 and 10 viewers with under 100 followers. As of recording this, he is averaging 1600 concurrent viewers and has a little over 997,000 followers. So what happened that caused that jump? The start of the upward trend began on April 20th with a feature on Twitch ANZ’s front page and a couple features around that on Twitter. Broxh avg viewer count spiked up to almost 2000 viewers. His follower count is growing, he is getting subscribers, and then on May 19th a video on TikTok was shared and it launched him even higher.This TikTok video is actually how I found Broxh. Barstool Gaming posted a meme, comparing two types of streamers. One of the streamers was complaining about how viewers weren’t subscribing to her and then enter Broxh, who in the video gets a sub and wants to give the money back. That video now has 4 million views on TikTok. The next day Barstool follows up with another video on TikTok, while Broxh was livestream to 6,150. That wave continues on May 21st, where he peaked at over 8,500 viewers.So if you are keeping track, Broxh went ...
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    16 mins
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