WITH MAJOR GROWTH IN 2019, LIVE STREAMING PLATFORMS ARE POPULAR AS EVER

Whilst many considered it to be dying, the live streaming industry thrived in 2019 – surprising, right? A recent report has shown that the industry saw 12% growth in terms of hours watched. Live streaming platforms such as Periscope, Twitch and YouTube Live allow people, especially within the gaming community, to engage with their favourite creators. According to the report by StreamElements, Facebook Gaming saw a huge 78% increase in the average number of viewers per hours streamed.

Live streaming giant, Twitch, interestingly saw most of its growth in its non-gaming categories and in December 2019 its biggest category was its ‘Just Chatting’ which was a major first for the platform. For brands, aside from Instagram and Facebook Live, live streaming has been a bit of a blank space as it doesn’t really make sense for a brand to ‘go live’ aside from at events or as part of personality-endorsed campaigns. With the demand clearly there for live content, it will be interesting to see if brands look to capitalise on this and look to engage with their fans on live streaming platforms and now that there is an apparent community of people that exist on these platforms that aren’t necessarily interested in gaming, this may be more of a possibility for non-gaming brands.