Gaming Influencers & YouTubers

Discover Gaming Influencers & YouTubers

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For almost five years, we have witnessed the explosion of E-sports and, more generally, gaming on YouTube and Twitch. Through great classics such as Minecraft or Super Mario, gaming influencers share their best moments on YouTube, often as replays of lives on Twitch. 

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Today, it's clear that gamers are by far more present on Twitch, but on YouTube, entertainment and vlogs are close by. However, there are unbeatable engagement rates on gaming videos on YouTube.

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Concretely, brands that partner with gaming influencers quickly become references and gain a lot in conversion. This is thanks to the strong engagement of gaming communities and YouTube, which favors conversion on all partnerships.

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Different types of influencers: everything marketers need to know to understand the industry

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Gaming bloggers:

Gaming influencers are not only on YouTube and Twitch. Many passionate gamer influencers regularly share all the news, game tests, reviews, etc. on their site! We call them gaming bloggers.

These bloggers are sometimes also on YouTube and Twitch, but most of their business is done through their website, which generates a lot of traffic. Most of the time, the blogs follow a consistent editorial line with the same console brands and similar games. For example, a blog about retro PlayStation games can work very well.

The most interesting thing for brands is to benefit from this considerable traffic to get visibility or engagement. Here, we are talking about buying display advertising space on the website. But careful, this kind of advertising can become very expensive and might not create a strong link with the site's visitors.

Combining an advertisement on the site with a YouTube video sponsorship can be a good solution to assert yourself to the gamer community.

Pro-Gamers influencers:

What is e-sport? E-sport is an increasingly famous category of virtual competitions in which the best players in the world compete against each other. There are different age groups up to 40 years old, allowing a large audience during the games. 

E-sport includes many video games on PC, consoles, and games on virtual reality systems and, finally, the most classic, mobile games. In recent years, e-sport has become very popular, and events around its competition are multiplying and gathering more and more people.

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Pro-Gamers influencers are mainly present on YouTube, where the audience is often the general public, and on Twitch, where users are primarily casual or professional gamers.

The e-sport market is growing increasingly, and the Pro-Gamers influencers are growing with it. Game brands have every interest in supporting Pro-Gamers in their development on YouTube and Twitch to benefit from their visibility. A simple sponsored video on YouTube can bring thousands of registrations on a mobile game to play with the Pro-Gamer.

Note that this is a relatively young environment. Some influencers can be between 14 and 15 years old, so it is important to remain vigilant on the contracts established with the influencers and ensure that the parents control everything well. It will also be necessary to respect the rules of the FCC and the COPPA regulations.

Let's Play influencers:

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What is a Let's Play influencer? A Let's Play influencer is an influencer who makes videos of video games with a voice-over. The goal is to follow him throughout his round. It's a bit like playing with him. Here, we only see his screen and hear him talking while he plays. 

Let's Play videos are very popular on YouTube, thus creating a YouTube Let's Play category.

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Today, Let's Play videos are the most-watched videos on YouTube and often top trending.

The experience of watching a Let's Play video is very personal because you feel directly involved in the game. Many videos are about games that can further provide fear or suspense to captivate users. These videos can help users better understand and progress in the game, but this is not always the case. It is also possible to have Let's Play videos with multiple players.

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Most famous Youtuber in the world: PewDiePie

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The gaming influencer market is growing, and some gamers can earn several thousands of dollars in advertising revenue every month. The engagement is so strong around gamers that brands are willing to pay more and more to be associated with them.

It is also important to understand that this kind of partnership (video sponsorship or game testing) works very well and the incredible ROI of advertising campaigns. By working with gamers, if your target is in line with their audience, you are sure to make the cost of the partnership profitable.

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Twitch VS. YouTube Gaming

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Many wonder which platform is better, thus which one should they join as an influencer and brand. 

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The two platforms are waging a small war on each other in the same way as Instagram and TikTok, but so far, no winner has been announced. 

Twitch is the biggest live streaming platform, with almost only video games. So it's a platform that brings together a lot of streamers. However, the content uploaded on YouTube is much more durable and allows to gain visibility thanks to the strength of the YouTube Gaming search engine.

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The two platforms are not used for the same reasons. Twitch is convenient for influencers who already have a large community and manage self-promotion well. At the same time, YouTube allows to work a content often more qualitative and to have better growth, especially when you are new in the game.

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Twitch can be interesting for an ephemeral partnership like a highlight as a brand. YouTube will be a way to make more sales and generate more engagement in the long term.

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10 TOP Gaming Influencers on YouTube

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1. PewDiePie

Favikon Score: 3,3/3 

Community : 111M

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2. Markiplier

Favikon Score: 4,5/5

Community : 31,1M

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3. SSSniperWolf

Favikon Score: 3,8/5

Community : 30,7M

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4. Jacksepticeye

Favikon Score: 3,8/5

Community : 27,7M

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5. DanTDM

Favikon Score: 3,6/3 

Community : 25,7M

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6. VanossGaming

Favikon Score: 3/3 

Community : 25,6M

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7. PopularMMOs

Favikon Score: 3,6/3 

Community : 17,3M

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8. W2S

Favikon Score: 2,8/3 

Community : 16,2M

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9. CaptainSparklez

Favikon Score: 3,1/3 

Community : 11,2M

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10. RadioJH Games

Favikon Score: 3/3 

Community : 1,1M

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What are the essential metrics on YouTube Gaming?

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To properly evaluate the potential of a gaming influencer on YouTube, you need to know which metrics to look at.

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Overall there are nine metrics to keep in mind: 

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Quantitative metrics on the latest videos are easy to analyze.

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An index of activity on the account will be the number of average videos per month. This allows you to see if the influencer's account is active or not. Collaborating with an influencer who makes one video per month can be risky, but collaborating with an influencer who makes 70 videos per month, which is more than 2 per day, is also risky because it might be low-quality content.

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Three numbers need to be analyzed on the videos, the number of likes, views, and comments. Knowing the average number of views on a video can be crucial if you have a fixed idea of the engagement you expect or the visibility you want for your brand.

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You then have five more complex metrics to analyze that can be found on a Favikon YouTube audit and that allow you to precisely evaluate the performance of the gaming influencer.

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The engagement rate: This is the calculation of all the interactions compared to the visibility of the videos.

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The buzz ratio: The capacity of the influencer to generate buzz on his videos compared to his initial community.

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Account freshness: The regularity of the influencer's activity on YouTube.

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Comment: View Ratio : The influencer's ability to generate comments on their YouTube videos. The influencer generates only 1.4 comments per 1K views in this example.

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Growth rate: This allows you to evaluate if this is a trendy influencer gaining subscribers.

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All these criteria will allow you to select the best Youtube gaming influencers.

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