How to Create a Branded Twitch Banner

1. All You Need to Know About Twitch: Its Essence and Target Audience
2. Basic Visual Elements of A Twitch Profile
3. Banner Creation Services Overview

Is your brand already on Twitch? The video streaming platform that started with video games now promotes content on topics ranging from cooking to sports. The competition between streamers including many successful companies is also growing. In this article, we’ll tell you how to stand out from the competition by visualizing your account and creating an attractive banner

All You Need to Know About Twitch: Its Essence and Target Audience

Twitch is a popular video streaming platform. Most of the content here is live video games and eSports competitions. However, over the last few years the there appear more videos on cooking, lifestyle, creativity, and sports. Thus, in 2019, Twitch reported that the demand for non-game content increased by 11%.  

The largest traffic share (23.8%) accounts for the USA: over 28 million unique users spend 95 minutes a day on the platform per month. Germany is the second most popular Twitch user (6.93%) and is followed by Russia (5.83%). Korea and France round out the top five.

Who Would Need Twitch

It is important to know that 80% of the platform users are teenagers who are mainly interested in games and computer technology. The service is more suitable for brands with a young and active target audience and many well-known companies take advantage of this fact.

For example, Nike and Adidas advertised the launch of limited products on Twitch, Red Bull created its own eSports team, and Head&Shoulders held a contest to promote new products, in which users could win 100 thousand “bits” (virtual currency).

How to Use Twitch?

To gain the target audience’s popularity, take into account the following features of the platform:

• Entertaining, inspiring, or discounting content works best. A “talking head” telling about the achievements of the company is of no interest to anyone: videos should be fun and catchy. It’s perfect if you supplement them with contests or messages on profitable offers.
• Regardless of content specifics, you have to interact with the viewers who connect to the stream in the chat. Respond to comments and leave your own comments under the subscribers’ videos to gather a loyal audience. 

Basic Visual Elements of A Twitch Profile 

Although the main visual role in attracting the users’ attention plays an account banner, other elements are no less important. Make sure all of them correspond to the corporate identity of the brand. Let’s take a closer look at each of them. 

Banner

The channel banner will be the largest and most visible element in your profile. It will appear at the top of your account when you are offline (during an online streaming a video banner will appear at the top of the screen). Let us take a closer look at its characteristics.  

• The recommended size is 1920×1080 pixels. The maximum file size is 10 MB and the format can be GIF, JPEG, or PNG.
• The components. The central place is taken by the illustration: a photo, a drawing, or graphics. Besides, the banner includes a logo, links to social media, and information about the last stream conducted by the user.
• The style. Rely on the nature of your brand and the interests of your target audience. Their intersection point will define the style of the banner. First, the image channel should reflect your personality and be memorable because of your corporate style (the color scheme, fonts, graphics, logo). Secondly, think about how your viewers use Twitch and what content they expect from you.

Logo

Use it as an avatar and place it on the banner. The logo will allow users to recognize you, so try to make it simple, clear, creative, and reflect the nature of the business. The online service ZenBusiness will help you create such a logo.

Overlays

Semi-transparent images that are applied to streams and provide various information about the webcam, the latest events in your account, or branding.

Panels

Small blocks with additional profile information. It can mirror or supplement information from the banner: e.g. rules and values, links to social media, the games you play, events, a question and answer block.

Notifications

Pop-up icons during the broadcast. You can customize the way they look, for example by using the GIF version of the logo.

Banner Creation Services Overview

The easiest way to create a customized Twitch banner is to use online services with ready-made templates. Choose any free platform from the list below.  

Spark Adobe

The resource offers many options for template settings. Use thousands of free images from the Adobe library or upload your own photos. Choose from hundreds of color and font options to get professional results.

Canva

Choose the desired templates, photos, graphics from the service library or upload your own elements. Dozens of customization options and the possibility of group online work on the layout are the service’s key advantages.

Snappa

The service is appreciated for its professionally designed banners and flexible settings. Millions of high-quality photos in high resolution, customizable graphics and fonts, the ability to support different file formats will help you quickly create an excellent banner. The platform allows you to download it or immediately upload to your Twitch account, as well as to create images for other social media based on it in a few clicks.

Twitchoverlays

This platform is designed for Twitch users. Get access to a huge library of templates and a variety of graphics to instantly create attractive banners as well as panels, overlays, and other visual elements. Here you can find tools on any subject, including games, programming, online sports, etc.

Summary

The Twitch banner is like a book cover: it creates the first impression of the company and distinguishes you from your competitors. Below you’ll find some useful tips on how to effectively use the banner for your brand. Make sure it meets these five criteria:

1. Corporate identity. Make sure you are using one or more elements of the identity: the logo, company colors, fonts, or graphics. This applies not only to the banner but also to other visual elements of the account. The corporate identity should broadcast the main message that you want to convey to the target audience.
2. Proper size. The brightest and most creative banner will lose its meaning if the picture is of poor quality or cropped. Select images with high resolution and make sure that the elements of the banner are displayed correctly.
3. Minimalism. Avoid piling up elements: this interferes with perception. Emphasize one thing (such as a photo or a logo). Use clear fonts and concise graphics and minimize the amount of text.
4. Creativity. Don’t forget that the audience comes to the platform for entertainment. Try to make the banner fun, creative, or intriguing to win the user’s attention.
5. Adaptivity. Over time, your content, target audience, and priorities may change. Don’t be afraid to update your Twitch banner to reflect your brand development.