Snap, TikTok and Twitch are competing fiercely for the hearts (and content) of digital-first creators, but this morning they came together for a panel session at the TellyCast Digital Content Forum.
Moderated by Deadline’s SVP content, international Stewart Clarke, the session saw Snap’s head of UK partnerships Lucy Luke; TikTok’s head of publisher partnerships and operations UKIN Ed Lindeman; and Twitch’s creator programme manager Josh Bloom talk about the evolution of their respective platforms.
Lindeman opened. “I still think there’s this preconception that TikTok is an app for teenagers. We’re actually seeing the average age on the platform continuing to increase: it’s up to late twenties,” he said.
In the UK, it works with about 400 ‘publisher’ accounts in the UK, including broadcasters, sports bodies and football clubs, news organisations and lifestyle brands.
Lindeman talked about an initiative called Creator Lab developed with the BBC to identify up to 100 creators and run workshops around the UK to teach them the core skills for moving from being “just a digital creator to a digital creator who can also work in broadcast”.
“I don’t think every creator wants to be on TV,” he stressed. “But yes, for those who want to break into TV, whether that’s presenting, acting, whatever it may be, and build an income stream that way… we really want to support them with that transition.”
He also talked about legacy content on TikTok. “We’re starting to see publishers lean in more and more and looking at their archive content, and whether there’s a business case for that archive content to live on TikTok as well,” said Lindeman.
However, TikTok’s potential is not just about official videos. The BBC will put out a lot of clips for a show like The Traitors “but actually it’s the user-generated content that can really make a movement or a viral feeling within a platform” according to Lindeman.
“13,000 videos have been made using the hashtag #TheTraitors… and some of those videos might be generating thousands, tens of thousands, even millions of views. That can deliver a reach that the media owners themselves cannot achieve just by using their accounts.”
Bloom spoke next, talking about how Twitch is more than just livestreams by gamers, even if those remain at the core of its culture.
“If there is an audience and a community there to watch something, it exists on Twitch. Whether it’s music, sports, gaming or art,” he said, encouraging the TellyCast audience to explore the ‘Just Chatting’ category on the service, where creators are building strong ties with their communities.
“There’s a creator called PenAddict, who is obsessed by pens!” he laughed. “I’ve been influenced by him: I bought a pen!”
Bloom talked about some of the lessons from brand partnerships on Twitch, warning that authenticity can’t be faked in livestreams. “When the brand, the creator and the message don’t mix, in a live it’s really obvious,” he said.
Twitch is embracing shorter-form video too. “Sometimes viewers don’t have an hour or half an hour to spend on a stream,” he said. For them, Twitch has launched features to discover and watch shorter ‘clips’ from its creators.
Bloom also said that there is a new generation of streamers coming through. “The rise of what we would call ‘IRL’ streamers, people just wandering around – doing what television would call ‘walkie-talkies’ – that’s really rising,” he said. Faster, more reliable mobile-broadband networks have been the driver.
Third to speak was Luke, who said that for Snapchat “total watch-time is up 25% year-on-year”. That’s fuelled not just by media partners, but by ‘Snap Stars’ – public figures and creators who are “uploading on a daily basis to public stories: some of them posting 100 a day of photos and stories… they are seeing lots of reach, but also they can monetise them.”
“I seem to be working with a lot of farmers at the moment!” added Luke, citing Farmer Will, a former Love Island contestant who has been posting during lambing season, and responding to questions from fans who are interested in the profession.
“I’d encourage our broadcasters to lean into that public story format as well: the behind the scenes content,” she said, pointing to TV host Alison Hammond as a shining example of someone posting behind-the-scenes videos on Snapchat.
“That connection, that extra engagement that you can get can be really helpful when you use your talent,” she said, before also praising Channel 4 for its use of Snapchat’s augmented-reality lenses around its Paralympics coverage this year.
“You could have opened up the camera and been an Olympic archer,” she said. “For Channel 4 it was another way of engaging with their audiences.”
The panel were asked about their approach to news. “Young people are consuming more news though social platforms… we’re seeing news publishers in the UK perform incredibly well, driving huge numbers of views,” said Lindeman of TikTok.
“Longer term we’re trying to think about how news will sit within TikTok and our ecosystem,” he said, adding that when TikTok itself becomes the news – for example in the US where it is challenging a law forcing it to be sold or banned from app stores – he is always willing to field partners’ questions about these situations. “We have nothing to hide!”
Bloom said that when Twitch thinks about news, it comes back to community. “People come to creators they know to share a common experience with them. For every creator who has a different view or experience on the world, they will gather an audience that wants to hear that opinion and chat about it,” he said.
Luke said that news is important to Snapchat too, and that for its media partners “increasingly their journalists are coming on board as individuals and as Snap Stars and giving viewers that access”. It has also worked with the BBC on a civic-engagement project to encourage voter registration.
As the panel drew to a close, Luke talked about her excitement for Snap’s new Spectacles smart-glasses, new advertising products and a streamlined version of Snapchat that will launch soon. Bloom, meanwhile, said Twitch wants to make it easier to promote its livestreams on other social-media services, while continuing to evolve its mobile app.
Lindeman said he is excited about more growth for fan-generated content on TikTok “celebrating the IP and titles that they love,” but also advised the TellyCast audience to watch out for developments with TikTok’s e-commerce business, TikTok Shop.
Finally, the panel were asked if their platforms are lessening their partner support for media publishers in favour of prioritising creators – the influencers on their services. All three denied that this is the case.
“That’s not what’s happening at TikTok. We’re leaning more heavily into publishers than we have been previously. We grew as a creator-first platform, but we know how important and how valuable publisher content is,” said Lindeman.
“The media publishers on Snap have been on since 2015. It may feel like we’re spending a lot more time with our Snap Stars, but that’s because it’s more new. Our media publishers are still very important to us,” added Luke.
