[00:02] but the real problem, fake traffic is everywhere. 86% of the top Twitch streamers are viewing and it's destroying trust in real creators. The biggest names on Twitch may not be as big as they seem. In a recent expo,
[00:16] big as they seem. In a recent expo, Devon Nash claimed that 400 to 430 of the top 500 Twitch streamers were being viewbotted or viewbotting themselves. Devon was an executive at a marketing agency and the research that he did that
[00:29] led him to this claim is that whenever himself and his team would put together creator packages and like sponsorships, they would notice that the 500 to 1,000 viewership creators would consistently outsell people with 30,000 or more
[00:44] viewers. This isn't new information. A lot of people, myself included, have talked about how midsize creators can actually outperform larger creators whenever it comes to sponsorships. This is really common. And the reason that it
[00:58] happens is because people who are in more midsize communities tend to feel much closer to the creator and therefore more invested in their success. Whereas streamers on the platform, typically those creators feel a lot more distant,
[01:13] which leads to less action taken from the community members. However, what Devon found is really interesting. The handful of large creators that did have authentic viewership were able to dramatically outperform the midsize
[01:27] creators. that led himself and his team to doing more investigation and to doing more investigation and uncovering 400 to 430 of the top 500 people either viewbotting themselves or being viewbotted. My perception of Devon
[01:40] over the last several years is that he is very intelligent. He is a very good marketer and he likely knows what to do in order to reach quite accurate conclusions whenever he is doing research. Let's just assume for
[01:53] argument's sake that 50% of the data that he collected is incorrect. That still means that 200 to 215 of the top 500 Twitch streamers are either viewbotting or being botted. And that is still a very significant portion. Enough
[02:09] so that this argument and this conversation becomes important. When a large portion of the top creators on your platform are artificially inflating their viewership and their performance data, this is incredibly detrimental for
[02:22] several reasons. One being that it allows dishonest creators to rise to the top. Meaning the people who are honest, who do have morals and ethics, which are attract and want more of on your platform, end up getting buried as a
[02:37] platform, end up getting buried as a result. In addition to this, it rewards fake numbers as opposed to legitimate engagement. And probably the worst issue is that it can affect sponsorships and ad revenue for everybody. When
[02:52] advertisers spend money on botted streams, they end up getting results that are lower than their expectations. And then this leads them to actually pulling back their budgets from these platforms or type of creators. And then
[03:05] that obviously impacts the smaller creators who rely on these deals the most. When sponsors realize they're paying for fake viewers, the fallout hits hard. And it's already happening. In a recent post, Twitch confirmed this
[03:19] problem, but they're doing a lot to try to reframe it. Twitch made some adjustments to their detection system and it's now able to more accurately and it's now able to more accurately find bots years later after we all had
[03:33] already been talking about how much of an issue this is. Witch's CEO Dan Clancy made some comments on this and said that inaccurate impressions were never charged to sponsors but that the numbers were still inflated publicly which
[03:47] were still inflated publicly which misled viewers and advertisers. >> it'll fill you up. Oh, this looks so good. Oh my god. Twitch and Dan said it was too risky to remove these bots in real time for fear of cutting genuine
[04:02] viewers, and so they just kind of let it ride. I do feel like this response downplays the scale of the issue and makes it seem like a technical hiccup makes it seem like a technical hiccup rather than a systemic failure. Dan can
[04:15] say fake impressions weren't charged to advertisers on Twitch's side, but he can't speak to what happens whenever streamers, especially the largest creators, are negotiating these sponsorship deals. These ads don't just
[04:30] run through Twitch. They're negotiated by creators and the brands. And it's very likely that millions and millions of advertising dollars were essentially stolen because of how prevalent this botting issue is. Twitch didn't take any
[04:45] action on this for over a decade and streamers weren't held accountable. This makes streamers think that botting is a lowrisk, highreward strategy and that just by artificially inflating their
[05:00] isn't going to punish them anyways. I mean, you've even got the largest creators speaking out on their streams about how people should just bot themselves. This means that if you haven't been botting your stream, that
[05:15] didn't even know that you were playing a game that doesn't exist. Everybody else was playing a different game than you. How do you guys feel about the room, by the way? It's looking so good. I really wanted to bring you guys along
[05:29] with me while I worked on this, but unfortunately work got so busy. I was working 14-hour days there for about a month and a half, and I just did not have the time or the energy to film anything. But I hope you think it looks
[05:42] pretty, cuz I do. So, no real enforcement of viewing on Twitch means that there's no real incentive to play fair. Twitch and Dan have admitted that it's difficult to tell if a streamer has intentionally botted themselves or not,
[05:56] which means that streamers can't get in trouble because Twitch can't tell if they're doing it themselves or not, unless they confess on stream or accidentally show their botting platform while live. Rookie mistake, guys. Come
[06:10] on. So, now you guys have a little bit of a moral dilemma. stick to real growth and probably be ignored and buried by everybody who bots themselves or start
[06:22] botting yourself. Supposedly, Twitch is better at detecting bots and can remove them from the viewership. So, we should see viewership numbers kind of decrease across the platform. However, I'm not convinced. I mean, to be fair, Twitch
[06:37] isn't the only one experiencing this issue. Bots are infecting the entire internet. A 2024 article by Mashable found that 75% of the traffic driven to advertisers by X was fake. I mean, imagine if 75% of X is just not real. In
[06:54] positive news, the same article found that only about 2% of traffic from other platforms like Tik Tok, Instagram, and Facebook was fake. But still, this does impact how advertisers view engagement on social media platforms. also becomes
[07:09] difficult to accurately measure the success or failure of advertising campaigns. Most people don't have access to data from advertising campaigns, but even the people who do have access to it can't reliably tell what's working and
[07:23] what isn't. If fake engagement continues unchecked, it has the potential to impact the future of live streaming itself. Industry vets like Gallion have been sounding the alarm for years. Gathion is somewhere in the realm of 10
[07:36] to 15 years as a content creator. So, he has a lot of experience here and he's also been very successful. He warned Twitch leadership in 2023 that they need to crack down on viewbotting. Of course, they didn't. So,
[07:50] viewbotting flourished. Advertisers started pulling out there's a lot less money across Twitch. Now, something very similar happened to esports after years of fake metrics and not being able to deliver on advertising spend. And now
[08:02] that industry is just in absolute shambles trying to figure out how to recover. Do we really want Twitch to go the same direction? You guys might not. I obviously don't give a Isn't it also kind of ironic how viewing has
[08:15] become such an issue on Twitch yet? Twitch viewership hasn't grown since 2021. What is actually happening to platform What is actually happening to platform viewership? Do any of us really know? If
[08:28] advertisers lose complete faith in Twitch and start pulling out more so than they already have, there's a snowball effect that happens for the entire platform here. This means that there is less advertising money to go
[08:41] around, so less money for everybody to be paid. This also affects all of the like creator tools, monetization features, and the the all of the
[08:53] different opportunities that you have as a small creator on the platform. Not to be sensationalist because I don't love that style of content creation, but this could lead to the total collapse of the platform. And of course, this is only
[09:06] one of several things that are working to bring Twitch to an absolute death spiral right now. As always though, Content Mommy is going to tell you what to do. If you want to protect yourself, grow, and avoid getting caught in a
[09:21] completely collapsing system, here's what you're going to do. Stop chasing view counts and chase engagement instead. Twitch is actively telling advertisers now that view counts are not trustworthy. And so advertisers and
[09:34] sponsors are going to stop using them as a metric. It might take them a little while to catch on, but eventually everybody who is creating these campaigns is instead going to start asking you for engagement data as
[09:47] opposed to how many raw followers or viewers you have. So, start focusing on getting people talking in your chat, following you, subscribing, or taking action on other things that you tell them to click on or do. This is likely
[10:01] also going to happen across every other social media platform as well. So, you should consider doing this no matter which platform you're making content on. Focus on getting comments, engagement, and building a relationship with your
[10:14] community as opposed to just getting raw views. You're going to have a huge creators on all of these other social media platforms are very focused on media platforms are very focused on getting views and aren't as skilled as
[10:28] Twitch streamers at building out real community. Twitch streamers really have an ability to grow relationships that creators on other platforms just don't. So, if you really lean into that and start to do that more on content across
[10:43] the internet, you're going to stand out. Next thing I want you to do is to treat Twitch as a show, not your growth engine. We all know Twitch discoverability is trash. So if you are using it to grow, you should not be. You
[10:58] should be using YouTube videos and short videos on like Tik Tok and Instagram reels to get your content in front of people 24/7 and then lead them back to your stream if that is your ultimate goal is to grow a Twitch stream. What
[11:12] Twitch and live content is really good at is activating an existing audience, not growing a new one. Like I said, I want you to use YouTube and short video platforms to create content that's going to be up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
[11:27] getting you in front of new people. One good 10-minute video can outperform a 100 hours of streaming. You should also be reducing your risk through using something like Reream or Streamlabs to go live on Twitch,
[11:41] Streamlabs to go live on Twitch, YouTube, Kick, um, Tik Tok, Instagram, vertical live streaming all at the same time. I feel like I always got to apologize to those of y'all who have been watching my videos for so long, cuz
[11:54] that advice has not changed since 2018. You should also monetize your community off of Twitch. So, you might consider creating a Patreon or a paid Discord server. Um, make sure that you are bringing people from Twitch into
[12:08] something like Discord or an email list. And for those of you who feel like And for those of you who feel like you're ready to work with more sponsors, make sure that you focus on the genuine results you can actually drive. These
[12:21] are things like how many clicks to their website? Um, can you get people to sign up for their product and how many people and how long do those people stay? Do they retain for a week, two weeks? Is it something that you consistently are
[12:35] the next several years because you use it and so more and more and more of your community is going to sign up? Stop trying to sell them on just raw viewership numbers or follower numbers because those are seen as unreliable. So
[12:49] you might consider changing if you have like a one-pager or a pitch deck that you usually use to have these conversations, you should probably change out some of the data that is included on those resources. Man, I got
[13:02] so much love for y'all. This is crazy. If you're still grinding and showing up in a system that is obviously completely freaking rigged, you are doing the hardest job right now. The internet is full of bots and your advantage is that
[13:15] you're real. Your work is real. People can really connect to you. Your community, no matter how small, is real. And the people who win in this environment are the people who have real audiences. So, if you're making content
[13:28] and feeling a little bit discouraged, try not to worry too much. Keep showing up. Keep building trust. Keep attracting real people. The future's going to get better for you. And look, the system is not going to save you, but your story
[13:41] and your presence might save someone else. Speaking of saving, Twitch really this video, which is all about the Twitch death spiral. So, go and check it about what's going on. And I'll see you in the next one. Bye.