Creators… Build Brand Ownership!

As a content creator, building your brand and turning content creation into a full-time job is crucial. One of the best ways to achieve this is by having your own branded website.

Without a website, you rely on social platforms like Twitter, Twitch, Instagram, or YouTube to showcase your brand. However, by investing in yourself and owning your content delivery platform, you can build brand ownership, have a centralized hub for all your content, and protect your revenue.

Brand ownership is critical as it relates to Google search results. When you have your website, you can control your brand keyword, which can be a game-changer for your online presence. A website helps you build a brand content hub where you can consolidate all of your content, including embedded streaming, custom chat, VOD, social posts, notifications, email notifications, and desktop notifications.

One of the benefits of having a branded website is future revenue protection. If your Twitch channel gets hit with a permaban, it could negatively impact your revenue. However, if you have already conditioned your fans to view your content on your website, it will be a manageable hit. You can embed another stream into your website, and your fans will still have access to your content.

Another advantage of owning your website is new revenue opportunities. You can monetize your website using Google AdSense. If you have a total social footprint of 100,000 fans and 1,000 CCV when you stream, you could earn an extra $28,000+ per year.

Partnerships are also possible with a branded website. You can have site takeovers, pixel, site subscriptions, site donations, and many other options to generate revenue.

Having a user and their email address is extremely valuable in gaming and esports. An email address is worth $10 or more to marketers, and having multiple ways to stay in contact with your fans is essential.

These are just a few reasons why content creators should invest in themselves and build their brand equity by having a quality website they own. If you need help making your website, you can contact numerous companies that can help, or you can look to AI to help you create the perfect site.

Streaming Platforms… Who Cares?

I was drinking my cup of coffee today while skimming over Twitter this morning as I have done every day for the past seven or eight years. My timeline is/used to be exactly the info that I wanted to see when I wanted to see it. Twitter is determined to piss me off and keep me from seeing the content that I want when I want, but that is a different blog altogether.

I saw an article that said ESL(I know some good folks over there and wish them the best) had chosen Facebook to be their streaming partner for CSGO and Dota 2 events. You can read more about that here https://www.dexerto.com/news/esl-surprises-everyone-partnering-facebook/42569. I made a snarky comment this morning that was met with some agreement and some disagreement. “ESL picked Facebook as their streaming partner tears of joy emoji and rolling on the floor laughing emoji here:).

One person even said that my tweet was unprofessional and bad for the industry, I can argue that point till the cows come home but, I’d rather talk about what is bad for the industry. That is decisions that are made that on the surface seem only to take into consideration of the profitability of the business. Am I the only one who views this partnership with Facebook as a pure money grab? I mean, why else would you choose to work so hard to take your core users and try to pull them from a platform they love called Twitch? It didn’t work too well just a year earlier when you moved from Twitch to YouTube, so why would moving from YouTube to Facebook be any different?

A year ago this month ELeague hit one million concurrent viewers on their Twitch channel for the major and I think ESL have hit numbers close to that on their Twitch channel as well. Twitch is in a very powerful position, and its parent company(Amazon, in case you live under a rock) will probably be the first trillion-dollar market cap company in the world.

“Twitch won’t play ball and give us what we want, we will take our business elsewhere.” I would have no clue if that were said, so please forgive my awful sense of humor. I can hear it now, “Scotty why are you carrying water for Twitch, do you owe Twitch or their employees a favor?” Hell no, I’m trying to push an agenda, that agenda is very simple. Twitch is the best streaming platform in the world, and the fans of the best esports in the world deserve to watch them on the best platform in the world.

When Facebook builds a better mousetrap than Twitch, let me know, and I’ll gladly try it out until then let’s try not to cater too much to the non-endemic brands that have proven they will dip in the space and dip back out of the space when it’s convenient for them.

Why Traditional TV is Dying.

It’s f’ing expensive, with just three or four months worth of cable bills(Avg bill is $103 per month) I could buy a nice tv to watch my shitty cable on. Think of gasoline as cable and the car is the tv… holy shit.. just think if one month of gas cost you 30% of the total price of the car. You probably wouldn’t buy the car? You probably wouldn’t purchase the gas? Some of you will understand that comparison and some of you won’t. Same.

Scotty, what are you suggesting? The TV makers are doing pretty good right now. Sure they are.. You have idiots like myself who purchase TV’s just to watch Twitch streams on 40″ panels(yes, I do this) or even Netflix on 50″ panels in their bedrooms(yes, I do this).

TV manufacturers are still winning although some data points to a decline in sales figures and cable providers are starting to feel the pinch for declining viewership and subscriptions. It’s been reported that ESPN is losing 10,000 subscribers per day and are down 12,000,000 subs since their all-time high of 100,000,000 in 2011.

Let’s look at ESPN for a moment; I grew up loving everything about ESPN. I loved the on-air talent back when Stuart Scott first said “cooler than the other side of the pillow.” I’m not saying the talent now days is bad, I’m saying it’s not original, and it seems forced at times.

ESPN is like that YouTuber who started his channel making videos of him playing his favorite video game and commentating over the gameplay to tell you all about how they feel about certain topics. Most all of those channels had to reinvent themselves, or their channels slowly died off with hardly any views.

Am I saying that ESPN is dying? Not yet.. They are on a decline just like a lot of YouTubers, and they must reinvent themselves so they can keep delivering content that people WANT to consume. Creating content is fucking useless if nobody is consuming it.

Am I saying that ESPN has a content problem? Yes. One of the issues is people want to watch sporting events free of political bullshit. When I turn on SportsCenter, I want to get caught up on all things sports related. I don’t give a shit what a professional athlete has to say about Donald f’ing Trump.. Nor do I care to hear the political views of the hosts of the shows. If I care what an athlete has to say on world topics, I will follow them on Twitter.

Let’s talk about ads. I’m still amazed that when I watch TV, I see a ton of ads that have nothing to do with my current purchasing habits/wants/trends. When if ever will TV deliver me a relevant ad for a product or service? You know what I hate more than ads? Ads that are not related to the goods and services that I care about.

TV must create/use smart technology to deliver relevant ads to consumers. TV must keep political pandering away from traditional sports. TV must create content that people are consuming.. what is that content? Gaming and Esports.

If TV can’t take care of these three areas, they will be forced to break out certain channels and offer them to be streamed from smartphones, laptops, and computers for a small monthly fee. Yes, I’m going to be watching SportsCenter one day on my MacBook for $4.99 per month.