Spotlight of the Week – Buzzfeed

If you have a Facebook account, you have probably seen a BuzzFeed article or quiz on your timeline. BuzzFeed provides social news, entertainment based information, and videos in a sharable format.

BuzzFeed was founded and launched in 2006 by Jonah , the co-founder of The Huffington Post. BuzzFeed was initially started as an experimental lab that tracked viral content and made that viral content easy to share.

Since its inception, this company has become known for pioneering social content marketing to help the world’s leading brands create sharable viral campaigns. BuzzFeed pitches social advertising to these brands which allows them to broaden their reach and provide “viral lift” on the BuzzFeed.com website.

In layman’s terms, the make social content that allows for each brand’s campaigns to go viral. In doing so, they are “redefining online advertising with its social, content-driven publishing technology,” at least according to BuzzFeed. I agree they definitely are.

According to Fast Company, “pulls in 40 million uniques a month, with 40% on mobile,” and provides its services to a global audience of more than 130 million according to BuzzFeed’s own numbers.

This chart shows the Google Trends projection of BuzzFeed since its inception in 2005.

Scott Stratten, the president of Un-Marketing, stated that “people don’t share commercials, they share emotions.” This is one aspect in which BuzzFeed excels at. It is able to resonate with its users through its relatable content.

This site has something for everyone. It has news about politics, sports, technology, business, current events; entertainment news about celebrities, books, film, and comics; cute animals stories, DIY projects, LGBT, style; and, of course, quizzes.

Each of the different categories deliver the news in visually appealing ways in the form of memes, GIFs, videos, and photos in addition to the article’s content.

BuzzFeed has international editions outside the United States including the United Kingdom, Brazil, Spanish speaking countries, and France. Each edition caters to each demographic with sharable social content specialized to fit it.

Sources:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/about

http://www.fastcompany.com/3026627/lessons-learned/how-buzzfeed-made-the-online-quiz-irresistible

http://www.fastcompany.com/3007481/how-buzzfeed-makes-everything-go-viral

You can follow Leesie Smith on Twitter at @leesiesmith