There is little doubt that BuzzFeed is the master of ‘shareability’. Having perfected shareable content to an art, its quizzes, breaking news, lists and videos are seen all over the world.
But what is the science behind viral content and shareability? What makes content shareable and who shares what over which devices and platforms?
BuzzFeed’s Dao Nguyen shed light on this topic at Advertising Week Europe, discussing the site’s entertaining, humorous and highly relatable content during an enlightening session.
Feeling social
BuzzFeed creates content for the way people consume media today. Its content is timely, relatable and above all shareable, but to what does it owe its success?
Aside from a huge team of writers and editors, Nguyen cites the importance of mobile and social technology as drivers of its business case.
A large majority of BuzzFeed’s audience find and share content via mobile devices, and on social platforms such as Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.
BuzzFeed publisher Nguyen states that in order to maintain its power, all content must be viewer friendly across smartphones, tablets, and compatible with various platforms.
Creating a buzz
Video is another key component to BuzzFeed’s empire and accounts for a third of the time spent on the site, generating one billion monthly views.
With video, Nguyen states that rather than looking to target 80% of an audience with good content (as with television), BuzzFeed looks to target 10% with content which is relatable, loved and shared.
Nguyen’s key takeaways from the session were:
- Social content needs both art and science
- There is no one metric that rules them all
- The more we publish, the more we learn. The best machine learning is the human brain.
- Data and technology are only as powerful as the company will allow
- Culture is BuzzFeed’s competitive advantage