New media BuzzFeed crazy spread behind

BuzzFeed Web site is a media company founded in 2006, created a lot of crazy content on social networking sites, spread gossip gossip information for users, monthly visits reached 40 million people, accumulated 46 million U.S. dollars of financing, the valuation has exceeded the 200 million dollar mark. How it does it, below for everyone to explain.

When you open www.buzzfeed.com this site, what will you see? "The happiest moment of the day", "Creepy ads", "Why cats like to Be Loved", "Super Bowl history of the top Ten heroes" ... Sports, entertainment, science and technology, politics, leisure, news types all inclusive, the order also appears very casual, can not find any relevance.

Yes, this is the famous BuzzFeed website. The media company, which was founded in 2006, created a lot of wildly disseminated content on social networking sites, spread gossip gossip for users, reached 40 million visitors a month, gained 46 million of billions of dollars in funding, and the valuation has topped the 200 million dollar mark.

When a new media company achieves such a good result, there is a question in mind: how does it do it? From the BuzzFeed's growth trajectory, BuzzFeed's success is inseparable from its founders ' unique way of thinking and forward-looking predictions for social media, And BuzzFeed business model, perhaps for watercress such a site to bring some inspiration.

Undertaking: From the Huffington Post to the BuzzFeed story

Nike was exposed to a factory working environment in 2001, when BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, who was also a university student, ordered a pair of sneakers and asked Nike to print the word "sweatshop" on its shoes. There is no doubt that Nike has rejected Peretti's orders.

But Peretti did not give up, through e-mail and Nike began a war of words, and sent the e-mail to his friends, and his friends continue to forward the mail. In the end, tens of millions of people have received this email, and Peretti has been on the internet all night, and even the Wall Street Journal quotes and reports emails from Peretti to Nike.

Influenced by the incident, Peretti has been thinking about "how information can be disseminated" and "Why people share content". With these questions in 2006, Peretti, who had been working in the Huffington Post, co-founded the BuzzFeed Laboratory with friends to explore the spread of viral content.

Peretti recalls that the lab was the predecessor of BuzzFeed, a very small team at the time, where employees would try various ideas. The first product developed by BuzzFeed Laboratory is a client named "Buzzbot". Buzzbot has access to feeds from hundreds of news blogs to help users browse the hottest events on the web today by searching for and sending links to information.

The BuzzFeed Labs then started creating websites that manually manage daily links, highlighting links to the most popular information Buzzbot found. Peretti that the use of detectors + manual mode of operation, the construction of message link push the effect is better. BuzzFeed website not long, it began to attract visitors, bloggers often BuzzFeed site as a source, to find news stories.

At the start of BuzzFeed's business, Peretti still works for the Huffington Post, buying 15 sandwiches a day from the Vietnamese food store between the two offices, feeding editors who work in offices. As business matures, Peretti left the Huffington Post, concentrating all his attention on BuzzFeed, and still exploring the ways in which people like to share and disseminate information.

It is also from this time, BuzzFeed really embarked on a social sharing of the road.

An inventive way: the BuzzFeed of sharing + virus content

Perhaps you have found a strange phenomenon, very few people will visit BuzzFeed's homepage to see the news, through Google (Weibo) and other search engines, it is difficult to search for the content from BuzzFeed, at the same time, BuzzFeed Web page does not have any ads, But BuzzFeed still has 40 million users per month, industry forecasts, BuzzFeed last year's revenue reached 20 million U.S. dollars, year-on-year growth of more than three times times. So what is the logic and business model of BuzzFeed's operation?

With the rise of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, BuzzFeed realizes that sharing is more important as a way for people to find BuzzFeed content because people visit BuzzFeed not just for fun, they want to be friends, Relatives find some interesting content.

Peretti says Facebook and Twitter are a much more powerful traffic driver than direct access, with more than 50% of BuzzFeed's total users coming from social networks. So, in Peretti's eyes, if you can get a few emails from users, it says, "I didn't find any good things to share on BuzzFeed today, I'm sorry", this is the place to be happy.

Since it is a priority to share, BuzzFeed editors should consider what kind of content triggers the reader's share impulse. So the viral spread of content in the BuzzFeed position also becomes very important. It turns out that the funny animal pictures, the absurd response of netizens to the global events, the variety of rankings and other gossip information are often paid great attention, and social networking sites can cause crazy forwarding and sharing. With the increasing influence of BuzzFeed media, BuzzFeed gradually attaches importance to the topic of political news, BuzzFeed has gradually become an important news source website.

Data show that the most BuzzFeed story, the average browsing volume of millions, the share of browsing on Facebook is 9:1, which means that on average 9 people who browse the story, there will be 1 willing to share with their friends, and on Twitter, This is a staggering 5:1 of the data.

Advertising marketing that does not pull banners: Embed ads into content

Of course, as a Web site that needs to be profitable, BuzzFeed wants more than just the viral spread of content, but also wants advertisers to be able to experience viral expansion. BuzzFeed President Joen Steinberg revealed that in 2011, BuzzFeed's advertising project reached 100, bringing BuzzFeed 7.5 million of dollars in revenue, and none of these advertising items were presented in the form of advertisements in BuzzFeed.

In April 2011, BuzzFeed released a post titled "11 Things No one wants to see on Instagram." This post has been accessed 330,000 times, but what makes this post unique is that it is actually an advertisement for Virgin Mobile, a telecoms company with 8 independent brands, to encourage people to share more entertainment content on Virgin's mobile site.

How do you make a user feel attractive? Peretti that at least the advertisement could not do that. But if you share a new product with a friend, it makes more sense. The advantage of BuzzFeed social advertising is that BuzzFeed is able to embed ads in hot spots and get huge social media support, spread within the largest space, and reach the goal of advertising marketing in a way that is shared among friends.

Industry insiders expect that in 2012, BuzzFeed this "embedded advertising" to promote the industry can bring 1.56 billion of dollars in income, although from the scale still can not challenge the status of traditional advertising, but like more than 100 years ago, the originator of the New York Times Adolf Ox said, "in the final analysis, Advertising should be news, otherwise, advertising is worthless. ”

Watercress: Next BuzzFeed?

If from the content, the form, the user base as well as the influence view, at present, the domestic Internet enterprise only has the BuzzFeed the embryonic form.

March 2005 on the line of Watercress, is a book review and film characteristics of the Web 2.0 Web site, registered users over 62 million, to brand advertising, interactive marketing and electric business channel revenue into its main business model.

Perhaps the untimely, under the great influence of Weibo, watercress obviously does not have a strong appeal, many netizens reflect, the impression of watercress, nothing more than in micro Bo or everyone saw their friends wrote about a book, a film, a song of feelings, in the social media was wildly forwarded, There are also a handful of shared content.

From the formal perspective, Watercress provides a content publishing platform to guide users to participate in the creation of content. Although this model ensures the diversity of content, but the drawbacks are also obvious: netizens often with their own subjective view of the publication, comment on a thing, but not necessarily can get everyone's approval, browsing volume, forwarding rate can not be fully guaranteed.

At this point, BuzzFeed has taken the opposite approach by building a content management system, having its own data analysis team, developing its own advertising products, and linking the editorial team to the Creative services team to create what people think is "worth sharing." Based on the full grasp of the mentality of netizens, it is not surprising that every content of BuzzFeed is forwarded in large quantities.

Peretti has pointed out that investors prefer platform-oriented companies because they can focus on technology and allow users to produce content free of charge and expand globally without hiring too many people. But if media companies want to be the leading online content providers, many things depend on those who do not pay, and the best stories, the most entertaining information and the most influential content are made by professionals who make a living.

If we draw on the model of BuzzFeed, watercress try to form their own editors, reporters team, through the detailed market analysis, independent creation of readability, sharing more strong content, in the book review and film reviews as the characteristics of the expansion of the scope of content, perhaps BuzzFeed to create the impact of miracles, it will occur in watercress.

Although in accordance with the planning of watercress, the future may be to the direction of the electric business, and watercress has now begun to sell online books, film tickets, etc., but for how to obtain a lasting brand influence, to ensure the huge attraction of netizens, BuzzFeed's operating logic may be a way for watercress pointed out.