Here’s what Buzzfeed can teach us about content marketing:
Create different types of content
While Buzzfeed is famous for listicles and quizzes, they also offer a wide variety of content types. Don’t limit yourself to articles with an image, try out video, add in GIFs, create memes, infographics, quizzes and listicles that will help tell your story effectively.
Create shareable content
While you may create good content, is it shareable? You’d never search for the article below, but you would share this on social media. Social media can be a big driver of traffic if you create shareable content. 75% of all traffic to Buzzfeed comes from social media.
And just in case you want to read the Buzzfeed article, click here.
Check what your content will look like on different platforms and devices before publishing it
Most of Buzzfeed’s traffic comes from mobile. (Last year Google said that search from mobile surpassed search from desktop) If the content doesn’t look great on mobile it won’t be shared. Most of your traffic will come from mobile too, so always create content for mobile first.
Content creators usually create content via desktop (although this isn’t the case with Instagram and Snapchat). Your article may look great on desktop, but on mobile it may be too text heavy, the hyperlinks too small or the slider doesn’t work.
A/B split test your content
a) The one thing you need to know about blogging
b) What bloggers don’t want you to know
Most readers use the headline to determine whether they’ll read an article or not. Play around with different types of headlines and see which version does best.
Use this handy headline formula sheet to come up with ideas.
Did you know: Buzzfeed will send out different versions of an article, and after 4 hours which ever one has gained the most traction, becomes the article.
Always track and monitor content and change accordingly
Become data driven and remember that stats don’t lie. Buzzfeed International VP Scott Lamb, says, the early performance of a post is usually an indication of how the post will perform.
Facebook’s algorithm uses engagement as a key ranking factor, and if people aren’t sharing, commenting or reacting to your post, then it means that the post won’t show up in their newsfeed.
If a post is doing well organically, put all you have behind it
If a post is doing well organically, then focus on that post. This is because it is a given that people like this content and boosting it via social media advertising, influencer engagement or other methods will amplify the results.
Tip: Only boost Facebook posts that do well organically. You will spend less and your engagement rate will be higher.
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