Of all of the different content marketing platforms out there on the web today, few have succeeded in the way that BuzzFeed has managed to do. As a content creator or marketer, you have no doubt complained or know someone who has complained about the cheekiness and relatively low quality of content that BuzzFeed consistently produces. There have been numerous articles written about the questionable nature and authority of many pieces of BuzzFeed content, yet its dominance in search results, social media and other venues continues to remain unmatched. How on earth has BuzzFeed managed to do this, despite the negative attention and press that it receives? The answer is a multifaceted one and requires some understanding of human nature; we will discuss the main reasons behind BuzzFeed’s success in the following article and this will hopefully help you to better refine your content strategy for future success.

It’s Easily Absorbed

BuzzFeed has been criticized for producing an array of overly-simplistic content that is designed to attract readers’ attention more than it is designed to inform. Yet, this strategy works well for enticing many readers – particularly those via social media – into clicking and absorbing the content on a regular basis. While pinging search engines usually requires that content be lengthy and of the highest quality in order to be featured, BuzzFeed utilizes an approach of making content easily viewable and readable, and then relying upon various forms of marketing and distribution to get its content to readers.

It’s Graphically Pleasing

Another way that BuzzFeed has created so much buzz and success for itself in the past couple of years is that it uses a variety of graphic variables to further increase the demand and sharing potential of its content. Particularly popular are its wide selection of animated GIFs, which are often featured in series that outline current events or major happenings in recent history. This approach can be a great way to improve content’s value and encourage sharing across social media and email. BuzzFeed understands that in order to be successful, you must first capture the attention of the reader. Images, GIFs and infographics are a sure-fire way to do just that.

It’s Socially Persistent

BuzzFeed has integrated social media into every element of its web infrastructure and has found itself rewarded handsomely as a result. Whenever you are pinging search engines for attention, you must put in a copious amount of work to drum up the kind of visibility necessary to generate massive social sharing. In many cases, BuzzFeed cuts out the middle man and uses its prowess across various social media platforms to get its content in front of millions of users without the need for search engine optimization or traditional content marketing. Social persistence was a key builder of BuzzFeed’s success; it kept hard at work promoting its offerings through this format and now enjoys an expansive social media presence.

Conclusion

BuzzFeed has designed a quantity over quality strategy that has been one of the few to succeed in the world of online marketing. Its main points of success revolve around the inclusion of graphically pleasing material, an unrelenting dedication to social media and a premise that all content should be easy to absorb in a short period of time.