In the old days people would clip newspaper articles and send them to each other. And now we use Twitter, Facebook, email, IM, etc. But one thing remains the same, those articles are always the most relevant, interesting, and trusted.

At BuzzFeed, we believe that sharing is at the heart of today’s media – that all media is now social media.  But brands have often asked me: “What’s the value of a share?” Facebook and Nielsen had done some pioneering work in answering this question, but it wasn’t focused on our primary area of interest: branded social content that gets shared.
In Vizu, we found a technology that could measure this phenomenon, and in GE we found a partner with excellent content and a willingness to answer this question.
We asked each of these three groups a single common questions: which adjectives would they use to describe GE?
The groups were:
  1. Those who did not see the content
  2. Those who saw the content via paid media
  3. Those who discovered the content via sharing
Banners are capable of creating “Brand Lift,” where an exposed group has positive perceptions above the unexposed. But with content and social advertising, and this first study, we’ve demonstrated something much more powerful: “Social Brand Lift.”
Social Brand Lift occurs when content that is candid, interesting, though provoking and shareable lands in the hands of the people most interested in discovering it.
We found that good content presented by a brand raised perceptions by well over 100% in many cases.  Lifts not typically seen by the use of traditional banner ads.
Further, we found that people who discovered GE content via a share (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) were 83% more likely to consider GE “creative” than those who discovered it via paid media.
Good content that informs and educates people about what a brand does is the most genuine way to convey and share messages: content gifts followed by calls to action.
Further, trusted referral of these pieces of content has an even greater impact.
We’re excited to introduce and begin the study of Social Brand Lift, and hope you’ll download the full report here.