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 [...]

Jonah presented a case study on our campaign with Bic Razors yesterday.  It’s about the 4th or 5th whitepaper/case, we’ve created and I’m super proud of this one.  It features all the key elements of a successful BuzzFeed social content campaign.  So take a look, and I’m eager for your feedback and questions. Bic Case Study

Last night, BuzzFeed hosted a party with Facebook in support of the Open Computer Project.  The goal of the event was to build awareness in the New York startup community for an open source hardware design for servers that are 38% more efficient and 24% less expensive to build and run.  So you get both cost savings and an environmental [...]

The launch of our Facebook App represents a big step forward in what we’re calling “BuzzFeed Everywhere.” We want to create the strongest social content experiences in all the places people spend time and exchange. In talking to Inside Facebook yesterday, it occurred to me that the right analogy (how I love analogies) is that Facebook is a vibrant cafe with [...]

Creating a content portfolio is becoming the gold standard for branded content creators.  Instead of trying to make one piece of content “go viral”, the smartest brands are focusing on creating as much quality content as possible.  If you create medium to large size pools of content, some pieces will see viral lift and some will not, but over the [...]

I don’t believe that influencer targeting is an efficient and scalable advertising strategy. Influencer theory holds that for each campaign or product, the brand should seek to convert thought leaders to use and evangelize its product. The challenge is that for every product or message, you need a different pool of influencers. If you’re selling a toaster, you need to [...]

There is a coming creative revolution in digital advertising. Despite the DSPs and RTBs, most RFPs from major brand advertisers proclaim things like “what can you do custom, unique, and high impact!” This clear and crystal messaging on many RFPs is often accompanied with the comment “standard display units as value add only!” I believe we are returning to the [...]

One of my favorite parts of the Buzzfeed CMS is Mega Lists.  Mega Lists are long scrolling lists of images, text snippets, or just about anything in long scrollable sequence.  Most are actually 100 images that load on a single page.  We’ve found anecdotally that users vastly prefer to scroll and share a long list versus page through a slideshow.  (Among many [...]

I saw this chart in Adweek earlier this week, and it was followed with a report by AdKeeper and 24/7 Real Media with an explanation for why display ad CTRs were .09% on average last year. (Not sure what to make of “Kids.”) For the uninitiate, a CTR, or clickthrough, is the percent of times online users click an ad. [...]

Here is the video and slides from Jonah’s Web 2.0 talk.  Covers a lot of work we’ve done with branded content advertising.  Also announced, Buzzfeed.com will break 12M uniques this month! The Hidden Secrets of Social Media and Viral Advertising