1. BuzzFeed
By: Austin J. Hunt

2. History
 Launched in 2006 by Jonah Peretti
 “The Viral Web in Real Time”
 2006-2011: Viral Content, Lists, Memes, Pictures, Videos, etc.
 2012-Present: Viral Content, Longform, Breaking News, Politics.
 Ben Smith: New Editor-In-Cheif (Former Politico Journalist)

3. Market/Financial
Performance
 Independent
 Peretti’s Huffington Post bought by AOL for $300m
 Location
 Started in New York City
 Now in Los Angeles and London

4. Business Model
 BuzzFeed has found “The Secret.”
 Generating content based on virality
 Distribute/Promote content as it was advertisement
 Generating advertisement/content seamlessly
 Earn revenue per-click

5. Production/Distribution of
Content
 Social Sharing
 People want to share content that is clever, cool, and
will help build their person brand on social media.
 Content Marketing
 Different from Old Style Marketing
 Partnered with Virgin Mobile

6. Target Market
 Broad and Unique
 Not traditional demographics
 “Bored at Work” Audience
 Mental breaks at work
 Sharing articles, stories, lists
 Larger than TV audience
 “Bored in Line”
 Sharing “attractive” content
 Non-clickable
 Pictures, memes, gifs, tweets
 “We spend a lot less time thinking how to target
and a lot more thinking on what people are
sharing.”

7. Choice of Content
 Audio/Visual
 Pictures, Videos, Memes, Gifs
 Lists/Articles
 Humor, Sports, Entertainment, Politics
 Original Reporting and Longform Journalism
 Breaking News - @BuzzFeedNews
 Twitter

8. Strengths
 Science of Social Sharing
 Combining News/Information with Brand Marketing
 “Bigger than the brand” approach
 Employees make the brand what it is instead of the
brand making the employee.

9. Weaknesses
 Not well-known outside the under-25 market
 Started from the bottom
 Not taken seriously at the beginning

10. Opportunities
 Going Public
 Predicted to be one of the first $1B buyouts
 Tapping into larger demographic
 Older generation of internet users

11. Conclusion
 Transformed from startup to one of the hottest
media organization on the web.
 30 million unique visitors a month
 Long-term Vision
 Bigger demographic
 Original reporting
 Increasing brand recognition