Screen Shot 2015-02-16 at 6.30.45 PM

BuzzFeed is one of the fastest growing, most successful media companies in history. In September 2014, according to Quantacast, it received 154 million unique visitors worldwide. Their aim to be the go-to place when people are bored online seems to be working.

Now, while they may be a successful content producer, that doesn’t mean they’re going to overtake The New York Times as a respected publication, nor will they start beating CNN for breaking news. Well, not yet.

BuzzFeed and Upworthy, which was named the fastest growing media site by Fast Company in 2013, are startups that any company that uses content can learn from.

So, here are some marketing lessons from these content powerhouses worth incorporating into your own processes:

  1. Write 25 headlines – At Least! – Per-Post

Far more people read the headline than the text. Great headline, lots of traffic. Sucky headline, very few readers. It’s that simple. Not every headline will be perfect. Most won’t be. But play around with the wording – which for 25 headlines will take about 15 minutes – and you’ll get one which clicks; that’s your headline.

  1. Listicles Are 21 Ways of Awesome 

People like lists. The longer the better, up to a point. Research has found that odd numbered listicles, in the 11 – 21 number range, get the highest number of clicks. Longer listicles work better for weekends when people have more time to read longer articles.

  1. Image Based Lists Are Even Better 

One BuzzFeed article, which got 15 million views, is a 21-image listicle featuring lots of images. They use this formula a lot with content: headline, image (or a GIF or video), text, image, text, and repeat.

  1. Make Sharing Intuitive 

Sharing should be ridiculously easy for your readers. Upworthy includes sharing buttons which scroll down with the reader, allowing them to share parts of the article, or the entire article, depending on where a reader is on the page. They found this resulted in a whopping 398% increase in traffic. Upworthy does the same with their “Like us on Facebook?” button, which resulted in a 620% increase of likes for them.

Screen Shot 2015-02-16 at 6.26.45 PM

  1. Go Niche

BuzzFeed is building a media empire on niche loves and passions, as well as popular mainstream issues. So far it’s working great for them.

But most brands can’t and shouldn’t even aim to go mainstream like BuzzFeed. Even other media companies target demographics based on data they know about their readers, which also translates into ad revenue. But most brands can aim for niche. Own your niche. Do so with content which engages readers, creating viral moments, increased brand recognition and conversions.

  1. All Content is Platform Dependent 

For BuzzFeed, given their ideal audience is “bored at work,” or “bored anywhere else” – they aren’t picky in that respect – it makes sense that the number one destination for those who are bored with unsupervised internet time is Facebook. Hence, BuzzFeed uses Facebook traffic and engagement rates to inform their content strategy.

In August 2013 BuzzFeed came out on top of all the content producers on Facebook, which was a sign their strategy was working. Your content depends entirely on your audience. That will naturally be influenced by the platforms you use or they engage you on. For each platform there’s a science to creating the right headlines, excerpts and images. Like BuzzFeed you need to use what works for your audience on the platform they prefer.

  1. Make Your Readers FEEL Something 

What do you want your readers to feel: “Well, that was interesting,” or “Meh, already new that,” or “OMG – You have to see this!”

No matter whether the “OMG” is caused by anger, shock, sadness, hilarity or just something unexpected, it is that reaction which causes people to share content. The most popular BuzzFeed posts of all time (so far) reached viral levels of sharing because the audience felt something. Aim to reach those same heights. Give your audience more.

  1. Be Human, Like Your Audience 

It can be easy to forget the “human” aspects of creating content. You have information to share, knowledge to deliver and a load of marketing metrics and strategies to squeeze in, along with SEO targets. Being human, having an authentic human voice can easily go out the window.

But that’s exactly one of the reasons the likes of BuzzFeed and Upworthy have become so popular. For example:

Human interest stories aren’t just for TV presenters or viral Upworthy stories. Depending on your audience, message and platform a human element should always be included in your content. This is a hook, a way to more deeply connect with your readers.

Try and put some of these steps into practice when crafting your next content piece. Keep testing new methods until your click through and engagement rates increase. Before you realize it this will be second nature and your blog will be a constant source of inbound traffic and leads.

About the Author: Benjamin Kerry is CEO of Precise English, an SEO copywriting agency, where he creates with fresh, well-researched, SEO-friendly content that makes you stand out and is loved by Google.