BuzzFeed Blog

Ben Smith to Join BuzzFeed as Editor-in-Chief to Build Definitive Social News Organization

Smith to Continue Writing Weekly for POLITICO

New York, December 12, 2011 – BuzzFeed, the rapidly expanding social media site, has hired pioneering political reporter and blogger Ben Smith as its editor-in-chief, where he will expand editorial coverage, hiretalented reporters and launch new content sections.

Ben Smith will join the management team in New York led by Jonah Peretti, co-founder of BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post.

“There is nothing more exciting for journalism and reporting than the social web,” said Mr. Smith. “Social media is what moves a story.  It has become the primary way people, from plugged-in insiders to casual readers, get their news. BuzzFeed is the best in the world at distributing content on social sites, and it is a tremendous opportunity to join BuzzFeed -- and its millions of readers -- to build a new model for high-quality reporting."

"Social is the new starting point for content sites,” said Mr. Peretti.

“Ben and I will build the definitive social publishing site with

content that spreads fluidly across Facebook, Twitter, Reddit,

StumbleUpon and all other social platforms. In the past year, BuzzFeed has grown from 8 million monthly unique visitors to over 20M and we are excited to continue this growth with Ben leading our editorial team."

“The baton has been passed from print to the traditional web to social,” said Kenneth Lerer, BuzzFeed Chairman. “Social sites are where everyone is getting their news, entertainment, and information and BuzzFeed’s technology platform, combined with original reporting will accelerate this massive shift.”

Smith, who lives in Brooklyn, will start at BuzzFeed on January 1, 2012.

Smith will maintain his longtime relationship with POLITICO, where he has been a senior political writer for five years and will also write weekly on politics for POLITICO.

"I am thrilled that I'll continue to be part of POLITICO's coverage of the 2012 election," said Smith. "It's the best place in America to be a political reporter."

BuzzFeed, a leading social media site featuring the hottest, most social content on the web, has seen record traffic lately, as the world shifts towards social content.  More here: http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/12/how-buzzfeed-got-its-biggest-traffic-day-ever/

BuzzFeed investors include Softbank, Hearst Interactive, RRE Ventures, Ken Lerer, Ron Conway, Chris Dixon, and John Johnson.

Ben Smith has been a reporter for the New York Sun and New York Observer. He also worked as a political columnist for the New York Daily News. Since 2007, Mr. Smith has worked as a senior political writer for POLITICO.  Smith was recently profiled in the Columbia Journalism Review as a new breed of reporter, who merges journalistic values with digital fluency. More here: http://www.cjr.org/feature/immediate_returns.php?page=all&print=true

 

Media Contact:

Alice Suh

BuzzFeed

alice@buzzfeed.com

212.431.7464

mobile: 310.210.8122

BuzzFeed's Kardashian Divorce Vigil

This week's news of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries' divorce came as a SHOCK!  Well, perhaps that's an exaggeration...

In any case, the BuzzFeed office headed to the Kardasian's DASH clothing store in SOHO, NYC for a candle-light vigil.  With flowers, candles, signs, and a guitar in hand, the BuzzFeed team gathered their emotions together. Somewhere between belting "Let It Be" and "I Want It That Way", the BuzzFeed divorce vigil was picked up by a few TV shows and great publishers.  Check them out here:

Huffington Post

Fashionista

The Fashion Spot

Also, feel free to look at some of our own coverage of the event:

Most Heartbreaking Photos From the Vigil

Vigil Reactions

The Making Of A Viral Hit, 2011

They say you can’t guarantee that something will go viral. And they are right, for the most part.

But you can learn a hell of a lot from things that have gone viral in the past.

This isn’t about resting on laurels, or recycling ideas, or gaming the system.

This is about seeing what’s done well before, and thinking of new ways to appeal to the same logic that made it so successful. Let's look at an example:

Back in March of ‘11, Donna created a post about real bon mots from some of history’s sharpest wits: 21 Scathingly Witty Insults By Famous People

It did well initially, but grew from there into a social sharing phenomenon.

To date, it has well over a million views, putting at No. 9 in the Viral Traffic category of the BuzzFeed All-Time Internet Hall Of Fame.

A big success, by any measure, it still gets a few thousand views every day.

So what is it about this post that appeals to people? Look at its components — it’s a list with a clear theme, fun to look at, funny, smart. It would reflect well on anyone who shared it, and if you came across it in StumbleUpon (it’s in the Humor category there), you’d be sure to give it a thumbs up. It’s a nice post that brings together wit, emotion, and information.

So how to follow it up? Recently, a young man named Jack Shepherd thought he’d try just that — the result?

This often happens with a pre-tested idea: It hit the internet pretty hard right out of the gate, with a great performance on Reddit. And while it doesn’t have much in the way of StumbleUpon traffic yet, we’re predicting a pretty bright future for it.

With our huge catalog of great posts, we’ve got a goldmine of material. It’s a different kind of content than our newsy, meme-y stuff, but fills an important role in the BuzzFeed and web ecosystem, and we can do it better than anyone. Time to hit the Buzz mines, editors, and craft some posts based on our biggest hits.

 

Web 2.0 Expo/NY Talk

Tomorrow, Thursday 10/13,  BuzzFeed's President, Jon Steinberg, will be speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo in NYC.  Steinberg will be discussing BuzzFeed's leadership in Social Advertising and the importance of branded content.  Read up on his talk here, and if you are registered for the Expo please join us at 11:45!

BuzzFeed Takes On Advertising Week

BuzzFeed participated in and strongly supported last week’s Advertising Week.  Thank you all for coming out! BuzzFeed was represented on three different panels, and we also sponsored a seminar on Supersharers and Social Advertising.  Below is an overview of the news coverage we received over the course of the week. Enjoy.

Before Advertising Week officially kicked off, Jon Steinberg, President, was interviewed for the Advertising Week Blog to take a deeper dive on BuzzFeed.  He discussed the magic behind BuzzFeed’s viral content and how BuzzFeed translates this for advertisers.  Please see the full article here.

Steinberg was also featured on two panels during Advertising Week: Local Matters… More Than Ever and Do Agencies Need To Think More Like Tech Companies?    The latter caught the attention of AdWeek who discussed Steinberg’s additional question: do tech startups need to act more like agencies?  Read the full article here:

Andy Wiedlin, our Chief Revenue Officer, brought BuzzFeed into the ring with other social media leaders such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Groupon in one of the hottest panels of the week, Masters of Monetization. Both CNBC and the Wall Street Journal shed some more light on this panel.  The CNBC article, written by CNBC anchor Julia Boorstin, focused on how the panelists are getting their advertisers to try new things, as well as how they are educating marketers in this ever-changing arena - read here.  On the other hand, a lot of the panel discussion was about getting brands to become storytellers; the WSJ highlighted this topic in its coverage- read here.

Our final event, held last Thursday, was our seminar: Supersharing and Social Advertising, presented by Jonah Peretti, our founder and CEO, along with Darren Herman, Chief Digital Media Officer of kbs+p/Media Kitchen.  These two teamed up to show what BuzzFeed is capable of in terms of social media, as well as how these qualities are able to create innovative possibilites for our advertisers.  This evolved into a discussion of the necessity of socializing advertising: turning ads and brands into relatable, shareable, content.  You can watch the session here:

AW8 - PwC - Supersharing and Social Advertising... by advertisingweek

We were even the technology sponsor for the Ad Walk of Fame contest.

It was a great week, and our thanks to our friends at Stillwell Partners for organizing!

 

BuzzFeed Panels and Seminars at Advertising Week

 

This year BuzzFeed will be involved with 4 seminars at Advertising Week.  We hope you can make one or more of them, especially our seminar on Supersharing and Social Advertising on Thursday the 6th, helmed by our founder Jonah Peretti.  We have some free passes to individual seminars, so let us know if you'd like one!  Or you can register here.

BuzzFeed Panels and Seminars at Advertising Week:

1. Local Matters . . . More Than Ever

WHEN Monday, Oct 3 1:00 pm - 1:45 pm

WHERE Thomson Reuters 3 Times Square

Technology has created more options than ever to reach consumers via local media: TV, print, radio and online. What are major local-market-focused companies, advertisers and agencies doing to reach the fragmented, but more critical than ever local marketplace?

Moderator: 
Andrew Capone, Senior Vice President, Marketing & Business Development,NCC Media
Alexandra Cameron, SVP, Market Manager, Emmis NY
Maribeth Papuga, EVP, Director Local Activation, MediaVest
Jonah Peretti, Founder & CEO, BuzzFeed
Charlie Thurston, President, Comcast Spotlight

Presented by: NCC Media

2. Do Agencies Need to Think Like Tech Companies?

WHEN Tuesday, Oct 4 10:00 am - 10:45 am

WHERE B.B. King Blues Club 237 West 42nd Street

Advertisers are entering a brave new world -- one where code is on par with content. More and more agencies are finding that they need to educate and cultivate a new breed of people who understand tech from a marketing and brand perspective, and who also have a consumer mindset. At the same time, agencies are adopting practices -- agile development and continuous deployment -- learned from the tech world. But should they really try this stuff at home? 

Allison Mooney, Head of Trends & Insights, Marketing, Google
Jon Steinberg,President, BuzzFeed
Paul Gunning, CEO, Tribal DDB
Rei Inamoto, Chief Creative Officer, AKQA
Henrik Werdelin, Partner, Prehype

Presented by Tribal DDB & Google

3. CNBC Masters of Monetization

Leading practitioners in the burgeoning arena of social media on the business of the business.  

WHEN Tuesday, Oct 4 11:00 am - 11:45 am

WHERE Times Center Theater 242 West 41st Street

Featuring:
Tom Arrix, VP Sales, Facebook
Lee Brown, SVP, Sales, Groupon 
Mike Gamson, SVP, Global Sales, LinkedIn
Taylor Gray, VP Marketing & Social Media Strategy, Huffington Post Media Group 
Maria Mandel, VP, Marketing & Media Innovation, AT&T AdWorks
Andy Wiedlin, Chief Revenue Officer, BuzzFeed

4. Supersharing and Social Advertising

WHEN Thursday, Oct 6 11:00 am - 11:45 am

WHERE PricewaterhouseCoopers Auditorium 300 Madison Avenue

The tracks have been laid and cemented now that the major social networks are firmly entrenched. The next phase involves creating and optimizing portfolios of content designed for social distribution. The era of interrupting consumers with ads is ending. Marketers are shifting their focus to creating branded content that consumers actually enjoy and want to share. Jonah Peretti and Darren Herman will discuss how these principles apply to both traditional and branded content, covering specific case studies of work pioneered by BuzzFeed and The Media Kitchen. 

Presented by: BuzzFeed

Featuring:
Jonah Peretti, CEO and Founder, BuzzFeed
Darren Herman, Chief Digital Media Officer, The Media Kitchen/kbs+p 

 

Andy Wiedlin joins Buzzfeed as Chief Revenue Officer

Andy Wiedlin has joined Buzzfeed as Chief Revenue Officer

Techcrunch story

Full Press Release:

Wiedlin was most recently SVP of Sales at Huffington Post and got started in the social space in 2008 while at MySpace. Prior to this he worked at Yahoo for five years, serving as Vice President of the Northwest Region.  

“The rise of social media is transforming publishing and advertising, and BuzzFeed has taken advantage of this major shift by developing proprietary technology to accelerate the social distribution of content. This platform has had great success in growing Buzzfeed’s site to over 10 million uniques, as well as powering social advertising for leading brands such as GE, Coca Cola, Disney, and many others.   I’m excited to work with the team and our clients to define premium social advertising and to build a next generation social media sales organization,” Wiedlin explained.

“Andy is a proven sales leader, who has built teams, worked with leading brands, and has a deep understanding of branded content and social marketing. We’re beyond thrilled,” Peretti said.

Wiedlin will report to CEO Jonah Peretti and work closely with President Jon Steinberg and Buzzfeed’s creative team of social content experts.   

Prior to joining Yahoo! in 2003, Andy was a sales director at iVillage & BlueMountainArts, and the VP of Sales for WeddingChannel.com. Before diving into online in 1999, Andy spent five years with AT&T International/Bell Labs. He spent 10 years working abroad, primarily in Japan and Australia.Andy has a Master’s Degree in Pacific International Affairs (with a focus on Marketing and Japanese Language) from the University of California, San Diego.

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=516439&trk=tab_pro

About BuzzFeed

BuzzFeed is a new kind of media company for the social world. Our technology powers the viral distribution of content, detects what is trending on the web, and connects people in realtime with the hottest content of the moment. Our site is a rapidly growing hub for viral media that reaches over 10 million monthly unique visitors and our viral media network reaches an additional 225M.

 

 

BuzzFeed Boost 2.0 (Now with Facebook Ads!)

BuzzFeed Boost 2.0 is a self-service tool for seeding your content on both BuzzFeed and Facebook.  This is an extension of the self-service platform that we introduced in October.  We're currently offering Boost in three tiers, two of which allow for campaigns (boosting multiple posts) and Facebook extension.

CPMs begin at set maximum levels, and we reward you with bonus impressions based on how viral your post is, thus decreasing your eCPM.  You can boost existing BuzzFeed posts or upload your creative at the point of purchase.  We provide you with a preview of how your content will look on both Buzzfeed and Facebook.  

Your ads will run in BuzzFeed ad units, as well as Facebook ads, and we provide you with detailed reporting of your performance in email updates and a reporting front-end.

In addition to Boost being a great way to self-service seed small campaigns on BuzzFeed, it is now one of the best ways to promote branded content on Facebook.  In addition to the reporting above, Boost campaigns come with the full viral lift dashboard reporting that we provide to all users of the Buzzfeed platform.

 
So get boosting, and we look forward to you feedback!

 

The Hidden Secrets of Social Media and Viral Advertising

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

BuzzFeed’s newest partners - FoxNews and the Daily Mail!

We’re excited to add FoxNews.com and the Daily Mail to an already incredible group of publisher partners.  With the addition of these and other new partners, our partner network is now reaching over 200 million unique visitors per month to surface and present the most shared, most viral content on the web to the BuzzFeed.com audience.

FoxNews and the Daily Mail join sites like TMZ, Time, Huffingtonpost, MTV, NYPost, FunnyorDie, and Cracked to get free access to BuzzFeed real-time viral analytics [via our dashboard, partner bookmarklet, and viral email alerts] and exposure to the BuzzFeed.com audience who visit the site to see what’s hot and find things to share with their friends and family.   

In addition to the timely, automated promotion that partners have always received from our organic partner units, our editors are now scouring and featuring the best partner content in the main editorial homepage feed, in thumbnails across the site, in our new Hot Topics’ pages, and across our widget network reaching tens of millions more.   Partner content is also now prominent in our viral search results.

If you’re interested in partnering or want to learn more, we’d love to hear from you... please contact us