By Samantha Todd and Julie Trien
Since its advent in 2006, BuzzFeed has been rapidly growing and gaining an audience. BuzzFeed’s content is aimed at millennials and college students, which is seen through BuzzFeed’s social media networks. Its social sites target millennials and college students through the use of stories, gifs, memes and videos. BuzzFeed’s website boasts that it “is the leading independent digital media company delivering news and entertainment to hundreds of millions of people around the world.” BuzzFeed operates across multiple platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat. However, BuzzFeed’s Instagram, Twitter and YouTube are where it seems to have some of the most followers. BuzzFeed’s global news organization is headquartered in New York while its entertainment studio is in Los Angeles. We chose to critique BuzzFeed because, as millennial college students, we have a deep understanding of how BuzzFeed targets that demographic, which is their audience. We have been following BuzzFeed across many of its social media sites for years now so we have been seeing the ways that it tries to target its audience. Overall, BuzzFeed presents itself on social media as a company that relates to millennials and college students. It does this well because many of BuzzFeed’s employees who put content, videos and posts on its social sites are millennials, which makes it easier for them to relate to the targeted demographic. This paper will analyze BuzzFeed’s Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to see how it reaches millennials and college students and how the outlet’s social media strategy could be improved.
BuzzFeed’s Instagram has 4.4 million followers and almost 6,000 posts. The organization’s Instagram posts incorporate emojis, hashtags and slang that millennials use. Many of the posts are screenshots of Twitter posts. Some of these posts mention internships, jobs and relationships, all topics that millennials and college students care about. For example, one girl posted on Twitter how the midterm election ballots from all 50 states are counted in one night, but it takes her professor two weeks to grade her scantron (see Figure 1). BuzzFeed does not always write grammatically correct captions because many millennials and college students do not either on social media sites. This is a tactic BuzzFeed uses to relate to that demographic.
Also, BuzzFeed posts memes, like SpongeBob SquarePants, that millennials can relate to and will understand since they grew up watching the show. BuzzFeed recently posted a SpongeBob meme that relates to millennials and those in college. The meme is a picture of a fish from SpongeBob using their phone (see Figure 2). This content is aimed at millennials who are or recently were college students and can relate to this since they go to college and see this type of thing happening. Many of BuzzFeed’s posts mention popular culture and celebrities that millennials follow, like Ariana Grande (see Figure 3). BuzzFeed also posts Instagram stories and some of them have polls that users can click on (see Figure 4). BuzzFeed most uses Instagram to get its audience to interact with them and comment. Some of BuzzFeed’s posts even say to tag a friend, which gets even more interaction and comments.
BuzzFeed’s Twitter lists more than 6 million followers on the platform and about 203,000 posts. On a particular day, the outlet may post an upwards of 40 times, often with a few posts to Twitter within an hour. The organization’s posts run the gamut from a pinned tweet on the page, linking to an article entitled “All The Best Black Friday Deals on Amazon,” to a link to another piece, “22 Examples Of Old People Using Technology That Will Make Millennials Die Laughing” (see Figure 5). BuzzFeed occasionally retweets content from its other platforms, like BuzzFeed News, and its Twitter includes lists that link to topics or areas of coverage. Among the Twitter lists, of which there are 23, are “BuzzFeed LGBT” and “BuzzFeed UK.”
Similar to its Instagram presence, it is clear from BuzzFeed’s posts on Twitter that the organization has millennials and college students in mind. Much of what BuzzFeed promotes on Twitter has to do with sales and money saving tips as they relate to fashion, skincare and technology. These are topics that would be pertinent to college students especially as they are stereotypically understood to be broke and in a perpetual search for ways to save money. BuzzFeed seems to use Twitter for the promotion of its written content. Though, according to the “Likes” section on the page, they do occasionally react to comments from users. In terms of attracting those users, BuzzFeed does not seem to use hashtags with its posts.
BuzzFeed’s YouTube is just under 18 million subscribers and each of its videos gets millions of views. They have many different YouTube channels and some of the more popular ones are BuzzFeed Unsolved Network, which is about supernatural reports and cold cases, as well as Tasty, which shows how to make a variety of recipes. BuzzFeed Unsolved Network has close to 2 million subscribers and Tasty has about 11 million. Some of these videos appear on BuzzFeed’s Instagram too, to help promote content across platforms. BuzzFeed’s main channel includes different series, such as “Mom in Progress” and “Worth It.” These shows also target millennials and college students. “Mom in Progress” details the journey of a young woman who, at the start of the show in April, experiments with different ways to parent her then three-year-old and six-year-old. “Worth It” demonstrates the potential similarities and differences between cheap and expensive food and other items which could appeal to people on a budget.
While BuzzFeed draws in tons of views and likes across Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, there is room for improvement. BuzzFeed’s Instagram could use more original content instead of using Twitter screenshots of other people’s posts. In terms of social media networks, BuzzFeed is essentially on all of the popular sites. This includes Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat and more. BuzzFeed even has a few of its own apps, such as “Buzzfeed: News, Tasty, Quizzes” and “BuzzFeed News.” There are not any other social media sites we would recommend BuzzFeed joins since it is on all of the major ones, but there are ways in which it could expand on its existing social media presence to engage audiences and build anticipation for future content. For example, BuzzFeed has a show on Netflix called “Follow This,” where BuzzFeed journalists do a deeper dive into cultural trends of today. BuzzFeed could employ Instagram and Snapchat stories to promote when a new part will be up on Netflix as the date looms closer. This will help raise awareness for the show and show creators could use Instagram polls to see what viewers want in terms of new episodes.
BuzzFeed successfully relates to the millennial and college student demographic because not only is its content tailored to engage that audience, but it keeps up on popular culture trends and what that age group is interested in. Then it uses that information to create content that would interest that demographic. Using memes, popular culture and slang helps BuzzFeed relate to the targeted audience. What we have not seen BuzzFeed do that would appeal to us, as the key demographic, is increased opportunity for audience engagement. As discussed in class, social media allows people to be more active in the news gathering process of today and there are some ways in which BuzzFeed can be a part of this trend.
One of the tactics that BuzzFeed could use is Twitter Live and live tweeting, which would be great for promoting its YouTube content especially. For example, one of BuzzFeed’s channels is BuzzFeed Unsolved Network, which focuses on Shane and Ryan who explore paranormal and demonic locations. Shane and Ryan could use Twitter Live to live tweet and broadcast parts of their paranormal investigations, which would allow followers and fans to get an inside, live glimpse at the location. Then the fans could comment in real time, which would get more follower interaction. Twitter Live could be used for any of BuzzFeed’s YouTube channels and some of this video content could even be shared to BuzzFeed’s Instagram, Facebook or even its many Tumblr accounts.
Another manner in which BuzzFeed could better reach its target audience is through the use of hashtags on Twitter. For example, if the outlet hashtagged “savings” on the Amazon deals article, people looking for content related to savings could more easily find the post through a quick search. Two aspects of BuzzFeed’s social media presence makes hashtags necessary. One, since BuzzFeed’s Twitter has hundreds of thousands of followers, Twitter is likely to promote its posts high in the thread if one or more of the hashtags used are trending. Two, since BuzzFeed posts on a near constant basis throughout the day, hashtags would make it faster to locate content that viewers and readers want to see.
BuzzFeed uses its barrage of platforms effectively overall with these areas for improvement in mind. They are on all of the major social networks and make sure to post a fair amount on them. However, millennials and college students use certain social networks more than others. For example, millennials and college students use Instagram more than Facebook because Facebook is seen as being used by the older generations more. BuzzFeed should keep that in mind and make sure to stay the most active on the social sites that millennials and college students use. If the popularity of certain sites changes or a new social media network is created, then BuzzFeed must be ready to adapt its social media strategy.
While BuzzFeed is active on all major social media networks, there is room to improve. Research for this paper shows that BuzzFeed posts frequently across all of its social media to help engagement among millennials and college students. High school students may even relate to the content BuzzFeed posts since this age range is the next closest to millennials. While some people in the older generations may like to follow BuzzFeed and read the articles posted, BuzzFeed’s social media sites cater toward more of the millennial and college student group. It is recommended that BuzzFeed use more hashtags on social media platforms and that it does Twitter Live and live tweeting to boost engagement with its target audience. If BuzzFeed follows this advice, it will likely see more engagement with its target audience. This means more comments and “likes” for them across its social media platforms, which is good for the company overall.
New outcomes from these changes would be that BuzzFeed gains more followers and has better engagement, which could boost popularity and profits. BuzzFeed will need to continue to grow. It is a relatively new company that has not even been around for two decades yet, and thus, it must be able to adapt in the future. If BuzzFeed wants to continue to make its main demographic millennials and college students, then it will need to make sure its content matches that demographic. Millennials will grow up, which could prompt BuzzFeed to one day turn its focus to a new set of college students and younger generations. Overall, BuzzFeed does an effective job at targeting its main audience, but it will need to alter its targeted audience someday, unless it plans on being a company that grows with millennials and continues to target them for years to come. Otherwise, just targeting college students and younger people may work for BuzzFeed.
Julie's Corner 