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Decoding Success: How 3 of the Biggest Blogs in the World Achieved Glory

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Decoding Success: How 3 of the Biggest Blogs in the World Achieved Glory Decoding Success: How 3 of The Biggest Blogs in The World Achieved Glory 1. Huffington Post – 110 Global Alexa rank, 32 in US Arianna Huffington started Huff Po back in May, 2005. They crossed 100 million unique page views ​ ​ (as per comScore) in September, 2014 and are the number one news site in US. Banking on video content from the start: In Aug 2012, Huffington Post Live was launched to ​ become one of the largest original web video producers then. They dedicated 100 employees to the project (estimated to be around 30 million dollars), producing 12-16 hours of video content every ​ ​ ​ day. The video platform has won its fair share of awards. ​ ​ ​ Inspired by the success of their live video platform, the blog launched HuffPost Studios doubling down on their video content. They’ve also partnered with BroadbandTV to launch a video network for digital storytelling – Outspeak. Built a huge community by putting their audience first – Huff Po has an active audience that ​ regularly engages with their articles. They get 1 million+ comments every month (the site crossed 100 million comments in 2011 itself). In Aug 2014, Huff Po drove twice the number of social actions ​ ​ of the second-largest Facebook publisher. Embrace SEO with panache – A majority of its published stories are aggregated and regurgitated. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ But they make sure all of them are search engine optimized to attract organic traffic. A glance at its ​ ​ ​ ​ articles will show you Huff Po’s adherence to on-page SEO: Active use of keywords, attractive ​ ​ ​ headlines, internal links, related content tab and attractive pictures. And they even A/B test their headlines and images. Dominating the social media game – Huff Po actively strikes partnerships with other publishers ​ like Elite Daily to increase the reach of its content. In 2011, Huff Po was the first news entity to offer their users the “fan”, “follow” and “like” features ​ ​ ​ ​ for topics and bloggers. Newswhip’s data from June listed Huff Po as the biggest Facebook ​ ​ publisher in June, 2015. It was also among the top 10 Twitter publishers in the same period. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Consistent Brand Personality –A study by BuzzStream and Fractl (May 2014 – April 2015) found ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ that Huff Po performed the best across these 5 verticals – women, politics, business/finance, science, and technology. ​ Even after such a huge success in their niche sections, they have maintained a consistent style. Their trademark big news splash on the homepage – Many experts have loathed the news splash at the top of their home page. It works for them. And so they use it consistently across all their international editions. Green is their color. Green remains a predominant color on their website till date. Although it’s a basic thing. But colors go a long way in creating a unique brand identity. ​ ​ ​ ​ In fact many of their homepage elements remain the same. 2. Business Insider – 200 Global, 90 in US Kevin P. Ryan started Business Insider (BI) in February, 2009. Currently they’ve 7 international editions in Australia, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, China, and the UK. They cover almost everything including lifestyle, technology and entertainment. Let us have a look at some key factors that helped them achieve success. Taking a ‘mobile too’ approach – They understand that their audience loves big screens and ​ visuals. So they don’t infer their mobile traffic rise as a complete shift to the smaller screens. Rather: They view mobile phones as a source to extend their readership, and have adopted a smarter ‘mobile too’ strategy. They start with exploring their user behavior patterns from ​ ​ ​ smartphones and tablets. Like their audience mainly browses the BI website from mobile phones on weekends. And the evenings of their audience are generally spent on tablets. Understanding that digital is multi-screen, they distribute content across all platforms. But they offer a consistent experience to their audience across all devices. And they’re trying to cross-target their audience with big data. A good understanding of their target audience has helped BI to get past being consumed in offices on weekdays. Relying on visual content heavily and ensuring good readability – BI has a minimalistic design ​ with a lot of white space. Their articles contain high-quality graphics that break the content into ​ ​ ​ ​ visually appealing chunks. For elucidating complex data points, they frequently use tables, charts and graphs. Slideshows have been a regular fixture in BI posts. BI articles also have better line spacing, bigger font size and overall better legibility. Investing in investigative journalism (a.k.a. high-quality premium content) – BI believes in ​ providing an eclectic mix of different types of content. Slideshows, celebrity stories and gossipy headlines are a part of the mix. BI doesn’t fall shy of investing thousands of dollars in investigative journalism and long-form content. They have also launched a premium paid subscription service – Business Intelligence. ​ Smart aggregation backed by strong backend technology – The real time sophisticated ​ publishing and distribution platform developed by BI. And makes testing images and headlines, swapping stories and formats easy for their editors. BI is focused on providing value to their readers in the way they want. They strive hard for matching their headlines and stories. The end goal is producing the most ‘user-friendly’ media company. 3. BuzzFeed – 111 Global, 38 in US BuzzFeed was started in 2006 by Jonah Peretti (also a founder of Huffington Post) and John Johnson. Their focus is publishing entertaining and highly shareable content in its 28+ sections. And their content is graphic heavy containing images, memes, gifs and videos. Currently their website mentions possessing a global audience of over 200 M from 10 international editions. So what are the key factors that have helped this media cum technology company close multiple funding rounds? ​ ​ Mastering The Art Of Headline Writing – They write headlines that toy with your curiosity, ​ integrate pop trends and instantly grab your attention. Just look at some of their viral headlines. ​ ​ ​ #1 This Short Film Shows Just How Terrifying Life Is For LGBT People In Russia #2 Canada’s Response To Russia’s Anti-LGBT Propaganda Law Is Totally Awesome Serving content in preferred audience format: video, quiz or other digitally native format – ​ They don’t try to recreate print and use digitally native formats. ​ ​ ​ ​ Crafting content in the most appropriate format has played an equally important role in attracting those 200M views. How about going a step further by embedding tweets, pins and making the content interactive? Sweet, isn’t it? BuzzFeed does exactly that. Investing In Investigative Journalism For Building A Brand – Since late 2011, BuzzFeed has ​ expanded into serious investigative journalism. It started with the appointment of Ben Smith (from Politico) as their chief-editor. They’ve a dedicated section on long-form content. And in 2015, they ​ ​ ​ ​ announced plans to hire journalists from around the world to beef up their news coverage. Heavily investing resources on its chief traffic source: Social Media –75% of BuzzFeed traffic ​ comes from social referrals. The major social networks that contribute are Facebook, Pinterest and ​ ​ ​ ​ Twitter. Let’s go behind the scenes of BuzzFeed’s social media strategy. 1. Their articles end with a call to action encouraging the readers to react on the article and post their comments. 2. Photos are the favorite social media commodity. If a reader would like to share a particular photo from an article? BuzzFeed has got ’em covered as well. When you hover over a picture, share ​ ​ ​ ​ buttons of the most relevant social networks – Facebook and Pinterest appear. 3. BuzzFeed’s bold million dollars Facebook Ads investment and understanding how content spreads on social media. Lastly: BuzzFeed has also capitalized on the mobile revolution. Their content gets shared twice as much on ​ ​ ​ ​ mobile than on desktop. .
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