BuzzFeed: Marketing Strategies

“YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, and Snapchat – what do all three of these media outlets have in common”? Marketing. As much as media sites provide an engaging platform for businesses to reach their consumers through the measurement of traffic, views, and unique visitors (UV’s) some sites have slowly become more obsolete. Yes, media sites have provided analytic tools to better understand user demographics and habits. But in a recent BuzzFeed article, “How BuzzFeed Thinks About Data, And Some Charts, Too” writer Dao Nguyen suggests that measuring data should be treated differently across all marketing content.

Past to Present

In the words of Nguyen, the metrics used to qualify a successful marketing campaign should be “re-anchored periodically.” At Skillman Video Group we have often stressed the importance of a businesses continuously evolving alongside social media technologies.

It is important for every business to stay current, considering user habits is important. Analytics provides comprehensive information regarding traffic, video views, time spent watching a video, but BuzzFeed also pointed out that such tools only measures unique browsers and does not include videos watched on mobile devices, views on the website outside of the US, and videos watched on other social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Yahoo. Although this is just one example of an analytics site, for companies looking to receive such data perhaps analytics is not the right measuring tool for that particular marketing campaign.

Audience

There are many tools for marketing campaigns that provide helpful insight for businesses, but in order to stay relevant a business must constantly “embrace complexity.” In other words, recognize marketing strategies that have worked in the past and question their significance.

Any of Boston’s production companies will tell their clients to know their audience. However, tracking the audience and learning about their viewing behaviors must be measured differently for each marketing content distributed. For instance, measuring time spent watching a video has become the most widely used marketing tool. Yes, having such information is very beneficial, but BuzzFeed also recommends looking more into engagements via shares, likes, comments, hearts, and retweets.

Strategy

When looking at marketing data it is important to look at every angle. For instance, what video has the most impact? What measurements help your business learn more about the consumers and media platforms, which will ultimately help achieve your marketing goals? BuzzFeed uses the example of YouTube vs. Facebook metrics. For YouTube, BuzzFeed measures views while shares are looked at on Facebook. “We found that different metrics were clearer signals on different platforms.” Though BuzzFeed is a described as a “social news and entertainment company” their marketing strategy proves to be beneficial and shows other businesses to look outside the basic norm of marketing data.

A business should not shy away from new information, but continuously decide whether past strategies are relevant in the current market. Although metrics provide insightful information on a businesses shouldn’t treat every measurement the same and look at other metrics that relate directly to the platform. Ultimately this will lead to a more successful marketing campaign, whic
h will positively effect the business. However, no business should have to go through a marketing campaign alone. Understanding data and strategies that should be implemented should be left to video marketing services such as SVG.

Skillman Video Group LLC is a Boston video production company. Call us anytime at 1-800-784-0140.