Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Traditional journalists probably won't like a lot of how Upworthy's become one of the fastest growing aggregators on the web. But it's hard to question the effectiveness of its methods.

Back in November, the Lab’s own Adrienne LaFrance wrote a number of words about Upworthy, a social packaging and not-quite-news site that has become remarkably successful at making “meaningful content” go viral. She delved into their obsession with testing headlines, their commitment to things that matter, their aggressive pushes across social media, and their commitment to finding stories with emotional resonance.

Things have continued to go well for Upworthy — they’re up to 10 million monthly uniques from 7.5. At the Personal Democracy Forum in New York, editorial director Sara Critchfield shared what she sees as Upworthy’s secret sauce for shareability, namely, seeking out content that generates a significant emotional response from both the reader and the writer....

...Effectiveness of longform

So the question we all have about these beautiful layouts. Does it work? Is it more engaging? How do we know? Though Brundrett didn’t have exact numbers to provide, he said their numbers have grown and the audience has developed higher expectations for what they produce.

“We get really great traffic to these pieces, off the charts engaged time, people are reading all the way down the page, great comments and discussion,” Brundrett said. “From a social perspective they get shared like crazy . They do really well for us.”...

...The media loves to attach labels to trends. When one catches on, the rush begins. Native advertising (the buzzword of choice right now), social advertising, content marketing and sponsor curation all revolve around the notion of brands as publishers. Everyone’s jockeying for position, FORBES included. Marketers want a bigger voice. The media business needs revenue.  The digital world demands change. So, what’s required for this new form of marketing — and for journalism to continue to flourish? Ah, here’s where the fun begins. Buzzfeed talks about viral content. The Huffington Post is into “aligning content and paid advertising strategies.”The Atlantic uses “Sponsor Content Presented By (pick the advertiser). Gawker’s done something similar (it’s actually now talking about a commerce play). As for us, I often talk about brand journalism.

BrandVoice is based on the philosophical belief that marketers, with deep understanding of their industries, can offer smart insights, too. In most traditional media companies, that’s a tough sell. Journalists can barely swallow the advertorial — it must be placed in the print or digital equivalent of Siberia. The fact is is, with the click of a mouse or the touch of a screen, the audience can check a marketer’s veracity as easily as it can a journalist’s....

... Now the new rage is “native advertising,” which is to say advertising wearing the uniform of journalism, mimicking the storytelling aesthetic of the host site.

Buzzfeed, Forbes, The Atlantic and, more recently, The New Yorker, have all developed a version of native advertising, also known as sponsored content; if you are on Buzzfeed, World of Warcraft might have a sponsored post on, say, 10 reasons your virtual friends are better than your real ones.It is usually labeled advertising (sometimes clearly, sometimes not), but if the content is appealing, marketers can gain attention and engagement beyond what they might get for say, oh, a banner ad.Mr. McCambley is wary.

He says he thinks native advertising can provide value to both reader and advertiser when properly executed, but he worries that much of the current crop of these ads is doing damage to the contract between consumer and media organizations....