Is BuzzFeed the future of content marketing?

The site’s president says the “social content marketing” BuzzFeed does is the “type of stuff David Ogilvy did.”

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Call it “native advertising” or “social content marketing,” BuzzFeed has cracked the code.

Sparksheet spoke to Buzzfeed President Jon Steinberg about what it takes to relentlessly roll out viral content while serving the brands that power the platform:

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti has said that 100 percent of BuzzFeed’s revenue comes from what he calls “social content marketing.” How does social content marketing differ from the content marketing we all know and love?

We call it “social” because it really is word-of-mouth marketing online. There’s really nothing new about this. That’s one of the things that has given me great confidence as we’ve done it. It’s basically the advertising type stuff that David Ogilvy did.

Advertorials and word-of-mouth have been a force in marketing and research since the 1950s. We’re just doing that online. It’s going back to good advertising and getting away from banners, which were always a terrible advertising product.

I don’t think we’re the inventors of branded content marketing online, but I think we’re the most committed to it. This year we’ll do 500 or 600 branded content campaigns, all with direct-sold Fortune 1000 brands.

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