At JAM we often take time to check out the latest offering from Buzzfeed, so Monday’s news of its $50 million investment deal was a great way to start the working week.

Incase you’ve been hiding under a rock, Buzzfeed was first launched in the United States in 2006, before moving to the UK in 2013, headed up by editor Luke Lewis. Its unique style of .gif led content has made it a huge smash amongst internet users, including us at JAMpr!

Unlike most national and international news websites, Buzzfeed relies on social media to attract its 130 million monthly users, rather than the more traditional method of search engine optimisation (SEO). The mere fact that SEO may be considered a more traditional approach by Buzzfeed, clearly demonstrates its unique approach to digital trends and the indispensable power of social ‘sharing’.

The beauty of Buzzfeed’s approach to social journalism is that all the articles are built to share; allowing the website to see how, where, who and what people are sharing, and tailor its content to match.

This huge investment for Buzzfeed has come from a venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, based in California. Marc Andreesen, one of the co-founders of the firm, this week tweeted “We are very excited to work with everyone at Buzzfeed to help them realise their dreams of a profoundly new media institution.” Hinting at the long term plans for the site.

An interview with Jonah Peretti (Buzzfeed co-founder and chief executive) for The New York Times, also emphasised the significance in the future of ‘long-form and investigative articles’, indicating a more news-focused strategy ahead for our favourite website.

This is all very important stuff for us PR professionals to consider; with the changing landscape of the media it’s imperative for us to think multi-dimensional when creating media content. Let’s not now just ask ourselves ‘will people read it?’ but always keep at the forefront of our thinking -‘will people share it?’…

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject, please tweet us @JAM_Manchester

Until then, we leave you with one of our favourites