BuzzFeed, the it-place for “share-worthy” content, has just announced its partnership with WeChat to bring news and entertainment to WeChatters around the world. The partnership is the media company’s first major collaboration with an international messaging app – a big step in broadening the perception of messaging apps as content platforms.
“As we start to see an increase of readers share content via private messaging, coupled with the rapid growth of mobile, we’re looking for new ways to distribute news and entertainment to our thriving international audience,” said Scott Lamb, VP of International at BuzzFeed. “WeChat’s innovative technology and strong international user base is a natural fit for our first majorpartnership with an international messaging platform.”
BuzzFeed currently has a readership of 175M globally with 50M readers each month outside the US and 50% of traffic from mobile. WeChat, the fastest growing mobile social communications app, has also seen significant growth this past year with a user base of over 468M monthly active users and young demographic who already enjoy BuzzFeed content.
By following the BuzzFeed official account on WeChat, readers will experience a more personal way of engaging with their favorite content on mobile:
- Followers will receive a daily piece of viral content circling the web directly on their smartphones.
- They can chat with BuzzFeed for customized content with special keywords such as cats/dogs/lol/omg/fail/win/wtf, which will be updated on an ongoing basis.
- And easily share their favorite BuzzFeed stories on WeChat to friends through chats or Moments.
“We are excited to offer BuzzFeed content on WeChat for our users to enjoy reading and share with friends,” said Poshu Yeung, VP of the International Business Group at Tencent, the company behind the WeChat app. “This is a great example of how WeChat’s innovative social, messaging and gaming feature set serves as a platform to create new interactive experiences.”
To follow BuzzFeed’s official account, simply download WeChat and type in “BuzzFeed” in the search bar or scan the QR code below. Then follow the instructions in the welcome message to get started!
