Site A’s most shared article last month was a list picture post and its latest viral quiz was Game Of Thrones: the big, brain-splattering quiz. Site B’s most shared content last month was long form content with over 3,000 words. Which site is BuzzFeed and which is The Guardian?

Site B is BuzzFeed and Site A is The Guardian. There is a myth abroad that major publishers are about serious content whilst BuzzFeed is all about list posts, quizzes and short catchy, even fluffy, content. The data shows that the truth is much more complex. My analysis of the posts from the two sites over the last 10 days shows how major publishers and Buzzfeed are learning from each other to drive traffic and shares.

The Content Analysis

I reviewed articles published from 1st April to 10th April 2015 using Buzzsumo for BuzzFeed and for The Guardian.

BuzzFeed published 2,420 articles in the period which received an average of 5,263 shares each.

By contrast The Guardian published 6,717 pieces of content which received an average of 485 shares.

The Data Findings

The most shared articles on BuzzFeed were List posts followed by How-To articles as can be seen below. In the case of the Guardian the most shared posts were Why posts followed by How-To posts.