BuzzFeed创始人的网络传播心经

    图片分享网站Pinterest要慢得多。人们其实是利用Pinterest给某些东西设定电子书签——为他们打算以后从事的DIY项目制作布告板。讯息的传播速度较慢，但如果你正在制作一个烹饪配方，一个梳妆台，或者你打算做一件必须等到周末、有足够时间来做的事情，那么你就会更加深入地接触这家社交网络。

    这样的例子不胜枚举。你如何调整BuzzFeed的业务或内容，以适应每家社交平台的需要？

    怎么说呢，措施之一是内容的类型。我们是从人的层面来思考这个问题的——我们不会说，“瞧瞧人家Pinterest，让我们打造一个更完美的Pinterest，让我们模仿Pinterest的算法。”我们的反应是，“让我们创作人们非常乐意分享的内容。让我们创作人们一看到就说，‘跟人分享会更有乐趣’的内容。”所以，我们主要创作幽默、可爱的动物、突发新闻，以及那些你一看到内容马上就想跟人分享，从而把其他人带进谈话的东西。

    一方面，你是一位数据驱动型企业家，但你同时也依赖直觉，对吗？你如何平衡这两件事情？直觉驱动与数据驱动各占多大比重？

    人们常常说，“跟着感觉走，”但他们忘了，所谓直觉建立在大量的数据和过去的经验之上。比方说，如果你创办过5本最终失败的杂志，而有人打算推出相似的第6本杂志，你会说，“直觉告诉我，这不是一个好主意。”这并不意味着你具备某种深刻的洞察力。你其实拥有5个已经渗入你的直觉，非常强有力且痛苦的数据点。这就是为什么当你观察任何一位公司的资深人士时，他们的直觉几乎总是做他们已经获得成功的事情。他们想一遍又一遍地做这件事。

    不要总是相信自己的直觉，最好保持一定的质疑，不断吸收新数据，不断质疑自己已有的知识。在BuzzFeed，我们经常给每位员工发送各种仪表板，让他们观察人们对他们创造的内容作何反应：共享次数是在上升，还是在下降？他们可以测试假说和理论，说：“好吧，这样做过去很奏效。我可以让它再次产生影响吗？我还能做出类似的内容吗？我能不能从中抽取一部分，让它传播开来？”通过这种有益的质疑，同时获取大量新数据，人就会开始学习新知。

    你总是听到人们说：“是的，我们不能成为网络数字的奴隶，因为如果我们只是关注这些数字，它就会带领我们走进死胡同。”你完全不存在这个问题，对不对？难道你不是只关注数字吗？

    没错。只关注数字是非常危险的。我认为，网络上存在许多过度优化的问题。你经常看到这种“乳沟”陷阱，你在网站首页发布某个名人的照片，她的裙子可以让人们看到她的乳沟，你说，“哇！这张照片的点击率可真高啊。”如果你是数字的奴隶，你就会开始持续不断地发布类似这样的东西。于是，你的网站很快就会充满色情垃圾。你会说：“我只是始终在关注数字而已。”但你正在突破一个局部最大值，很多人再也不想浏览你的网站。因为仅仅只有10%的读者看见图片就点个不停的色情狂或者喜欢窥视名人隐私的女性。

    And then something like Pinterest is much slower. People are actually bookmarking things in Pinterest—making boards of DIY projects they want to do later. Things spread at a slower rate, but there's a lot deeper engagement where you're actually cooking a recipe or you're building a dresser or you're doing something that you have to wait for the weekend to have enough time to do.

    And the list goes on. How do you tailor your business or your content to each one of these social platforms?

    Well, part of it is the type of content. We think about that on a human level—we're not like, "Look at Pinterest. Let's make the perfect Pinterest. Let's game Pinterest's algorithm." It's more, "Let's make something that people are proud to share. Let's make something that people see and say, 'This is going to be more fun with someone else.' " So things like humor, things like cute animals, things like breaking news, things where when you engage with the content, you immediately want to share it and bring other people into the conversation.

    On one hand, you are incredibly data-driven. But you also rely on your gut, right? How do you balance those two things? How much is gut-driven and how much is data-driven?

    People often say, "I go with my gut," and they forget that their gut is informed by huge amounts of data and past experience. It's like if you've launched five magazines that have failed, and then someone wants to launch a similar one, a sixth one. You're like, "I'm going to go with my gut. This isn't a good idea." That doesn't mean that you have some deep insight. You actually have these five very strong, painful data points that have informed your gut. That's why when you look at someone senior in any company, almost always their gut is to do the thing that they had success previously in their career doing. They want to do that thing again and again.

    It's good to not always trust your gut, to have some skepticism about it, and to constantly have new data coming in and constantly question what you actually know. A lot of what we do at BuzzFeed is give dashboards to every person who works at BuzzFeed where they're seeing how people are engaging with the content they're producing: Is it going up? Is it going down? They can test hypotheses and theories and say, "All right, this worked in the past. Can I make it work again? Can I do something similar? Can I take one part of it and make that work?" And you start to learn through having a healthy skepticism and lots of access to new data.

    You always hear people who say, "Well, we can't be a slave to the numbers on the web because if we only follow the numbers, it will lead us down some path." You don't have that problem at all, do you? Don't you only follow the numbers?

    No. It's dangerous to only follow the numbers. I think there's a lot of over-optimization on the web. You see this sort of "side boob" trap or something, where you put some picture of a celebrity whose dress lets you see the side of her boob on the front of your website, and you say, "Wow! That gets a really high click-through rate." If you were a slave to the numbers, you'd start putting more stuff like that and more stuff like that and more stuff like that. And pretty soon you would have a site full of trashy, salacious garbage, and you would say, "Oh, I'm just looking at the numbers," but you would be hitting a local maximum, where lots of people would never want to read your site just because 10 percent of your readers are horny guys who can't resist clicking, or women who can't resist gawking at celebrities.