It's the website known for countless viral shares, a core audience base that rivals some small countries and countless parodies of its headline formula. Now Upworthy is planning an Australian expansion. Brands aiming to harness an already large audience via branded content might be interested. Just don't ask for viral.
Speaking to AdNews as part of what appears a whistlestop tour of trade media, Upworthy writer and producer Eddie Geller, chief revenue officer James Marcus and director of revenue Josh Luger agreed that the reputation that has made Upworthy famous - its penchant for viral content - is more just about distributing engaging content. There is no magic formula. They hope they don't see it as a bullet point on too many more briefs.
Upworthy has been using native advertising since April this year and the move into branded content marks its first toe-dipping exercise into advertising revenue. The website itself doesn't support display adverts and according to Luger won't be “injecting a flappy display ad” going forward. Instead Luger confirmed that Upworthy's only advertising revenue is branded content which he says “enhances overall engagement and user experience.”
Marcus said the core mistake he see is brands ignoring the need for great content and thinking of virality itself as a marketing campaign.
“It's really not about 'let's make one piece of content and one video go viral'. I think we’re all rapidly moving past that. The agencies we’re talking to and the brands that we’re talking to are starting to understand that is a mistake in perspective,” Marcus said.
Behind any content that hits viral proportions from Upworthy is having substantial content, Marcus said. Too many brands start with the idea of “going viral” and work backwards, he said, which is entirely the wrong way around.
“We don’t actually have that magic wand. We don’t have the ability to take bad content and force people to watch it. If they’re not watching, and sharing and engaging and reacting to it, it has no meaning,” Marcus said.
Content that Upworthy provides for brands ranges from curation, amplifying brand content and more recently, content creation.
But the site is careful to note it only partners with brands that fit the publishers' “world view” which its mission statement explains in great length.
Luger, Marcus and Geller are currently in Australia to promote Get Up! And Tropfest's #ReefReels competition, which is spreading awareness on the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef through a film making competition.
That fits well with the company's point of view, and as a by-blow, will help it expand its audience ahead of a planned Australian operation.
Luger remained tightlipped on a specific timeframe, other than Upworthy would be “expanding its footprint in Australia” in the coming months.
According to Luger, Upworthy is motoring towards 2 million unique Australian visitors a month (1.8 million according to Quantcast). That claim suggests an audience bigger than some mainstream Australian news sites.
"It's been amazing to see is that given the fact that we’re US based, 35% of our traffic is international and that we can be a top 15 website in a country like Australia. What that’s shown us is that there is a big universality to what we’re doing," Luger added.
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