1

BuzzFeed Assignment

2

Project Overview

You are BuzzFeed’s Newest WriterDevelop a BuzzFeed post about tourism attractions in your universities city

Research Popular Tourist AttractionsUse Meltwater to research popular news articles about attractions and to track attractions social media trends Develop a Presentation and PaperMonitor peoples reaction to your post and write a paper outlining the process

Authors’ Tips on Writing a Blog

4

Author Tips• As Kandinsky says, "Everything starts with a dot." Sometimes the hardest thing in writing a story is where to start. You don't need to have a great idea, you just have to put pen to paper. Start with a bad idea, start with the wrong direction, start with a character you don't like, something positive will come out of it.

– Marion Deuchars, illustrator and author of Let’s

Make Some Great Art

• It's important to be inspired by other writers and sources, but when it comes to the actual writing, I swear by going into Tunnel Vision Mode. Pretend nothing else exists but you and your idea. Don't compare and don't despair.– Emma Gannon, author of Ctrl Alt Delete: How I Grew Up Online

5

Select 10 Attractions

• Choose attractions that will be appealing to the typical Buzzfeed audience• Ex: trendy destinations off the beaten path

• Each attraction also must have social media or news coverage so you can include hyperlinks in your article

Choose a Format

7

• Traditional newspaper article

• Photos and videos embedded in the article

Regular Post

• Short-form of writing that uses a list as its thematic structure

Listicle

• Get the reader to engage with your content

• Give them fun results

Quiz

Research Content

9

How to Find Relevant News Articles• Conduct detailed searches on Meltwater to find articles about tourist attractions in your city

• The link below shows how to search for relevant news articles about the Exploratorium in San Francisco within the last 30 days, sorting the articles by reach

• Watch This!.

Deliverables

11

BuzzFeed Post Requirements

• The post must incorporate a minimum of 5 hyperlinks to images, articles, or videos relating to your post

• Your Post will be graded on quality, creativity, and partly on how many views your post obtains over a 30 day span.

12

Reflection Paper: Due Date XXX

• What qualities make a popular

Buzzfeed post?

• How would you change your approach

after seeing the number of views and

comments you received?

• What do you think has lead to

Buzzfeed’s huge spike in popularity

over the past couple years?