• February 8, 2013

Resolution Media and a handful of other ad agencies developed in-house "newsrooms" where editors create site content based on real-time events to drive Web traffic. Virgin Mobile said it partnered with BuzzFeed last year to create a similar strategy. The results churned out 9.7 million engagements in 2012, about 5 million for earned content and the rest for paid. It also created more than 28,000 Facebook engagements and more than 200,000 Pinterest views for the company.

Virgin Mobile marketers work with BuzzFeed's creative team weekly to identify content its audience wants to read. Overall, Virgin Mobile experienced about 150.3% higher consideration, according to independent research from Vizu, a Nielsen company. The study found those who discovered the content through social sites showed the most powerful growth in consideration. On social sites, the Virgin Mobile brand experiences 235.2% consideration.

The study measures brand affinity based on whether a viewer had no exposure to the content, viewed the content as a result of paid media, or received the content through social sharing on Twitter or Facebook.