Imagine if you could create a meme that replicated and shared itself over and over and over, hundreds of times a day, every day. This is the core of BuzzFeed’s business model, and it’s twisting traditional conceptions of media and advertising models into new moulds.

Most internet users are well-aware of the superficial appeal of cute kitten .gifs, list-based content, and the “What Kind of Flower Are You?” quizzes populating their Facebook streams. All of this is part of the BuzzFeed formula to determine why you click things. What you click on matters; it is actually all about the click.

BuzzFeed’s Business Model

BuzzFeed creates content engineered for sharing, to harness online shareability advertising and propagate in a way that no vehicle before them has managed to do so. Along with your friend network, traditionally giant corporations have taken notice, and BuzzFeed now counts mega-brands The Gap, Virgin and Pepsi among its clients.

Are you able to distinguish which BuzzFeed posts are content and which are paid advertising? There is purposely little distinction between the two. It makes the user experience on the site seem ad-free because there are no annoying banner ads cluttering up your screen. The cute kitten is the ad. The list is the ad. The flattering personality quiz that reaffirms you were meant to live in Paris cleverly mines data about what you like, with the sole purpose of better understanding how to serve you more content. More content? Oui, merci!

Good marketers understand that people are motivated not just by the benefit statement, convincing visuals, and a catered appeal, but that there needs to be a hook woven in through a clever call to action or copy point. BuzzFeed skips all ritual of marketing tradition and simply gives people a hook. Once they are hooked in, it’s easier to feed them your message, as their guard will be down.