A Witty(Feed) interview shedding light on the business of content creation and viral marketing.

In the thriving content industry, WittyFeed claims to be the 2nd largest viral content website globally and India's 20th most visited website. All of it in straight two years of time. The website has a number of viral content pieces to their credit and often work with brands for creating a similar effect.

Social Samosa got in conversation with Parveen Singhal, Co-Founder & CCO, WittyFeed to understand the publisher’s approach towards content marketing, content dissemination across social channels, and the downright ridiculous briefs that brands come up with.

While branded content is all the rage, how well do you think Indian brands understand the concept?

Indian brands have quickly grabbed the concept of content marketing. Existence and usage of numerable Indian platforms, which brands use for their promotion through content marketing is proof enough. Nowadays, marketers are inclined towards content marketing instead of direct marketing as it helps them to build an emotional connection with the user.

There is a boom in the Indian market, and soon it will take over all other types of advertising.

Brands and agencies are still trying to crack the code of virality. What is your take on it?

I agree with this statement. There are many brands which don’t have any idea about virality and when they try to make us work on their terms, the end-result is just pathetic. I think brands should give freedom to the platform and should not force the service provider to do only what the brands thinks is correct. Instead, the brands should share their objectives to the platform and then allow us the freedom to make the content viral by keeping the brand's integrity and objective in mind. It is our task – our expertise.

What is the most ridiculous brief received by you?

There are many but once we got a campaign in which the client asked us to take a quiz from our users on something irrelevant which wasn’t making sense in the context.

How do you maintain a balance between creativity and brand brief?

First , we pay attention to our client’s expectations and then keeping our audience in mind, we determine exactly what our users will like the most. At the same time, we make sure that the content is presented to the audience in such a way that the integrity of the brand is maintained.

As a publication, what is your objective from social media?

Our main objective from social media is to establish our brand name and then to maintain it. We want to influence people by our social platforms and that they land on our WittyFeed platform to read something unique as well as to know what’s going viral across the world.

How do you ensure efficient dissemination of your content using social media?

We ensure it

• by selecting the right kind of content
• then posting it on an appropriate platform
• at the right time.

Also, we boost our content and while boosting we keep in mind our targeted audience, targeted region and customise everything. We make sure that our audience gets what they like. We ensure  that a content only goes to the users who would find it useful.

Organic reach on Facebook is restricted. How do you work around this? What percent of your content is boosted?

We do work on the content, and it is a must that content should be the best because users will be able to share it then and if the content is shareable it will automatically go viral. We boost around 30% of our content that is just to give it a pitch once it catches fire, we don’t need to spend more once it goes viral on its own.

Which kind of Facebook ads work best for publishers? Please share an instance when a particular Facebook ad worked well for you?

Photo and video ads work the best for us. One of our InnerVoice poster touched 460k in just four days.

WittyFeed offers a variety of content on their social channels. Which kind of content has worked the best so far creating maximum engagement?

Emotional content has worked better than any other content on our social channels. At the same time humorous content also works for us.

How much percent of your page views are from social media? With high engagement on your Facebook page, what is your approach towards CRM? How do make use of the data?

80% of our page views are from social media.  We post the content which is relatable and where people like to get engaged. And then we replicate the success by using such data.

What will be your top 5 social media marketing tips to upcoming publishers?

1. Content is the King: Always keep this in mind. Your first focus should be on content. It should be unique which users can't find anywhere. It should be latest because users love to stay updated. So make sure you formulate the content in a way that a buzz can be created. Content should be such that it touches the audience. It is possible when it contains some emotions. Emotions in content help to leave an impact in the user's mind.

Your content can’t have grammatical mistakes. Take care of syntax - sentence formations, spellings and flow.

2. Time: Time is one of the most important factor and you should know what type of content will work at what time. You should be aware that at what time highest number of users come on your platform and when their presence is least. Publish your posts accordingly.

3. Reliability/ Brand Integrity: Make sure users find your content reliable and you need to maintain the integrity of your platform.

4. Boosting: As you know reach goes down with higher percentages so boost every post with a minimum amount. Then it will fetch you the speed automatically. While boosting, select the audience as well as region (all the parameters) wisely. Boosting plays a vital role in making something go viral.

5. Replicate Success: You should maintain a record of what kind of content worked on your page and what kind did not. Always replicate success after a proper analysis. Go through the page insights and work with all the data. Make it a habit and work accordingly.