Buzzfeed Quizzes Were Nearly Worth $1 Billion, It’s Your Turn to Get a Piece of That

In case you hadn’t heard, Disney nearly purchased viral content site Buzzfeed for $1 Billion a couple of months ago. Buzzfeed has leapfrogged into popularity following the publishing of a series of online quizzes that have reached hundreds of millions of people, nearly leading to one of the largest media exits in history. Obviously they got something right, and now you can follow a simple formula to make your own Buzzfeed style quiz. Here’s the insider guide to making your own quiz.

Step 1: Come up with a snazzy title. A full 80% of people will decide whether or not to click on your quiz based on how it’s named. Simply put, a title can make or break your content. The question is then, what kinds of titles work well for quizzes? Luckily there is information available on that subject, here are three types of titles that work well a disproportionate amount of the time.

• The “Actually” title: “How Much do You Actually Know About Friends?” this is a spin on a traditional quiz, but with a challenging call to action.
• The celebrity comparison title: “Which Celebrity Would Play Your Mom in the Movie Version of Your Life?” We have an infatuation with celebrities, involving them in people’s lives is a sure-fire way to get attention.
• The Personalized Personality Quiz: “Which Irish Tribe Living in London are You?” is an actual quiz that received 10,000 hits in four days thanks to how personal it was. There are only 175,000 Irish people living in London, and 10,000 of them took this quiz. Know your audience and create a personality quiz that tailors to them.

Step 2: Write Questions that persuade people to stick around. Once a visitor has taken the plunge and clicked on your quiz, it’s your responsibility to keep them interested. Writing quiz questions cannot involve the use of answers which are (never, sometimes, always), or you will lose interest extremely quickly. Once again, it’s important to know who will be taking your quiz, but the key to creating interesting questions is injecting personality.

One of my favorite examples of this is The Rooster Magazine’s quiz “What Should Your Rapper Name Be?” The first question is “How many times have you been shot, or shot at?” The magazine is based out of Colorado, where not many people have actually been shot or shot at, but when presented with this question I can’t help but answer it.

Step 3: Create results that boost egos: Part of the reason we love quizzes so much is because they tell us something about ourselves, and we like hearing about ourselves. However, no one wants to hear that they suck, so make sure all of your results are positive. Check out this example of someone who got Beyonce as their quiz result.

Not only is it an honor to get a famous celebrity as a result, but the copy in this result is also undeniably positive. “The two of you light up every room you walk into” is just about the best compliment you can pay another human being, and this quiz discovered that after you answered ten simple questions!

To conclude, you want to craft an experience that first entertains your audience and second provides valuable information in a fun way. If you can pull off usefulness while not boring any one, you’ve got the recipe for a great quiz.

Quizzes helped Buzzfeed draw the attention of Disney, even at the price tag of $1 Billion. You can get your website the same kind of traffic by making your own quiz and following the three simple steps above to create a quiz worthy of millions of visits.