Buzzfeed has mastered social sharing and is bringing digital engagement into a new era. But, how did the social media sovereign ascend and conquer? Simple. They used exhaustive measurement to reveal an obvious truth: no one can resist cute animals—and thus, the cute animal content strategy arose.

What exactly is Buzzfeed?

New York Magazine defines Buzzfeed as “a hyperactive amalgam” that encourages user engagement by letting you vote on articles by clicking on the bright-yellow buttons reading lol, wtf, and omg.” The site contains hard-hitting news, but also quizzes and other lighthearted content. You can find sections dedicated to DIY, Health and Fitness, and, of course, animals.

From listicals to memes, Buzzfeed has mastered social media sharing and become a “viral-content machine”–it’s become nearly impossible to log onto Facebook without seeing your friends sharing a Buzzfeed link.

What is the cute animal content strategy?

Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti explained  how ever since the early days of social media, cute animals were a large part of the content people shared and engaged in, and animal content remains “very important to the Internet because they are cute and very LOL… But it’s not just the cuteness that was, and is, important. It’s the connectedness. People feel connected when they share.”

Where’s the proof that Buzzfeed has mastered social media sharing?

Buzzfeed’s content management strategy relies on extensive and exhaustive measurement, which the data-science team uses to predict what kind of stories might spread—and cute animals are always a given.

According to Wired, every item of content has its own dashboard, which compares the seed views on the site to the “scalable social views.” And “currently, the site has a ‘viral lift’ of three” which, put simply, means three times as many people come to the site to read stories that were shared via social medial.

Every item of content has its own dashboard that shows how it spreads from “seed views” on the site to the scalable “social views”. Currently the site has a “viral lift” of three — meaning three times as many people come to stories via social media.

What can you learn from Buzzfeed’s cute animal content strategy?

Well, Peretti said it best: “The biggest search term was people inputting the URL itself — which shows it’s not about SEO traffic, but people who’ve heard about it on Facebook.”

So, yes. Social media not just for people who are bored or have no social skills. It’s much more important to your brand than that.