Inside Freunde Von Freunden Newsroom: How to Make Sponsored Content Work

Sponsored Content

Almost 70% of the articles on the website are made in partnership with our sponsors. Some of my favorites have been our collaborations with Siemens, OTHR, and Vitra. We create custom ideas for each client that combines our content and design expertise with the client’s goal, ultimately helping them connect with the creative audience that comes to FvF.

We do our best to make these pieces authentic and useful, which may sound obvious but it’s pretty challenging. You have to find the approach that incorporates the sponsor in a natural and transparent way in order to be successful. Irrelevant advertising content won’t work because readers spot that insincerity immediately. We strive to always be true to our brand, so turn down any projects that don’t seem like a fit—and clients are attracted by our authentic approach and the way we communicate with our readers.

It’s important to get good at saying “no.” Accepting every sponsorship that is offered will hurt your reputation. Luckily, I don’t have any dreadful stories of failed sponsored projects, and from my experience, communication, transparency, and equal expectations on both sides are the main reason for our success. We are passionate about our work, and we never compromise.

Being a designer, I’m still unable to give constructive feedback on the content itself—I can only say whether I like a story or not. But I strongly believe that an interesting story is the core of our product. So, to make sure the articles were as good as the design, we hired talented reporters who cared about quality writing and telling stories that mattered.

Video Content

FvF Productions is our creative agency most well known for our video production work for large, corporate clients (like our long-term collaboration with MINI Germany). We knew we wanted to make video content from the start, but found it was a bit too complex initially since we would need more people, better skills, and more investment to succeed. After several years we had the money to start doing just that, hiring two producers, one film editor, and numerous freelancers. Now video content is our biggest revenue stream.

One of our projects I’m most proud of is a promotional video I directed for Sony Music. It sticks out because our team got to travel to New York. Producing in the city was a complex process, especially because we were arranging things remotely from Berlin. We had to collaborate with friends and companies who were more familiar with the area and hire a bunch of local people to help us out: a production assistant, an operator, and makeup artist, a stylist. All in all, we had about 20 people to coordinate with including the client’s representatives (and the client being there just increased the pressure). We had to get special permission to shoot in the streets of New York because of the busy traffic. The whole process took about a month, with two weeks of prep, 2-3 days of shooting, and a couple weeks of editing. While it was a lot of work, the final product turned out really well, so it was worth it.

Attracting an Audience

When sharing our content, we think through all the distribution channels and look for ways to combine approaches for the best result. It’s important to us to tailor the content to each social network, figuring out the right way to tell stories on each medium. Doing so has led to a lot of natural growth in our community—we’ve never had to buy subscribers or pay for ads. But we also have to be careful not to overwhelm ourselves. Social media takes a lot of time and our team can only handle so much at once. So, for example, even though there’s a lot of potential in Snapchat, we decided to stop using it so we could focus our efforts on other social media channels.

To measure traffic, we use Facebook’s analytics tools and Google Analytics. That said, we’re not just focused on getting as many likes and clicks as possible at any cost. The key to us is publishing good stories that resonate with people, so we focus on the quality of our readership over the quantity. We want our readers to spend more time on our website, not just click and then leave instantly, so we look at metrics like time on site. (On average, the visitors spend about 4 minutes reading our content.)

We think good quality content will help the brands we work with achieve their goals of gaining access to our audience, increasing awareness, and improving their reputation, so we never chase clicks or KPIs at the expense of quality.

The Future of FvF

We plan to launch a print magazine and we opened a new space in Kreuzberg for more events. We’re also hoping to open spaces in other cities in Europe.

In terms of digital strategy, I love following all the new innovations, but haven’t seen anything recently that I think is valuable to FvF. For example, VR and similar technologies that bring people around the world together are exciting, but I don’t think it will help us better share the lives of creative people.