Sara Critchfield, founding editorial director of Upworthy, will present a lecture titled “Good Ideas Going Viral” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 6, in the Perkins Student Center Multi-Purpose Room at Penn State Berks. This lecture is free and open to the public.
Upworthy is the massively popular (and much-copied) website that curates highly sharable, social, issue-driven content that flows organically into our online lives. During her tenure, Critchfield helped set the template to draw attention to important social issues (like racial profiling, body image, and child poverty) by making the stories highly shareable. Each month, Upworthy engages a total of about 50 million people on some of society’s most important topics.
During this presentation, Critchfield will share how her contrarian theories have shifted the way companies think about reaching users, and have proven that people are just as hungry to consume content about meaningful issues as they are about celebrity gossip—as long as you market the content correctly. Her approach to making good content go viral helped make Upworthy the Internet juggernaut it is today.
Named one of 2013’s Most Intriguing People in Media (by the publication named min), Critchfield often speaks at industry conferences on growth, social media, and virality. Past appearances have included the White House, the National Credit Unions Annual Conference, Personal Democracy Forum, SXSW, VIVID Sydney, the National Association of Realtors, Netroots Nation, and lecturing at USC’s Annenburg School for Journalism and other universities. She has been featured on PBS, CBC, New York Magazine, Fast Company, Business Insider, Bleacher Report, and Nieman Journalism Lab.
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This presentation is part of the Arts and Lecture series. For more information, contact the Office of Campus Life at 610-396-6076.