What started as a university project in digital communications studies back in January 2011 is now a full-time job and wildly-popular international equestrian lifestyle blog and app for Roxanne Legendre, founder and editor of PegaseBuzz. The focus of the blog is to provide equestrians their daily dose of equestrian culture and horse fashion. “In order to be successful I knew I had to cover both the riders' lifestyle and integrate how media is consumed on smart phones by introducing an app,” said Roxanne. 

Tailor Made Content
“The app was designed to be simple and highlight informative, entertaining and lively content, in addition the newsfeed is tailor-made according to your profile so you are getting the most relevant information,” she added. The user experience features a swipe from the right to the left to remember past content and so users can interact with the app without other distractions. “The newsfeed is one of the most popular features because it appears automatically when you open the app,” cited Roxanne. She is skilled at developing and created the algorithm herself with help from her developer for the technical aspects. The main idea was for the user to be served content matching their equestrian interests first and then additional content followed.

Equestrian Job Listings Fulfill a Need
A unique feature of the app is the job section, which features new postings everyday. To list a job is free, however top placement ‘ads’ are paid. Jobs are also featured on the blog. “I’ve gotten noticed by European companies who now send me their job descriptions directly as they know they get quality applications,” said Roxanne. “It makes it fun when I meet my professional followers after they get hired in companies I work with,” she said. “I am really proud of this feature which brings value to the overall equestrian community!” Positions are also available to view on Roxanne’s LinkedIn Profile.

Users Around the Globe
The app currently has 3,000 users all through organic growth with 85% on the French version and the remaining 15% represent more than 50 countries using the English version. The top 10 countries users represent include:France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, USA, Germany, Italy, Canada, UK and Australia. “Our goal is to provide the best, and most current newsfeed,” Roxanne said and pointed out, “The more your profile is complete the more rewarding your newsfeed will be.” She encourages users to fill out all of the profile information to get the best experience and targeted content.

The app supports both French and English. The app language is determined according to your phone's language. The default language is English. Content and jobs are different on each version. To switch the version, you have to set the language on your phone. For jobs based in France/Belgium/Switzerland you’ll see the French version, and jobs based worldwide you’ll see the English version. 

Planned Enhancements
“In April of this year, we launched enhancements that updated the back office operations and usability of the app but we also added a carrots counter on profiles. Basically, users obtain carrots when their comments are liked! We have yet to determine the reward for the most carrots!” said Roxanne.

The goal is to enhance the overall experience and she is still working on improvements that were planned a few months ago. “It’s not easy keeping up with how fast technology is evolving, and the most difficult part is to choose what to focus on,” she said. “When I am not working on the user interface or experience, I’m managing everything else from clients and marketing to publishing content and jobs, and writing the blog, to accounting...”

Roxanne is committed to focusing on being more consistent with posting on the English version where she typically posts between 3 and 10 posts per week in comparison to the French version where she posts 1 and 5 posts per day. In addition, her hope is to offer new features by the end of the year. 

The Buzz is Real!

Everyday, PegaseBuzz app welcomes 120 users on average.

Since the start:

+1,100 comments posted

+400 jobs and +700 posts published

+110,000 page views whose 50,000 page views in May 2018

The lifetime of a post on the app is from 1 week to 1 month.

PegaseBuzz Website
Facebook: @pegasebuzz
Instagram: pegasebuzz
Twitter: @PegaseBuzz

The app is available on the AppStore and Google Play.

PegaseBuzz is based in France.