Web & social media for magazines
In mid-March I had the opportunity to attend the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association (AMPA) conference with some colleagues. It’s the fourth year that we attend for our magazine techlife.
Given my previous role, my interest is directed to the web and social media. In time since we’ve launched our magazine website, we’ve incorporated a number of social media tools – the most recent being our YouTube channel in April 2008.
Full magazine online?
The question that I always find interesting though is whether magazines should have full digital editions as we do or in a PDF, Flash or whatever format. A couple of the companies that sell these types of tools including Baxter and Texterity have presented as past conferences but still the argument comes up all the time that people don’t read the same online as they would in print. Some people however are disappointed when they can’t find an exact version online of what they found in your magazine to forward to a friend for example. Also, it does make it easier when we can forward a link to a page as opposed to sending a whole document, but then that’s more about us than the reader.
Regardless, a few thoughts from a couple presentations.
Mention the URL
In a Thursday evening session with magazine specialist from New York Ina Saltz and Patrick Walsh of Outdoor Canada, they were asked what the biggest opportunities that magazines were missing out on.
The web was one of the answers that came out. All magazines should have their website listed on their cover, spine and in the folio.
Magazines and social media
The next day Rhett Soveran of WestJet’s up! Magazine and David Guzman of MindShare Inc. presented Working for the Web. WestJet’s magazine is managed through contractor RedPoint Media, which is why WestJet and up! Magazine have separate presences through social media. Some of their key points:
- Consider the first person for the web
- Bring more different angles to the same story
- 200-500 words maximum
- Technology is almost as important to content, but content is king
- Take a screen shot of your website and blur it out to see where the eye is drawn (in some pubs, it’s the ads)
- Keep learning, good content brings the reader
They also touched on social media and that many people come to their stories because of social media. It was interesting because another well established magazine said that they still have not been able to successfully make the argument for social media. The editor still considers it frivolous. The answer to that, do it anyway and show them the stats.
