Social Media and Publishers: A Business Case

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When it comes to the social media/networking phenomenon, consumer and business magazines—and the advertisers and sponsors they serve—

are faced with some tough decisions. Ignoring social media, or reducing it to an afterthought, sacrifices the opportunity to reach millions. Viewing it solely as a drain of time and focus away from other channels—or even as a risk to print—misses unique opportunities for audience interaction. However, embracing it poses an array of challenges, not the least of which is the rapidly-changing nature of the medium. Even for magazines with deep pockets, it can be difficult to find a strategy that measurably benefits the magazine brand.

The medium itself will surely endure well beyond the fad stage simply because “social networking” is nothing more than a digital/mobile extension of what people do naturally: Gather together and interact around commonly-held beliefs or interests. Although some publishers feel eclipsed by the new medium, they are actually better equipped than other businesses to engage with their constituents in meaningful, sustainable ways.

This paper will share learnings from brands at Hearst, Rodale, Time Inc., Condé Nast, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., and b-to-b publishers Penton and United Business Media to explore an outline for building a successful strategy that incorporates social media to engage readers, enhance the brand and drive subscriptions.

Step 1: UnderStand What YoUr aUdience WantS

The audience for any information or entertainment medium is self-selecting. If the narrative does not meet a need, the participant will go elsewhere.

In other words, social media is a fickle environment, where brand loyalty is hard to win and easy to lose. It’s also crowded and full of distractions—namely, users pursuing their own agendas. In this flood of individual interaction, it is difficult for a magazine brand to create an engaging,

enduring presence. To do so effectively requires a high level of understanding of the audience’s needs.

content is King, But the Subjects are restless

Social media is optimized for short-form content—concise, memorable and, hopefully, easy to share with friends or colleagues. It is also one that requires creative thinking and originality.

Content for this new medium must meet some rigorous and seemingly arbitrary standards. Social media users demand relevance to their personal interests, and tend to be resistant to heavy-handed persuasion. In addition they want some level of entertainment value, applicability and (hopefully) inspiration.

Quizzes, surveys and other sorts of interactive content are showing some promise. While the popularity “poll of the day” is not a new phenomenon in the publishing world, it is proving to be particularly well suited to social channels because of its short form and highly shareable

Social Media and publishers: a Business case tips for Magazine Brands to Build

a Successful Social Strategy

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content. This is also true of slightly longer, opinion or feedback pieces like personality tests and surveys. In addition, a personal quiz result is 11 times more likely to be shared than a static web page, according to Pangea Media, a provider of social marketing and engagement tools.

Step 2: decide Who SteerS the ShipFor the most part, editorial and content creation groups

were the driving forces behind the successful social media efforts we examined. Advertisers and sponsors, when participating as team members, benefited from editorial leadership and innovation, arguably more than they could have with marketing alone.

Content curation via social media is still not at the best practices stage, but Time Inc. and other publishers are experimenting with techniques such as polls and research within their content verticals as ways of gauging user interest. Although the editorial teams remain the gatekeepers of content, social is influencing its direction. Publishers were quick to note that reader comments and feedback are nothing new, although the chaos of social media poses more editorial challenges than the simpler days of letters to the editor.

Step 3: chooSe YoUr priMarY environMentS

One dilemma we encountered during our interviews was the choice of venue for a magazine’s primary social media presence. One school of thought is to create a brand presence on the popular open environments, currently led by Facebook, followed by Twitter and a handful of other, more specialized sites. The other choice is to create private, members-only sites—with their own profile mechanisms and Facebook-like features for posting updates, joining discussions and sharing information.

These are by no means mutually exclusive choices, but a magazine’s limited resources will almost certainly require some strategic setting of priorities. Consumer magazines we interviewed tended to favor the open approach, going to where the people gather in large numbers, while business magazines were more divided on the issue, with more instances of brand controlled, member-only sites for acquiring and sharing information.

Closed platforms offer the benefit of collecting more user demographics upon registration and a tighter link to network sponsor opportunities. However, adding another layer to their existing interactions on social networks could be a difficult proposition.

Like many consumer publishers, Time Inc. has many social components in their multi-platform offerings. However, only two titles in the company’s Lifestyle Group

(MyRecipes and Real Simple) have created their own opt-in social network, with others focusing on Facebook, Twitter and other open platforms. Both sites are experiencing significant growth.

Step 4: picK YoUr partnerSMost publishers do not have the technical

programmers on staff that are required to create social media-like sites from scratch or even to enhance existing social media sites like Facebook. In addition the data and analysis required to leverage social media effectively requires an arsenal of tools that it just doesn’t make sense for a publisher to build in house. To that end, a new class of service providers has arisen to fill in the development gap.

For companies looking for a more efficient, creative way to create and publish interactive content to a myriad of social networks, there is Pangea Media’s SnapApp (www.snapapp.com), a marketing platform that enables publishers to easily create custom surveys, polls, sweepstakes and quizzes and publish these on websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter (including mobile) among other places. The company works with a publication’s editorial and marketing teams to understand specific social media goals and then to create the quiz, survey or sweepstakes that can help publishers realize these goals. Publishers using SnapApp are able to use the platform to

Source: L2 Think Tank’s Magazine Digital IQ Index, July 2011

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acquire customer data and analytics for future marketing and outreach efforts. SnapApp also offers publishers some innovative options for spicing up ad units.

One of SnapApp’s applications, online sweepstakes, has been used by Martha Stewart Living with positive results. Senior Product Manager Sean Hendricks described the publisher’s first two projects, “Martha’s Ultimate Fan” and “Martha’s Entertaining,” as promising indicators of the potential for social media to enhance the brand.

In the “Ultimate Fan” sweepstakes, users entered to win a trip to New York, plus VIP passes for the Martha Stewart show and a meeting with Ms. Stewart. The “Entertaining” sweepstakes offered signed copies of Ms. Stewart’s book to five entrants per week for four weeks. The SnapApp platform provided the environment for creating and managing each sweepstakes event and analytics. Users were given the option to opt in to themed email lists, and did so at a higher than expected rate—30 percent.

The goals of the sweepstakes, according to Hendricks, were to increase interest in the TV show, to increase the number of Facebook followers and, in general, to provide a special, positive experience for the company’s social media following. In terms of numbers, the campaigns were successful, increasing the number of Facebook followers by about 15 percent during each event. Hendricks noted that the first two sweepstakes were not used to gauge the medium’s impact on Web traffic or subscription conversion, but that this was only the beginning. Future campaigns will be designed to test its effectiveness on the publisher’s Web, print, and especially its mobile channels.

Social media analysis services—for advertisers and publishers alike—include the likes of Alterian (www.alterian.com), and Converseon (www.converseon.com), who provide social media monitoring and content management systems attuned to social networking. Analytics companies like Omniture (www.omniture.com) are also adding social to their product offerings.

Step 5: Set the tone and execUteOnce a publisher has some understanding of their

social media audience’s preferences, where they prefer to interact, and whether the approach is driven by editorial or advertising priorities (or both), it is time to build the channel—with internal resources, specialized partners, or a combination of both.

consumer Magazines: Strengthening the audience Bond

For consumer magazines, the ideal social media environment appears to be one that feels familiar, fits with one’s personal tastes, and serves as a comfortable place in which to interact with those of compatible interests. In other words, it is (in virtual reality) a living room, a coffee

shop, a hang-out spot, or a bar where everyone knows your name. Consumer magazine social sites can actually become such places, but only if they understand and respect their intimate nature.

Creative editorial engagement—integrating social media components into print and other channels—has emerged as a major strategy for consumer magazines seeking to create a popular social media presence. Ann Shoket, Editor-in-Chief at Hearst’s Seventeen, described their “Delete Digital Drama” campaign (http://twibbon.com/join/Delete-Digital-Drama). In conjunction with a PSA on ABC Family, and an article in the magazine itself, Seventeen created an anti-cyberbullying campaign which garnered over 100,000 Twibbon adoptions on Facebook and Twitter, surpassing even Justin Bieber (“Twibbons” are icons that can be featured on a member’s profile image to promote a cause). Traffic to the Seventeen Web site increased significantly during the campaign.

Shoket said that social is just as important to a magazine brand as any other channel, and should not be viewed as competition to print or Web. “The Twibbon campaign was a way to use social to elevate our print and dot.com initiatives,” she said. “It did not cannibalize them in any way. Those who see social as a drain from their other channels are never going to be able to harness its power to increase their brand.”

Seventeen also uses incentives such as coupons and exclusive video (unlocked via Facebook’s “like” feature) to attract and retain followers, and to generally spread the word on topics of interest. Measuring success in new or retained subscriptions has been elusive in terms of hard

In a sweepstakes for Martha Stewart Living powered by SnapApp, users signed up for themed emails at a 30 percent conversion rate. The campaign also increased MSL’s Facebook followers by 15 percent.

“...Those who see social as a drain from their other channels are never going to be able to harness its power

to increase their brand.”

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numbers but the impact is ultimately positive, Shoket maintains. Above all, the social efforts have increased the brand’s relevance to the audience—a fact recognized and supported by advertisers like Neutrogena.

content, customer Service and incentives

Successful social media endeavors are not limited to the largest publishers. Sasha Smith, Rodale’s Executive Director for Creative Services and Digital Product Development, noted that most of her company’s titles have strong, loyal followings on both Facebook and Twitter. Individual editors and contributors to Rodale magazines also maintain accounts. Runner’s World and Men’s Health lead in Facebook followers, at 286,000 and 213,000, respectively; Women’s Health is the leader in Twitter followers (638,000), which Smith points out is far ahead of other magazines in that genre.

The Rodale approach includes a combination of content, customer service and incentives to discuss common interests. Smith credits Rodale’s practice of facilitating discussion—rather than force-feeding content—as the reason for their social sites’ popularity in each vertical. For example, the #WHYIRUN hashtag continues to generate a huge number of responses, many of which are featured on the Runner’s World Web site. Other titles, like Bicycling, have used Twitter extensively to report on live events, with real-time analysis and expert commentary, and to offer targeted e-commerce promotions.

Some brands, like Organic Gardening already have an audience that Smith describes as “a passionate, generous bunch,” who actively share a high percentage of Rodale’s Facebook content with their own networks. Increased traffic to the publishers’ Web sites, plus the success of e-commerce tie-ins, has proven to be the immediate benefit. Refining editorial content, and making it increasingly relevant, has been another. Like other publishers, Rodale is exploring new ways to generate increased traffic via Pinterest and other social sites.

For some publishers, the intrinsic value of the content itself is the central pillar of their social media presence. The New Yorker is a case in point. Conde Nast’s senior public relations director Alexa Cassanos was unapologetic about their primary goal: Increasing the number of subscribers to their paid content Web site. Social accounts for over 16 percent of total Web traffic, with increases in traffic as high as 96 percent from social sites to newyorker.com during a recent promotion.

Gated free content, accessible via a Facebook “like,” has been the primary vehicle for the magazine, although they have also had success with Tumblr and other platforms. Selected content from the magazine, or new content written for social consumption, has generated significant

enthusiasm and sharing among readers. According to Cassanos, the magazine’s Jonathan Franzen and Arrested Development gating experiments generated about 45,000 new Facebook fans, over 800 million combined media impressions, over three million Facebook impressions, and over 20,000 tweets with a potential reach of over 40 million people. In the Franzen example, the magazine offered an exclusive 12,000-word piece available to readers only if they liked New Yorker’s Facebook page. Note the choice of content—the bait was selected because it appeals to hard-core New Yorker readers, not the casual ones, an effort to keep the fan base relevant and loyal.

Cassanos emphasized the magazine follower’s underlying passion for content that he or she would be motivated to read, enjoy and recommend or share. “No matter where people are,” she said, “they are looking for quality content.” She indicated that increased traffic, reader loyalty and satisfaction will result from social media, but everything has to start with content worth reading.

Time Inc. officials concede the difficulty in tracking the effectiveness of social in terms of subscription conversions and other conventional metrics, noting that social traffic is still relatively small, compared to the brands’ natural search and email marketing efforts. However, they also note that Time Inc. brands’ Web traffic is significantly higher as the result of strategic Facebook and Twitter campaigns, particularly those that involve “like-enabled” articles and other incentives.

Business Magazines: networking and actionable content

Business magazines’ social media presence is less intimate than that of consumer magazines, but still focused on essential content. Rather than a living room or other social gathering place, a business social site is more like a virtual conference—full of job-critical information as well as networking opportunities for its members.

Business publishers are not only focused on circulation and advertising revenue. They are quite often also involved with marketing their own events, sponsored research and other paid services. This leads to a complex business proposition, not easily served by consumer-focused social platforms like Facebook. We found that major business publishers tend to use Facebook and Twitter as a conduit or funnel to their own, members-only social sites. Smaller business publishers are more reliant on open platforms—notably LinkedIn.

“Content is the new advertising”

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a proprietary approach to B-to-B communityUnited Business Media (UBM) has taken a strong position

on business social media, with its wholly-owned subsidiary DeusM (www.deusm.com). The group has developed over a dozen online communities for verticals, sponsored by companies like IBM and Dell, focused primarly on content and networking. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are frequently used, but primarily as a “funnel” to draw interested users into these communities, where they can create a user profile and participate as a member of a virtual special interest group. Membership is free, with the understanding that the sponsor will have access to user profile information.

Managing director Steve Saunders emphasized that high-quality content, and strict guidelines on keeping content and sponsor-driven information separate, are essential to these sites. Sponsor posts are clearly identified, and, while the sponsor can suggest article ideas, they cannot dictate editorial coverage. Moderated user comments are given more prominence than most b-to-b technology sites, with the most recent comments previewed directly adjacent to the headlines on the home page of each community.

Content, both for external sharing and the site itself, is generally short (about 550 words) consisting of analysis or opinion on topics of interest. Paid expert contributors to each site supply most of the content, which Saunders said has to be both frequent and on topic.

The goal for UBM is to find constituents that are truly vested in the site, and in the knowledge base it represents. Sponsors obtain a source of qualified leads, to be sure, but the value of the site also includes market research, education and an increase in the knowledge base. “Content is the new advertising,” said Saunders, pointing out that both users and sponsors can benefit from a trusted source of information.

an emphasis on the Big Guys

Penton Media follows an open approach to social media, adding LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to its long-standing online community forums for such titles as Windows IT Pro. Engagement via Twitter includes frequent sponsor-involved “live chat” sessions, utilizing hashtags to specify subjects of interest. Peg Miller, Market Leader for the publisher’s Technology Group, also indicated that discount codes and VIP event codes shared via social media were having a positive impact on marketing and registration for Penton events.

Miller noted that social media is still in the early stages of adoption at Penton, but that the company has already seen its effectiveness in increasing search engine rankings, and increasing overall Web traffic. In general, social media tends to work best when done in concert with Penton’s overall engagement strategy, she indicated. This includes all aspects of the company’s value as a trusted information source.

Typical social media devices, such as polls and user

comments and feedback, are improving the quality of the overall experience, according to Miller. Penton’s content teams drive the pace, tone, and frequency of social networking activity, while the sponsors and internal marketing teams generally tend to follow the content teams’ lead. Users who engage with the end results are typically more qualified business leads, as well as more active consumers of Penton’s training and event services.

The ideal social media presence of a business publisher—whether private or on one of the open platforms—is that of a repository of specialized information. Access to experts, standards and best practices, plus the ability to easily network with others, are essential. In other words, it needs to be a compelling business resource.

Magazines have a head Start on Social Media

Despite the examples above, magazines, like many other businesses, are underutilizing social media. At the 2011 American Magazine Conference, NYU Professor Scott Galloway chided publishers for their “uninspired” Facebook strategies, pointing out that capital allocation for social media is too low for most magazines, given the medium’s market potential. This is not unique to publishers. A recent study found that less than 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies are on Facebook. Small businesses are only slightly more likely (63 percent) to have a social media footprint, and often have no clear cut social media roles, responsibilities, or structure for expansion.

Fortunately, when it comes to social media, magazines are in a better position—at least in theory—than other businesses. By definition, consumer and trade magazines are an “opt in” medium, designed to appeal

EBN, an online community built by UBM subsidiary DeusM, relies on a proprietary community model, but uses the primary social media sites to funnel new visitors.

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to a particular demographic or interest group. Content and reader engagement are second nature to any competent editorial team—as is the way reader feedback is respected and used. Social media puts this interaction

outside one’s editorial domain, which is unsettling, to be sure. However, the creativity and teamwork that made traditional publishing successful are the same tools that are working in this new arena.

increased Web traffic

An overwhelming number of publishers interviewed reported significant increases in Web traffic—to both paid and free content sites—as the direct, measurable result of social media campaigns. This will undoubtedly affect advertising CPM positively, although those we interviewed declined to be more specific.

Associated with increases in Web traffic are early successes with e-commerce tie-ins. A well-designed social campaign, balancing engaging content with relevant offers, has resulted in measurable e-commerce sales increases.

Multi-channel integration

Although social is often associated with consumers who rely less on print and other traditional channels, the publishers we interviewed agreed that social has not caused the cannibalization of those channels. In fact, when implemented creatively, social actually adds to the overall increase in brand following. Magazines with a coherent, integrated multi-channel strat-egy should welcome social as one of many opportunities to grow.

increased Magazine and advertiser Brand awareness

Most of the magazines we interviewed reported a high level of engagement with and loyalty to the magazine brand, as well as that of sponsors or advertisers. For consumer titles, the engagement was expressed in terms of the brand’s value as a source of entertaining or interesting content worthy of sharing with others. Business title brand awareness was usually expressed in terms of its value as an information source.

new Formats for advertisers

Building on the point above, publishers are also finding ways to integrate their advertisers with their social media strategies.

increased readership and Subscribers with incentives and Special content

Enticing offers and exclusive content—readable or viewable only via a Facebook “like” or similar mechanism—are proving to be the means of growing a magazine’s social media audience. The viral nature of the medium has proven to be a relatively low-cost means of reaching new audiences—provided that the content is considered worthy of sharing with users’ private networks. (Poorly-chosen or intrusive content runs the risk of alienating potential followers or, worse still, inviting ridicule.)

enhanced editorial content

Few of the publishers we interviewed have used social media as a primary content creation vehicle, via Wikis or other means. However, several are using vehicles like surveys and polls to elicit responses about various topics and to generate and inspire future topics. In addition, the intense loyalty or passion for a subject typical of social media users, combined with the self-selective nature of the medium, means that savvy editors are taking social feedback very seriously. Having such an intimate connection with readers has, in many cases, resulted in a more focused, relevant editorial product.

Benefits to the Brand

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