If you’re hoping to learn how to promote a magazine with social media marketing today, you’ve got to take note of the environment we now live in. Effectively marketing a magazine in today’s market requires a full grasp and utilization of current technologies. Once you create an online magazine, one of the most important of marketing areas to target is social media marketing. But how you use the tools is key.
According to recent US publishing market statistics, the US magazine industry has suffered somewhat from the transition to a digital economy. Not only have the number of publishers to survive the transition fallen sharply from 46 billion U.S. dollars in 2007 to 28 billion in 2017. Americans have also gone from reading an average 24 minutes a day 2010. to about 15 minutes on average by 2018. This means that to stay competitive, publishers need to focus on using technology to compete with bigger magazines who are already focused on the shift in reading habits. Here are some of the ways you can use social media to stay on the cutting edge in the 2020s as a publisher.
1. Lure viewers from the social update
If your title is more serious and sedate, that’s fine if your audience is already comfortable with your magazine. But what about all those eyeballs not yet spoken for? They need a hook to bite.
Use a social title to entice and give more insights into why they should care about your article. Example:
Why is Spot Avoiding You?
Sure you know your pet? #dog #cat #pet #training #tips
Instead of telling them what you think is an appropriate title for those in the know, tell them why they should click.
Most potential magazine subscribers who’d love your magazine won’t always be moved without an inside peek at the guts of the story. And those hashtags (#) precede trending topics for the platform. Merge your content with current trends whenever possible and realistic. If a celeb is trending, hashtag that in the article. Imagine all those fan boys and girls retweeting your magazine blindly. Works on mature and sophisticated types who just love Celine Dion’s soulful pop ballads, too.
2. Go beyond previous UX standard
If your print edition crowd is fading out, you may simply be failing to use the best technologies to their fullest level. Make sure you’re finding ways to get your print audience’s attention. Put your online version in short, intuitive vanity URLs to gain more traffic from your exiting readers, before they get lured away by another magazine’s already-optimized online UX!
For current online subscribers, be sure you’re keeping it real with the latest features like highlighting, note-taking, and sharing tools. But don’t stop at best practices. Poll your readers for the features they’d like to see with multiple-choice questions and a write-in option.
3. Let readers interact with authors
Why? Because readers love to be included in the conversation in today’s Web. Not sure about unmoderated comments? Make sure to moderate your comments thread to ensure a safe and friendly comment section. You might also consider blocking posts with obscenities or threatening language for a more automated commenting culture!
And on the technical side, your comment section is bound to increase your search and social media visibility for your articles. Still another reason to get fully Web 2.0 with your magazine’s online edition.
4. Let your covers circulate
Not only are Twitter and Facebook great for getting your latest cover out there for window shoppers, but Instagram is made for this! Moreover, LinkedIn may be a great way to capture the B2B crowd’s attention.
Don’t have a big following yet? You can use social platform advertising to promote your cover even if you’ve just started your profile. But do work on that following!
5. Shares = free PR
If you’re not using the best sharing tools, you are passing up lots of glowing, free endorsements. There simply is no better advertising than free publicity on the Web. In many ways, this is the ideal exposure and the best way to promote a magazine with social media marketing.
As long as your brand has a branded social media contact in the wings, you can easily identify and take advantage of positive PR opportunities. You can also address legit issues in public (talk about great PR).
And when all else fails, you can always ignore the crazies (that also can gain you points with your real prospective and current audience).
6. Spinoff content
Lots of online journals and magazines play a dirty, brilliant trick that their prospects and subscribers actually love.
It’s called spinoffs, and your magazine should have them. Got great photos or potential explainer material that would make great infographics? How about potential videos of that interview you would otherwise only have in black and white?
7. The expert interview
Interviews conducted online with video make for stellar promotional videos or premium content. Clip them into pieces for freebie interview sound-bytes to bait the hook. Use these sound-bites as ads on YouTube and Vimeo channel ads and organic content.
Infographics are a technical journal’s best friend. But they can also work for yoga sites, sports training magazines, even guitar mags! If you have something to teach, the infographic can gain you new views by rapid word of mouth and algorithms working to promote interesting content for free and via platform ads, such as on Facebook.
8. Leverage affiliate influencers
If your writers are or deserve to be stars, let them in on the affiliate marketing action, too! You can also use influencers to help promote your content in the topic areas their followers love. Ice T is old school rap, but lots of people love him across the demographic divide. Music equipment magazines would do well to give such stars the chance to review their featured new products on the house if it means millions of would-be musicians and singers piling on the bandwagon to be like their favorite music star. Find a way to create a new audience for a media star and you may have a deal.
Likewise, other brands featured in your mag will jump at the chance to help promote the article that promotes themselves. The same applies to celebs. Imagine the next Jay Z talking up your magazine because you interviewed him to help promote his new album or tour. The possibilities here are actually endless. The limit is your own imagination when it comes to unlocking how to promote a magazine with social media marketing, but you’ve got to get creative and think from within what you brand actually can do well.
We’d love to hear your story.
Let us know how you’ve been doing with social media and any questions you have with an anonymous comment below. You can wear a mustache and sunglasses in your comment profile photo so nobody knows who you are. We won’t tell! Promise!
Online-only giveaways
How do magazine publishers get print readers to join in the online comments?
Even if they’re Web-shy, they just might take a peek to see what the fuss is all about if they get exclusive premium content just for liking your Facebook page. If your fave product or topic expert were being interviewed, wouldn’t you?
Branded mugs and caps might be more attractive than you think if someone is on the fence about subscribing. Is your mag premium-priced? Talk about a great way to sweeten the old tea pot! The New York Times does it. Cult interest mags do it. Politicians and aging indie bands do it. And so can you.
Ready to take your magazine’s social media marketing to the next level? Contact us to discuss your social media marketing goals. Don’t know what you should be doing? That’s okay. We’ll get back to you with a starting plan to grow your social media marketing and following for your magazine. Then we’ll help you set to turning those followers into subscribers.Are you a blog subscriber yet?
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Need help with social media marketing for your magazine?
i own a travel inflight magazine in africa , i need help with content ideas , making content calender and how to get more twitter followers and instagram followers and traffic on my website . What can i do ?
Hi Abdallah,
You could first look at what your competitors (if any) are doing, and then try to figure out how to add value where they don’t. A good rule of thumb is to do your research and read your competitors faithfully. That’s the best way to know what to write about, because it offers little value to offer the same thing. It is a value-added proposition to provide and cover what they don’t or are missing.
As for followers, this is part human networking (basically, making online “friends”), and part serviing your target audience. Many go for the wrong followers. Make sure you’re targeting the right audience as followers. What should they get out of reading a good Africa travel magazine? Give them THAT!
You can use a social scheduling tool to help get your content visible on social, platforms, but you may have to consider advertising your best stuff to them as a side approach to organic social marketing. The more in-depth the articles, and the more surprise value and granular detail you can give in a single article, the more you can showcase that material and spend some cash if needed to get it seen by the right audience on the platforms, Search, etc.
If you need content ideas but don’t have the capacity to handle this end on your own, you can also consider whether to hire a content strategist to do content research and strategy for your niche, come up with ideas for new articles, and help write them.
Hi! I am starting an online magazine and could really use some ways to begin it. Want to get the basics. What is the first step, second step, and so on? I need help getting an audience and with marketing. Thank you for any resources regarding these questions.