Successful magazines share well, staff well, and experiment well
We make it our business to help you publish successful magazines. How do we do it? Well, it’s not a big secret, and we certainly don’t keep it from our clients. Create quality content and distribute it well with a multiplatform strategy. That’s about all there is to it.
But, of course, that’s easier said than done. Which is where we come in.
FolioMag.com has the scoop on some digital magazines doing just that and more. Let’s get to it!
Talk of the Town: New Yorker’s Booming Web Traffic
The New Yorker’s web traffic is skyrocketing. FolioMag.com takes a stab at figuring out why.
“Traffic to the website has grown consistently over the past few years. In June 2016, NewYorker.com saw an average of 16.8 million unique visits, up 27 percent compared to June of last year. When asked about the magazine’s strategy for driving traffic, [NewYorker.com Editor Nicholas] Thompson says, ‘Our philosophy is to keep doing what we’re doing, but to try to get better every month. We don’t think specifically about how to retain these people or how to capitalize on this specific spike. We just enjoy it when it happens and try to do our jobs better tomorrow,'” Ellen Cools writes.
“In order to do this, NewYorker.com adjusted its staffing strategy, changing the mix of writers so there are fewer freelancers and more regular contributors. Most recently, the magazine hired Jia Tolentino, Benjamin Wallace-Wells, and Louisa Thomas, among others, all of whom Thompson says drive readers. Part of the brand’s strategy also includes improving promotion via social media platforms. This means improving headlines and audience engagement, which Thompson says started with using Facebook Live to drive engagement.”
Little Things COO on Content Distribution Strategy and Shareability
Shareability is an elusive quality for publishers, so much so that it’s hard to establish metrics for. But digital publishers like Little Things are doing their best to figure it out, as evidenced in a recent FolioMag.com interview with COO Gretchen Tibbits.
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“There are a lot of aspects that drive shareability. Specific to LittleThings, it’s both the art and the science that we put into our content creation. We only publish things that are positive, up-lifting and engaging. So there are frequently stories that we find which we know are going to trend, but that we walk away from because, first and foremost, our mission as a company has a foundation of positivity. We have a proprietary testing algorithm with over 30,000 data points; every piece of content runs through that algorithm to make sure it drives the highest engagement possible,” Tibbits tells Becky Peterson.
“Content wise, ‘shareable’ is something that drives engagement and emotional response – maybe it makes you a little sad before it makes you happy; or it’s a recipe or DIY post that you look at and you’re like, ‘I can do that! I can handle that.’ We always want to be very approachable to the audience, and create something that is not only engaging, but that will elicit a response in our reader which makes her want to bring that joy or practical tip to her network – a network which is primarily on Facebook, though not exclusively, and very much multi-generational.”
Publisher Events Emerging as Key for Successful Magazines
If you’re a Mequoda Member, you know how important publisher events are. Here’s some more proof, from FolioMag.com. “In a December 2015 survey conducted by Folio: and Hallmark Data Services, events were cited as the second fastest growing revenue stream for publishers – behind only digital advertising,” Greg Dool writes.
“According to Folio:‘s own data in separate surveys conducted in 2004 and again in 2014, events have nearly doubled as a percentage of overall revenues for B2B media companies, from 8.4 percent in 2004 to 15.6 percent in 2014. Even in the consumer space, where events make up a less significant percentage of revenues, they’ve more than doubled – from 2.5 percent in 2004 to six percent in 2014.”
Helping you with publishing successful magazines is what we do. Contact us today and we’ll prove it with a free 30-minute consultation.
To read more about successful magazines and other industry trends, visit FolioMag.com.
