Magazines look to boost their online engagement with readers
Magazine brands looking to boost online engagement with their readers should be linking back to their traditional offline print product suggests a report. The report by the Ipsos Mori, which looked at the UK’s seven biggest women’s weekly magazines, suggests that those magazines that ask for feedback on their magazine or ask for comments on current news/trends were most likely to receive higher levels of online interaction via social media sites in particular. As a result it is likely that publishing companies will focus even more of their efforts and investment in social media marketing and therefore the creation of new online marketing jobs to support their online activities.
The number of Facebook fans or Twitter followers a magazine has does not directly correlate with their level of consumer engagement on social networks, which suggests that interaction is the key to overall online engagement. The report also suggested that those magazines that reply or interact with their fans are more likely to build strong relationships with their readers, therefore leading to them becoming a readers’ ‘brand of choice’.
Fans of Bauer’s More magazine engage more with the brand than fans of Northern & Shell’s OK! Magazine, despite More magazine having 42,000 fewer Facebook and Twitter fans. More’s Facebook fans recently helped the magazine to produce an edition of More to mark the More Facebook page reaching the 100,000 followers mark.
Louise Ashford-Hodges, Managing Consultant at Brand Recruitment, works with a number of clients including publishing companies across the East of England and has noticed: “A significant increase in the number of clients looking for candidates with social media and digital engagement skills and experience, I see this as a trend that will continue over the coming months as companies look to boost their online engagement with consumers through recruiting for new online marketing jobs.