Week Seven - Magazine Research

I started my research for this week’s blog by Googling the phrase “best magazines on Twitter.”  It took me to a website that had found the 25 most-followed consumer magazines on the social networking site.  After going through a few of them, it is clear that there are different methods of operation for each magazine.

The most-followed magazine on Twitter was “People.”  They also had the best engagement with their followers.  They posed questions asking their followers to respond and would then retweet some of the best responses.  I also looked at “TIME” and “Sports Illustrated” and their feeds were very cookie-cutter in that they felt pre-programmed using TweetDeck or HootSuite.

I then proceeded to look at “People” on Facebook, to which they have 1.6 million “Likes.”  They use the same social media philosophy as on Twitter, asking their fans questions.  On average, their posts have between 50 and 300 comments, and a dialogue is created between their fans.  “Sports Illustrated” had less than 300,000 “Likes” and simply posted links to stories on their website, the same tactic that “TIME” uses.

It is clear that there are different tactics at work when comparing the two magazines.  “People” has figured out how to engage and listen to their fans, giving them a forum in which to share their opinions and interact with each other.  The same cannot be said for the other two magazines.  Their social media offerings feel very robotic and that they are only on those sites because society says they should be.

Social media should be a key component of a company’s PR and marketing strategy.  Using it effectively can grow a given brand by leaps and bounds.  Using it poorly, in contrast, can hurt a brand and give people a different feel towards that brand than perhaps they intended to generate.