It's fascinating to witness the pace at which some are diving into social media. Not surprisingly perhaps, when it comes to Australian fashion magazine publishing, it's the independents who are leading the way. Without the resources of massive online portals such as ninemsn.com.au and news.com.au, to which the biggest titles have access, the indies are thinking outside the square. Here is a video just-posted by RUSSH magazine on its day-old Tumblr blog. It's a "vidflip" of issue 29. The blog and Vimeo account are on top of Facebook (4,349 fans) and MySpace (10,538 friends) pages, as well as a Twitter feed (1,451 followers). Coincidentally, the launch of the RUSSH blog follows five days after a release from indie fashion rival, frankie, entitled, "Frankie doesn't freak out in face of new media".
In the press release, magazine retailer Sahil Merchant, from Mag Nation, talks up the title:
“Just think about how many people chat about a frankie article over coffee. The magazine becomes almost a social lubricant, which elevates it beyond a mere collection of words and images.
"The same cannot be said about lots of other magazines, which are simply content in print. These are the ones that don't get the new media environment we are in, and will ultimately disappear”.
The release also quotes frankie's social media chops:
frankie.com.au (37,287 unique visitors/month)
Facebook (17,760 fans)
MySpace (13,962 friends)
Twitter (4,600 followers)
That's on top of, the release notes, the magazine's 29,135 audited readers.
8 comments:
It’s great to see them embracing social media and adapting to the new media landscape. I agree with what Merchant said about “the ones that don’t get it,” and I think the same holds true for the next batch of journalists.
Also that video was intense, I have to admit I laughed when she struggled to flip the pages. She needed one of those wet sponges that checkout-chicks use.
That vid saved me $9!
One of my fave magazines. Honestly one of the best out there, much better than Vogue Aus! I love how they are building up their presence on the net. Great article Patty.
Lets throw a very important factor into the mix.
Their target demographic.
Both Frankie and Russh have a majority Gen y readership. Which as we know are fast on the uptake with social media.
Russh started their Twitter/Facebook pages after many of the ACP titles, and their website has been untouched for over a year. Marie Claire bolted out of the gates with the best use of social media, and it showed through out their RAFW coverage. lets keep perspective.
I know we would like to think that all the established titles are out of touch and lagging behind. But its not the case and has a great deal to do with readership.
An Instyle or Harpers reader isnt sitting on twitter and tumblr all night. But a Russh and Frankie reader is, and for that reason alone their circulation will never reach that of those established magazines .
"an instyle or harpers reader isn't sitting on twitter and tublr all night"
those sorts of fundamentally incorrect assumptions are going to be the downfall of those magazines.
I couldnt agree more with Dnee's comment above
Here are our creds over at Oyster:
Myspace: 25,438 friends
Facebook: 3,268 fans
Twitter: 1,427 followers
And our website gets between 30,000 and 60,000 uniques per month depending on what sort of promos we're running.
Flipping through the entire issue = COPIED STRAIGHT FROM THE SELF SERVICE BLOG. Please do something original, it makes it so much harder for australians to be taken seriously on an international level when we become such obvious copy cats
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