really quickly, which in the history of my 25 years working in magazines, I’ve never been able to do before,” Candy concluded. “We need to be in their lives every minute of the day, otherwise print will never survive. We are driving to print from different journeys, and there are commercial bits along that path that we haven’t even begun to utilise yet.”
A 2012 study by the MPA (Association of
Magazine Media) and GfK MRI found that millennials engage with magazines through a number of different social media platforms but they are looking less for content than for special contests, promotions and discounts.
The MPA’s study found that an
astonishing percentage (93) of those surveyed (1,000 people between the ages of 18 and 34) admitted that they had looked at a magazine in the past 60 days, and 37 per cent had read a digital edition.
The young people made it crystal clear
that there must be a return, or potential return, on their investment of time with a magazine’s social media platforms. Magazines must be delivering on that need because more than half of those surveyed follow a magazine on Twitter. More than half (59 per cent) have entered a magazine contest through Facebook or Twitter, and an almost equal number have downloaded a coupon from a magazine’s Facebook page.
Facebook was the respondent’s
preferred platform for interacting with magazines and an encouraging 42 per cent admitted that they chat with friends on Facebook while reading a magazine.
Twitter presented a surprise, as 91
“This strategy is a perfect way to attract the new, younger reader.”
respondents said they follow and interact with magazine editors and writers more than with the brand, with 56 per cent of the Twitter users following an editor or writer, and 51 percent tweeting with them.
In a comment on an Adweek story about
the survey, a young reader said, “That’s dead on… we want to be engaged and that includes the content we read. We want to be able to engage with friends and even be able to reach out to the writers themselves and engage with them. Of course, with a savvy generation where (cost-saving, geo-location shopping) apps like ‘Red Laser’ exist to save on money, it’s no surprise that we would expect to get such a discount or ‘a give away’”.