The Cheese Is Moving
Outsmarting the social media giants
By Stephanie Skinner
Here at culture: the word on cheese, we’re in the content business — specifically, cheese content. We produce articles and photographs, interviews and contests, videos and events that thrill the dedicated cheese enthusiast and entice the uninitiated. We know how to do this, and we love what we do. What we don’t do is print, code, or tech innovate. To distribute and promote our content, we rely on the manufacturing facilities and digital technology platforms others have built. And like most of my friends in the publishing world, we have increasingly used social media as a way to push our content out to the world.
I think these friends would agree, this seems like a match made in heaven. Social media platforms are ideal vehicles for our type of content — splashy food photos, tantalizing teasers, even the occasional baby goat snapshot. Then there’s the access to an aggregated audience. Facebook alone has 2.19 billion monthly active users. A lot of them love cheese — and they’re hanging around the platform just waiting for delicious content likes ours to come along (I’m sure of it). Finally, there’s engagement. It’s hard to come by when you’re a print publisher. But on social media, readers will tell you what they think of your content; they’ll contribute input and ideas; and they’ll even share your content with their own networks. Sounds too good to be true, right? If you ask me, a relatively small niche publisher with a staff of 10 and a modest annual marketing budget, I’ll tell you that it is.
A Fade to Black
Why would a publisher build a successful print publication from the ground up — and then close it?
To make way for something better.
By Jordana Megonigal
What is FedEx?
How about Apple?
BMW?
Without thinking about it too much, list three specific things, tangible or not, that you associate with each of these companies.
Your answers — what these entities mean to you and what you have come to expect of them — describe what makes a company a brand.
David Ogilvy, the “father of advertising,” defined brand as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes.” So a company, like any one of these stalwart, successful ones, is memorable not just because of its product features, but because of a position it holds in consumers’ minds. Done well, the perception is of being unique, of being distinctly and valuably different from companies that produce similar products.
It’s not easy to describe. It’s even harder to do.
Almost a Perfect Storm
When an act of God nearly wipes out NACS’s cash cow event, the association looks to its membership magazine to help diversity its revenue strategy.
Interview with Erin Pressley
You’re staging an event for 25,000 people. Over 1,300 vendors are coming to exhibit. The three-day event brings in over half of your association’s annual revenue. A hurricane hits. What do you do?
It was a wake-up call when the nonprofit, NACS, faced this scenario. To reduce its dependence on this single event, the organization needed to look for additional sources of stable revenue, including its flagship title, NACS Magazine.
We spoke at length with Erin Pressley, NACS’s vice president of education and media, to ask how the strategy, which includes in-house sales, branded content, and marketing automation, has paid off.
Summer 2018 Departments
Magnetic Attraction
By Jen Smith
At its best, an association magazine is THE premier venue for insights and information within your industry or field. It covers all the pertinent topics, gives a voice to the industry’s leaders and up-and-comers, and consistently acts as the bellwether of future trends and directions. Take it a step further, and it can provide a platform for the association’s thought leadership and mobilize readers into action that directly shapes the future of a field.
All of this — made possible by the work you put into it — makes a flagship magazine unique. It serves its members in a way they just can’t get anywhere else. And they know it. Member surveys regularly report that the magazine is perceived as the chief (highest ranking, most valuable) member benefit for associations that publish one.
When you have a tool this valuable, there are two things you can do with it.
Takeaways
Honoring Highlights
Branding Must-Do’s
Talking Design
Insta-Links
Always Wanted Your
Own Indie Mag?
Podcasts in Print
Simple Circulation Management …
Wait, Whaat?
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