Social Media Wave- Social Media Marketing Agency

Looking back a few years, we worked with a client to build a cool hybrid of managed content in a magazine format. The content was then re-branded for a channel of customers who in turn got to add some specific ad banners and services offers to their end patrons. The strategy was pretty simple but effective.The magazine platform was built back in early 2002 when a fledgling start up painstakingly sourced private investment capital to build a Content Management System from scratch and the company quickly burned through hundreds of thousands of dollars in development time and marketing expense.

One of the challenges was making the content take on some mobility, so we helped then create an e mail based push system that allowed subscribers to actually receive the magazine with a custom html page and logo for each client. This was well received and our client made a good living at it for a long time.

So the idea of using a custom magazine was out of reach for many marketers due to the high costs of developing the software and paying for valuable content creation. Flip ahead to today's landscape of low cost platforms and many sources of content. I mentioned how to use low cost CMS's in a previous post so let's look at how to use content to create value in a marketing play.

If you were a retailer of some sort of consumer goods, you could create a social media enabled magazine which showcased products, applications, emotional stories based on some A to B scenario, new options, new pricing or configurations etc. The content is free and plentiful and there are no issues using the content if you are a sales partner. They constantly update you with e mails, blogs and likely sales information in the form of videos, images etc. These sources of information can be reused or re-purposed by you very easily to create a living magazine on auto pilot.

Unlike the companies still living in the 90's which create and distribute expensive marketing materials in html based newsletter templates or worse yet-.pdf document attachments, you can create live feeds from your suppliers to update your magazine as they send out the information. Your magazine can show various twitter feeds, Facebook widgets, RSS feeds with articles, images and even videos on your aggregated Video page.

There are options for viewers to turn on or off their own sections for viewing making their experience more relevant. Sending out your magazine can be done by e mail subscription on your web page (which can also be your magazine pages) sending updates from various sections out on RSS to Twitter, adding an update to your Fan Page etc. If you already have a list of customers, they would appreciate knowing about your new magazine and would potentially keep a browser page open to see your updates -like specials, offers, news, events etc.

We created a "Business Mashup" template that allowed several companies in ancillary businesses to leverage topics of interest to many new potential customers. It is available for viewing and would be fairly easy to rebrand for your company so you too can offer a social media based magazine.

Our client described at the top of the Blog post here paid a fortune for their "static" magazine and you can now get a fully dynamic magazine platform for a mere fraction of the cost. Add in a location based marketing component and you have a scalable marketing system that can show real ROI. Marketers have to get excited about the leaps in progress that are available to them with very little cost.

Craig Stark

Managing Director

Social Media Wave