My new post on “How Magazines Use Social Media to Boost Pass-Along, Build Voice” was published at MediaShift this week. In it, I discuss the many ways magazines are starting to employ Twitter, Facebook, and other social media to connect with their audiences and build their brands:
The lines distinguishing magazines’ print and online content, their social media projects and their advertising will probably continue to blur.
“It might take 10 years until we figure out how to master this,” said [Matt] Milner [vice president of social media and community for Hearst Magazines Digital Media]. “Social media transcends departments — it’s beyond edit, beyond sales. It will inform more and more content decisions in a good way, but it’s going to take a little while.”
In my introductory media class today, I showed a video created by Wired magazine displaying their iPad/tablet edition prototype, and discussing their process of developing it.
Screenshot by Flickr user myuibe.
The big question that arose both in developing my MediaShift post and in my class this morning was: how will editorial and advertising content work together and yet also still remain distinct in this new form?
This seems like an ethical issue that hasn’t been explored fully just yet, as we ogle the iPad and consider its possibilities for shiny new content. (I include myself in that ogling.)
I’d like to know more about how magazines plan to deal with monetizing editorial content by increasingly integrating revenue-generating opportunities – like product purchase options – into editorial content, and how interactive advertising will co-exist with more traditional forms of editorial content. Advertisers will definitely want to take advantage of these opportunities, and magazines need to begin transitioning to this paradigm, as do other print media.
Though the editorial and advertising wall has always been more porous than it appeared, will the iPad bring it crashing down? I don’t think that’s too likely, but there are certainly some significant ethical and editorial concerns involved in its integration into the magazine world.
How far are readers willing to endure the integration of ads into content? What about e-books with built-in ads and links to the Web sites of products that are mentioned? This will be an interesting journey.
