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INDUSTRY BUZZ
Twelve consumer magazines hit the jackpot this year, booking more ad pages in the first half than they did in 2008's first six months, according to a Newsweek article and the Publishers Information Bureau. They are: Fitness, Cooking With Paula Dean, The Week, OK!, Family Circle, Scholastic Parents & Child, Organic Gardening, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Country Weekly, and Muscle & Fitness. July was the month of rising rate bases, bucking the trend of slashing circulation that occurred earlier this year. Food Network, Life & Style Weekly, and Parenting School Years all announced at the end of July that they were raising their rate bases. CD booklets are turning into mini magazines, thanks to a new partnership between Island Def Jam Music Group and Elle magazine. The first of its kind will be released with the Mariah Carey CD on Sept. 15. Written and designed by Elle, the 24-pager will include the usual CD booklet elements alongside ads. A condensed version will be inserted into copies of Elle's October issue. Open up the Sept. 18 issue of Entertainment Weekly and CBS TV stars will greet you through high-quality video and audio. A paper-thin video player featuring “VIP” (video-to-print) technology invites readers to interact and watch five different videos—straight from the page. Politico's "Washington Coup" was exposed in the August issue of Vanity Fair. The interesting twist to Politico's story? The print version and the web site have a symbiotic relationship: The print edition was doing poorly until the web site became successful. But now the print edition has more than doubled the company's revenues, since the website doesn't bring in big advertising bucks.
DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH
Blog This ... Please?
Last month, thousands of bloggers descended on Chicago for the sold-out BlogHer Convention, billed as the largest blogging conference for women. Also in attendance? Procter & Gamble, Kodak, TNT and Allstate. The companies shelled out major money to rub elbows with hundreds of everyday women who post their thoughts online—and that's not just a trend.
Spending on word-of-mouth marketing rose 14.2% to $1.54 billion last year and is on pace to grow another 10.2% this year, according to PQ Media. There's a reason for this: In the last five years, bloggers have become major influencers on consumers and their purchasing decisions. Suddenly, "going viral" is the new PR goldmine.
So how do you get your company or product covered in the blogosphere? The days of press releases, launch events, and reporter exclusives are long gone. Now it's about blog rolls, Twitter followers, and online influencers.
"Working with bloggers is less about marketing and more about relationship building," says John Cangany, manager of social media at APCO Worldwide, a global communications consultancy firm. "We try to join communities and become a part of the discussion rather than pitching to them."
See what else John has to say about marketing to the blogosphere.
Around the same time as the BlogHer conference last month, The New York Times published an in-depth look at the nature of PR in the world of digital social media, noting, "The web's amplification of many voices, and not just those of professional writers, has transformed PR." The article exposed a new breed of publicist, one that has "hundreds of writers, bloggers, and Twitter users instead of having six top reporters on speed dial."
The Times article showed that PR pros have gotten only incrementally more digital savvy even in the last few years. That's good news, because when APCO and the Council of Public Relations Firms conducted a 2007 study on "The State of Blog Relations," they revealed a huge communications disconnect between bloggers and the PR community. Just over half of the PR execs surveyed said they do a good job connecting to bloggers, while nearly two-thirds of bloggers disagreed. "It's less about wining and dining and more about finding common ground on issues," Cangany explains.
That common ground is of the utmost importance if you're looking to influence purchasers. After all, it's not just the PR buzz generated by word of mouth that's desired, it's also the SEO push from inbound links. Last year, BuzzLogic and JupiterResearch conducted a study that showed 300 percent growth in monthly blog readership over the past four years. It also confirmed that blog readers are strongly influenced by content when it comes to purchasing decisions—50 percent of blog readers said they find blogs useful for purchase information. "Social networks, blogs, microblogs, and all other forms of people-powered platforms provide a looking glass into the interaction between consumers," says PR guru Brian D. Solis, the author of the PR 2.0 blog.
But connecting to those bloggers and online influencers is a delicate process, and you can't just send a pitch—bloggers are being overwhelmed with them. When tech blogger Meredith Farkas had had enough of the bombardment of pitches, she posted a marketing etiquette lesson directed to the PR world: "I think marketing to bloggers could be done well if the people doing the marketing actually had some respect for their targets and actually bothered to understand the culture of the community they're trying to engage with," she wrote on her blog.
Bloggers seem to agree: The PR world might have gone overboard in the past few years, leaving bloggers feeling overwhelmed and abused. In fact, mommy bloggers are getting so frustrated with the bombardment of pitches that they held a "PR Blackout," refusing to write about press releases, pitches, or products for a week. Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission is set to release new guidelines for bloggers later this summer, possibly mandating that they disclose to readers when they're paid or when they have accepted a free product.
"Everybody has a right to a discussion online, and participating in it in a transparent and truthful way is going to go a long way with bloggers," says Cangany. "A lot of people have gravitated to the blogosphere because they want to get away from PR spin."
So how do you dance that delicate line with bloggers and get your product covered? Check out our Best Practices to get started.
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OUT TO LAUNCH
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The latest magazine and web launches
Entrepreneur Greg Sullivan has hand-selected a top-notch publishing team and is putting $10 million of his own money into his new project Afar magazine, which launched this month. Afar has set itself apart from other travel media by devoting itself to the "experiential traveler," as opposed to the escapist or sightseer. 
In response to rave reviews and feedback on its bi-weekly e-newsletter, FFF Enterprises launched BioSupply Trends Quarterly, which will be full of news, trends, perspectives, and information from the distributor of plasma products, vaccines and critical-care biopharmaceuticals. With the upcoming flu season, the timing might be perfect. 
Bluedogg Innovation Marketing & Media plans to launch four regional editions of HauteDog every six months. The first edition will be launched in Austin, Texas, with a circulation of 10,000 dog lovers. And the publisher says it will be in Dallas, Cincinnati, and Louisville before the end of the year. 
Introducing FunFare, a family-oriented consumer magazine that combines elements of ToyFare and Toy Wishes magazines. The premiere issue was full of articles such as "The 100 Hottest Toys," features on how toys are made, and profiles of the "Kid Kritics" who rate toys.
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