This year there's been a shift in how Internet users find content. Now 18 percent of Internet users see social media as key to finding new information, according to a recent Nielsen study. Is your company building its brand in that online conversation? In this issue of Engage, Andrew Hanelly, director of social media at TMG, talks about the key principles for using social media strategically. Take a look at our video interview and the Engage blog for even more. If you get even one great idea, Engage is worth reading and watching.

INDUSTRY BUZZ

Digital Storefront for Magazines Announced

The plans for a large digital newsstand, from a consortium of magazine and newspaper publishers, were announced this week. News Corporation, Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst, and Time Inc. are investing in an “iTunes for print” company. The new venture doesn’t have a name yet, but will sell content and advertising from magazines and newspapers from a single web site while leaving the hardware to others. The alliance would develop standards for magazine viewing on mobile phones, e-book readers, and other platforms. Read the full story here.

TMG Wins 19 Pearl Awards

TMG dominated this year's Pearl Awards with 19 awards in a broad range of categories. Only three months after TMG rebranded and changed its name from The Magazine Group to reflect its growing digital services portfolio, the leading custom publisher was rewarded with six Pearls in digital categories, including the Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards for Best Web Publication. Check out the full list of awards here.

E-Readers Galore

Hearst announced the launch of its Skiff e-reader. Conde Nast and Adobe are building a digital version of Wired magazine, which will be available next year. And last week Time Inc. released this video of how Sports Illustrated magazine could come to life in an e-reader (and UK paper The Sun released a funny follow-up).

Online Retailer Sees ROI in Print

Online fashion retailer Zappos.com is peddling its goods offline this holiday season and reaping a hefty return on the print investment. Its 48-page holiday catalog is the third print push this year for the company, and it’s being mailed to more than 750,000 consumers. According to an article in The New York Times, an average order from the catalog is more than twice the size of an average order that began on Zappos.com. Read the full story here.

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

2009: The Year of Social Media

Social media is too powerful to be lumped into the pile of buzzwords that clutters the media industry. Facebook alone has surpassed the size of the U.S. population; visitors to Twitter increased by 959 percent YOY in August; and 70 percent of active Internet users read blogs. Indeed, 2009 was the year of online social engagement, and brands have wisely stepped into the conversation, driving awareness and action.

Andrew Hanelly, TMG’s Director of Social Media, assesses social media programs for existing and prospective clients. Sometimes, even now, he discovers hesitancy to jump in from companies.  “A lot of people know they need to be on the social media track; they’re just waiting at the starting line, waiting for the gun to go off, waiting for the rule book to be written,” he says. “Well, they need to start floating, or they’re going to sink.”

See what Andrew Hanelly has to say about social media for brands.

It’s become vital for companies to be ingrained in the conversation simply because social media has become a core product research channel for consumers. Digital agency Razorfish proved this in its just-released 2009 Digital Brand Experience Study, which found that 40 percent of consumers have “friended” a brand on Facebook or MySpace, and 26 percent follow a brand on Twitter. That’s a huge amount of dialogue between brands and consumers; and it’s working: 64 percent of consumers report making a first purchase from a brand because of a digital experience.

Engaging with that online audience is a powerful way to measure the pulse of your industry and build brand equity. Actively taking part in the conversations positions your brand as an approachable expert. Hanelly provides an analogy for this consumer engagement: “Social media is now the mainland; your web site is the island. You need to build bridges to the island to get customers there. It’s about getting customers to your quality content.”

But you can’t just jump in and start talking. The companies that are best leveraging social media are being natural about it. “It’s like a cocktail party,” says Hanelly. “You first listen, see what conversations are being had, and insert yourself naturally into the conversation.”

The results will be more brand awareness, more engagement, and eventually more revenue for the company. There are even tools to measure social media ROI: tracking mentions, traffic, and more. But Hanelly says the way to tell how it’s really working is to see if people are talking back. “It’s about the conversation,” says Hanelly. “That doesn’t always translate onto a spreadsheet.”

Check out Hanelly’s Best Practices for social media.

Best Practices for Social Media

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