Chad: Expansions Into Other Media Outlets

Before we produce and publish our magazines, it might be beneficial to consider alternatives or expansions to publishing the magazine in print. This could be instead of, or in addition to printing. I feel it would probably at this stage be better for it to be expansion in addition to the magazine, as printing is still the conventional and most popular method of reading magazine content, and it will take time for the majority of the audience to transfer over to other forms.

The digital media sector is a rapidly growing market. The sector branches out massively, but it does include possible outlets such as social media, websites, and applications on tablets;


Possible Expansions For The Magazine On Social Media
We would try to connect to readers, in order to get a positive interest from them. We would try to keep the updates engaging, by giving the updates character, rather than just linking to articles and trying to sell the magazine. We would try and utilize feedback from consumers, and would try and give something back that they find worth it. This way it will be mutually beneficial from both sides perspective. Consumers will get more of the magazine they love, and the magazine will get a bigger, wider and more loyal audience. The advantages of social media are that there is very little cost in using it - and it will probably generate money and a bigger audience. However some time is involved in maintaining it.

Facebook
We could set up and use a Facebook page for alpha. Using this we could discover reader's opinions via the comments on our status updates. This could be useful as if we mention stories before they reach print, we could print some of the best comments in the magazine itself. This will involve readers and make them feel they have a positive influence in the magazine. We can also use opinions to adapt the magazine as the reader's want it. We could offer them behind-the-scenes photos as well as Facebook-page-exclusive competitions. Reader's could send in their opinions of albums as well as their own photos which could potentially end in print. We could also run polls and ask the readers what they would want to see, and use it whenever we run 'best albums/tracks/etc of'..... features. Finally, Facebook will enable us to be able to see what demographic the magazine is popular to, by looking at who our fan's are. Several magazines are already involved in this.

Twitter
We could set up a Twitter page for alpha. On this we could 'tweet' regular updates to connect with readers who 'follow' our tweets. Several music magazines already do this, but Q magazine (twitter.com/Qmagazine) does it well, and much better than NME magazine who simply link to articles. Q magazine  uses in ways such as:

• Having mini-competitions where followers tweet their questions to their band, and the best one gets featured. This is a win-win scenario. People in the magazine get a god question to use in the interview which they might have not thought of, and readers get to interact with the magazine. it also entices them to buy the magazine to see if their question was printed. "Got a question for @coldplay Chris Martin? We are speaking to him this week so send us your question by Friday and we'll put the best to him."
• Conversing with readers and artists. This gives the twitter account more character, and makes people more likely to follow the magazines twitter page. Also, tweets to artists could be used in the magazine as exclusives. "@remco1993 Actually we think it might be Ethan from Crystal Castles... @keaneofficial"
• Linking to the main website, to give it more traffic, which could earn more from  ads, as well as being much easier to share large amounts of information, as twitter is limited to 140 characters in each tweet.

One of the main advantages of twitter is that it is instantaneous, and that for a lot of people who access twitter on their smartphones it is push delivered to them - so they have to see it. This is good as long as tweets aren't so frequent that they annoy the follower and force them to choose to unfollow the page. We could also use it to tweet out pictures and videos occasionally that are from behind-the-scenes.


Youtube.
Youtube can be used to share videos, though it is not strictly a social network. We could share special acoustic sessions, behind the scenes videos etc.. on it. Also, Youtube allows users to like and dislike videos, which would enable us to see which videos and artists are popular with readers as well as other Youtube users. We could use this information in future to feature more of what the readers like, which will inevitably boost the audience figures.


Possible Expansions For The Magazine On Tablets


Another possible expansion to the magazine could be to 'publish' the magazine as a tablet magazine as well. The most successful, and easiest to publish on is the Apple iPad. We could also make it available on other Apple devices, such as Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch. As of October, Apple announced that they had sold over 250 million of these iOS devices - all of which could support our magazine. The iPad's screen is ideal to read magazines on, as its LCD screen is 9.6 inches diagonally, and has a very high resolution which makes it crystal clear. because of this you could fit  a page of a magazine on it quite comfortably with clear text.

Advantages of putting the magazine onto an iPad include:

• Because no printing costs are needed (ink, paper, staff, machinery etc...) the magazine can be published for virtually nothing, with the only costs being those to create and produce the magazine in the first place. These savings can be passed onto the consumer - which will make them more likely to the buy the magazine, particularly on impulse.
• Because of the Apple devices operating system (iOS) has recently been updated with a feature called 'Newsstand', publishing magazines on these devices is now made much easier. Magazines are now located permanently on one of the main screens of the phone, so they are always easy to find. Subscriptions can now be set up, in addition to just buying magazine separately. Also the magazines deliver themselves to those that have subscribed. This means that if you had subscribed to alpha magazine it would download itself to the device (providing it had internet access) over the night the magazine was released - automatically, so that it is ready to read as soon as the reader wakes up. This makes the process incredibly easy for the consumer, which they may favour above print magazines where they have to go out of their way to pick up their magazines.
• Magazines could also be more than just the usual version. Special digital magazine features could be implemented, as they are on some magazines. This can include moving images, interactive adverts, interactive graphics, and other interactive content - which you could not use in a print magazine. The possibilities of using these are endless, however one use could be to embed song clips into a page that mention  a track. For example, in an interview with an artist, they might mention a song by an artist. You could click the song and it would play a 30/90 second clip of it.

One thing to consider with this is that when selling via these devices, Apple gets 30% of the revenue, whilst the publishers get 70%. This is a factor to consider but not a major one, as even when selling in print the distributors and retailers get a percentage of the cut but this varies per magazine. Some magazines already use iPad magazines, the biggest being: Maxim, New Scientist, Esquire and The Economist. Currently no music magazines use this so it would be a niche market. Many music fans already use iPhones, iPods and iPads to listen to music, so this is a very good platform to use.