Launching a New Magazine on the Web

Building an audience is hard for new publications and using social media is an important marketing tool. My new web magazine, The Good Life, focuses on health and fitness and I’ve developed a social strategy incorporating SEO, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Periscope, Snapchat and new list making app, The List.

All articles will be optimized with keywords to enhance our presence online. Article titles will have straightforward names that include the keywords, each article will have photos with captions, and meta descriptions will include keywords too. Each story will naturally incorporate keywords throughout where it makes sense to ensure they are optimized without sacrificing writing quality.

Facebook will be used to share articles and follow important personalities and organizations in the health and wellness industry. I’ll build the initial audience by inviting friends to like the page and also pay for a promoted post for an initial boost. At the beginning, I’ll use Facebook as a way to talk to the audience about what kind of topics they’d like to see on the site and post about twice a day linking to articles on The Good Life. In addition, I’ll use Facebook analytics to see what posts receive the most engagement so I can tailor my strategy.

Twitter will be used to follow celebrities who are known for living a healthy lifestyle, wellness and health companies, other publications, health writers and Twitter users who have shown that they are interested in the topic. I’ll share our content using hashtags specific to the articles, retweet the community I follow, and present the publication as an authority on wellness and health. Using hashtag searches, Twitter will also keep me updated on current news so I can chime in on the conversation and build my audience. This also will help provide inspiration for future web articles that I can then Tweet out with the popular hashtags. Twitter analytics will be used to measure what content performs the best so I can provide my community with information they care about and get more followers.

Since memes are really popular on Instagram, I plan on creating inspirational fitness and wellness graphics to share with followers, using relevant hashtags. I’ll also post photos from different workouts, since the site will have reviews on fitness classes, as well as photos of workout gear, recipes, and from fitness events. In addition, I would search popular hashtags related to wellness and repost images crediting the user with a shout out of why we love the picture.

On Periscope, I’d like to host fitness experts as well as editors to host lunch time chats about healthy eating, working out, skincare and other topics. Periscope will also be used to record staff members trying out new fitness classes and cooking segments featuring healthy meals. Of course, we’ll ask for audience feedback to help determine what other areas we should feature on Periscope and market them on Twitter and Facebook to increase participation.

Snapchat is extremely popular right now, and I plan on capitalizing on its success. I want to experiment with using Snapchat to tease news or go behind the scenes in our newsroom or at wellness events. For example, if we have a really big feature story, I plan on creating a short snap marketing the story to see if it drives traffic to the site. I also want to take snaps of our office so readers get a look to see how our editors and writers live out the good life, for example, a snap of what our food editor really eats for lunch. I also plan on sending snapchats showing fun happenings at our office so readers get a sense of who we are and feel connected to our site.

The List is a new app that allows you to create, like and comment on other users’ lists. While brand new, I would like to test it out and see if the app gains any traction. I see so many ways that lists could be created, for example, the top 10 fitness accounts to follow, the 5 best sneakers for running, etc. Since the app doesn’t have many users, this would be more of an experiment.

By connecting with our audience on various mediums and monitoring analytics, I hope to gain new readers organically and create various ways to create content outside of the site.