You love your magazine. You’re so proud of the work you’ve put into developing a publication packed with informative articles for members, calls to action and graphics created by award-winning designers. But you know that you can get more engagement out of your members. How do you get them to not just read your publication each time it arrives in their mailbox, but also engage with it on a deeper level?
We’ve got some ideas! Follow these tips to drive genuine engagement with your publication, making it an even more valuable membership benefit and recruiting tool for your association.
1. Leverage your social media. Sharing the link to each new issue on your website and your social media pages is a great start, but to drive genuine member engagement, you can take things up a notch. Try promoting individual articles on your social media pages – your digital edition has easy-to-use share links to help you do this.
Share articles and tag the authors so that they’ll want to share it on their pages as well, increasing the content’s reach. And if you want to make your post really stand out, pair it with custom graphics that match your branding and that of the magazine. Need help with this? Reach out to your editor and ask what our design team can create for you.
Do you already have an e-newsletter you send to members? Make sure to include those featured article links.
2. Have a photo contest. People love a little friendly competition. One of our association partners in the parks and recreation industry hosts photo contests for their member agencies. It’s an excellent source of beautiful photography that showcases the work that members do in their industry.
Your photo contest doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the industry. With our powerful smartphones in our pockets, everyone has some cool snapshots they want to share. You could also set a theme for the contest, like “best outdoor photos,” “best food photography” or “quirky city landmarks.” People in your industry have all sorts of interests, which brings us to Tip No. 3.
3. Branch out. Let members showcase their hobbies outside of work. You might end up creating unexpected networking opportunities when one member reads your magazine and finds out another member is a superfan of the same TV show, or that they also enter the local fair’s pretzel competition.
“Share your hobbies!” is a broad request — people like a little more direction. So start with a prompt that thematically ties to your industry, perhaps something like, “If you were to create a TV show about our industry, what would it be called and who would you cast?” or, “Our industry is all about building other people’s homes, so tell us — what was the last home renovation you did?”
4. Share the wins. The most popular feature in one of our architecture magazines is a member-submitted section about job moves, new projects and recent professional achievements. Ask members to share their promotions, send event photos, or write about their most recent successful program or initiative. Give people an opportunity to share their good news and get extra, well-deserved praise for it.
5. Where in the world has your magazine been? One of our utilities clients has a recurring feature in which members photograph themselves on their travels while holding the magazine. This is helpful to drive engagement in two ways — it creates a recurring, fun feature that people will look forward to, and it gives people a reason to physically have the magazine with them. It also sends a message to members that your magazine is so valuable that it’s worth putting it in their carry-on when they already have limited space.
If you get a lot of traction on this, you can even recap at the end of the year. What’s the farthest location the magazine was photographed in? How many states, countries or continents were featured? And who has the best tropical-print shirt?
6. Walk down memory lane. Have members go through their photos from past events and submit them with short memories for possible inclusion in the magazine. You’ll get some nostalgic photos and fun professional anecdotes, plus fodder for future anniversary issues. (Psst: Does your association have a milestone anniversary coming up? Let us know if you’re interested in a special anniversary publication to celebrate!)
7. Request letters to the editor. Admit it — you love reading the comment sections online. People love to read what other people have to say about the world around them because we have a need for human connection. We’re curious about how other people feel regarding the topics we care about.
So, take a page out of the newspaper and start a “letters to the editor” section. Ask members to chime in on the topics facing your industry, or invite them to tell you what they like about the most recent issue of the magazine and what topics they’d like to see next. Unlike an internet comment section, you ultimately decide what runs, so you can print only the most insightful and thought-provoking letters that move the conversations in your industry forward.
Your magazine is an incredible tool for membership engagement. By getting members more directly involved, you’ll drive attention to the important information they need while developing new content opportunities.
Liz Herrera Lauer is managing editor and marketing strategist at Innovative Publishing. She can be reached at liz@innovativepublishing.com.
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