TAKE A DIGITAL LESSON FROM A PRO: an interview with Clay Hall, CEO of Aspire Media and Interweave Press headquartered in Loveland, CO.

Clay Hall is a media entrepreneur from way back. He purchased and operated Southwest Art Magazine in the mid ’80s, selling it to later found Aspire Media, a stepping-stone to his purchase of Interweave Press in 2005. The reason his story is more than a paper publisher’s tale is because of the success Interweave has found in the use of today’s social media to broadly expand its brands.

Interweave is a small, but growing company when compared to media giants like Hearst, Conde Nast, Meredith and the like. Its markets are very “special interest”… beadwork,

jewelry making, knitting, crochet, spinning, fiber arts, quilting, art (painting, drawing) and many related spin-offs. In fact, Interweave Press has an extensive network of more than 30 web sites, television shows, online communities, blogs, e-newsletters, podcasts, products and events. (Go to Interweave.com for more and to find entry to its various sites and involvements.)

Today, Interweave is one of the more successful cross-pollinated publishing companies, to the absolute delight of its small but mighty core of enthusiasts. But it wasn’t always this advanced.

“When Aspire acquired Interweave just five years ago, the Interweave digital contribution to revenue was less than 1%. In 2006, we began a concentrated effort to build this element of the business in every way we could… and in doing so, for quite a while we made every mistake we could possibly make.”  (In reflection, the social networking media is still evolving, and it, too, seems to make its share of mistakes.)

“The point,” said Hall, “is that we knew we had to be online because our readers were, and we just kept at it until we found the right combinations for us. In 2009, the Interweave online business had gone from 1% to 25% of our revenue, and it is still growing.”

Because some of Interweave’s audience skews older demographically, I asked Hall if there was a reluctance of the reader to the accept Twitter, Facebook and the like. “Not at all,” he said. “We really didn’t pay any attention to demographics. It was psychographics (attitudes, interests, hobbies) that drove them. Our audiences are passionate about what they do; are very involved in offline communities; and they like to share. They engage and share online as they do face-to-face. They find where the information is and that’s where they want to be.”  And yes… they do tweet and have Facebook groups. Who woulda’ thought? Well, Clay Hall did. “In fact,” he added, “Twitter is our number two producer of external links for the company’s American Artist group (Artist Daily) and a significant source of external links companywide.”

Looking at one of Interweave’s nine online communities, there was evidence of lots of activity. On the Crochetme.com site, I was greeted with a warm, inviting (really) pop-up window offering “6 FREE CROCHET HAT PATTERNS”… no strings attached. The “Community Info” box showed 39,354 users (with 290 new users in the last 24 hours), 1,208 threads (13 new in last 24 hours) and 531 posts (4 new in last 24 hours).  “Who’s Online” showed 606 guests and 32 members with e-mail user names.

The web sites also reflect interest-related advertising and of course, a chance to subscribe or renew. “Most of our subscriptions and renewals come online,” Hall told me. As a former magazine publisher, I will tell you, reader, this is an incredible advantage since fewer solicitation and renewal notices have to be mailed, saving publishers big dollars and readers lots of aggravation. In other words, it’s win-win.

“We are a totally integrated company,” says Hall. “We do not separate print, online, seminar, etc. by business function. Our people work in the same interest areas on all platforms. We view all business methods as adjuncts to one another.

“Many publishers,” he continues, “ tend to view the Internet and social networking as magic pixie-dust that will add to their primary business. We have a business model that says our primary business is reaching knitters/crocheters/artists/etc. using every media source as part of our on-going business. We don’t sell a single product that we can’t make money on, and we explore every media opportunity because, while it may not be significant now, it could be our future market. We must focus on content, however it is produced.  This is the multi-platform model of the future.”

Are you listening, marketers? If not, read the last paragraph again.

Jerry Constantino, Feb. 17, 2010

Jerry Constantino was President and Publisher of PJS Publications, a group of 20 special interest magazines owned by VS&A Venture Capital and later, Primedia. He now writes fiction and blogs irrelevantly at itsnutsoutthere.blogspot.com.

Note: Post not sponsored.

… or, will we someday be texting and tweeting our homework right from our “book?” Hmm. May be. 

Major textbook publishers are jumping on the bandwagon to sign deals with the digital book people as they try to adapt their content to fit the electronic page. Makes sense. In near times to come, students will be able to leave their back-breaking-packs at home and go to class with a slim-line pouch containing every schoolbook they need PLUS their whole library if they so desire.

The fit is obvious, and the economic impact on student, publisher and medium could be a win-win-win. Few want to own a textbook forever that they had to buy for an outrageously high price (because textbooks—without advertising to help subsidize the cost, are pricey)… and the used market sucks. But that is the textbook world.

How about the hardcover best-sellers we love? Will they eventually disappear or become more expensive in physical format? Well, there’s a take on that from an expert. Roger Darnton, director of the Harvard library, book historian and author of “The Case for Books: Past, Present and Future,” says no, emphatically. “I’ve been invited to so many conferences on the death of the book that it must be very much alive,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s misguided to think that one medium displaces another and we have a choice of either analog or digital. The history of communication is that new technologies reinforce rather than displace the old.” … “Every age is the information age,” he continued. “It’s just that information is organized in different ways.” 

Loosely interpreted, digital advancement and social networking on a broad scale, add to, rather than replaces the long-standing publishing models. And for publishers on paper, it could be a scary ride in the short term. After all, new media (social networking, in this case) is still trying to figure out what works, but it is doing so with enthusiasm, and there is a moving target of both technology and user to deal with. It is the elephant in the room that cannot be ignored.

Moral of the story: Adapt, evolve, embrace. Transition is evolutionary trial and error, especially with a lot of moving pieces, but it always happens. Those who can’t adapt are in for some tough slogging and ripe for the erosion of their market share, at best. I don’t want to think of the worse-case scenario.

Jerry Constantino, Feb. 10, 2010

Jerry Constantino was President and Publisher of PJS Publications, a group of 20 special interest magazines owned by VS&A Venture Capital and later, Primedia. He now writes fiction and blogs irrelevantly at itsnutsoutthere.blogspot.com.

Note: Post not sponsored.

Bubble wrap has more than 500 different Facebook groups. If that doesn’t tell you something about the range of today’s social media, then what more do you need? The question more intriguing is: what role will Twitter, My Space, Facebook, Yelf, Youtube, Foursquare, etc. play in how we used to view paper and ink publishing?

Magazines, newspapers, books… I remember them. Actually, they still exist, but for many of the nation’s most desired demographics, “Huh?” So how do these one-time mainstream media darlings evolve, and where do they meet today’s generation at the social media intersection? Here are the facts as we know them: Young adults (ages 8-18) now average seven and one-half hours a day “data-involved” (Internet, texting, listening to MP3 players, gaming, watching TV). That’s really 11 hours if you count multi-tasking. Most do not read for pleasure, will never subscribe to a newspaper, and have shortened attention spans. (Hey, that’s what the research says.) Yet they drive an enormous percentage of the digital economy (2010 will be the year when digital musical sales will surpass physical sales in revenue.) Subsequent generations will follow in this track, albeit altered in some yet-to-be determined way by its natural evolution. And it will happen fast, as everything digital does, and as its drivers demand–instant gratification.

So: We still have a shrinking audience of “old media” affectionados, and there is a belief by some (older) sages that we always will have, perhaps engaging, at some point, today’s generations as they age. But this can only happen if that “old-fashioned” media heartily adapts. It is trying; it just can’t sustain the pace. But the efforts are being made. Esquire, a “young-cultured” man’s magazine, published the first of its kind Augmented Reality Issue in December. With a simple application download, a reader can scan a digitally recognized symbol on his computer and be lead to a fully interactive expansion of the story, item or feature (including advertising). This bold (for a paper publisher) experiment was a step. Almost all magazines, newspapers and TV stations have web presence and blog to expand into the newer world. Survivors will have to become bolder and make Director of Social Media a serious masthead title.

The bottom line: Money. If you can’t attract the new readers, the advertisers won’t pay for the stodgy… and you, Mr. Publisher, will become either a newsletter for your core or extinct. End of story.

Jerry Constantino, Feb. 2, 2010

Jerry Constantino was President and Publisher of PJS Publications, a group of 20 special interest magazines owned by VS&A Venture Capital and later, Primedia. He now writes fiction and blogs irrelevantly at itsnutsoutthere.blogspot.com.

Note: Post not sponsored.