2011 Act2 Experience
By: Darby Radcliff
In late October, The Magazine Innovation Center at the Meek School of Journalism and New Media at Ole Miss hosted the ACT2 2011 Experience, which is Ole Miss’ second annual international magazine conference.
This enriching event included speakers that are successful professional leaders in the mass media and journalism industry who come from all over to share success tips and advantageous advice for those aspiring to have media and journalism careers. The theme of the ACT2 2011 experience was to educate students on the future of the printed word in a digital age.
I had the pleasure of attending a seminar led by the successful Mark Pasetsky on Friday, Oct 28th during the ACT2 Experience event.
Pasetsky’s background includes being the Founder of Mark Allen & Company, which offers in-depth experience in public relations, publishing, and social media.
Pasetsky has also held several high-profile media positions, including managing editor of OK Weekly! Magazine, general manager and editor-in-chief of Life & Style, Vice President of Bauer Publishing, and Vice President of MTV Networks’ online division.
Pasetsky has also published his own blog, CoverAwards, written for Forbes.com and the Huffington Post, and is often quoted in prestigious media outlets including the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Beast, and E! Online.
Pasetsky’s Seminar Topic was about “The Secrets to Building Print Brands in Social Media.” This seminar was helpful for everyone in the room who is interested in using the amazing tools of social media in publishing.
My top favorite secrets that Pasetsky shared were “to friend your reader,” “actively engage in photoshoots for media publications,” and the importance of “covering social media in print.”
Pasetsky’s first secret about “Friending Your Reader” included the importance of creating a friendly media page for your readers, being everywhere your reader is, direct communication between editors and readers, and integrating your social media.
Also, another a tip for friending your readers is to actively tweet and respond to your reader.
Also, you can create an inviting Facebook page. The point is to be everywhere your reader is and connecting your reader. So you can do this by linking your media page to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and etc.
Communicating with your readers on an on-going basis is also for the purpose of getting your reader’s feedback and reactions to your writing, and also the last focus group you want is yourself, so it is better to have your readers as your focus group to critique your editorial content.
Another secret that Pasetsky shared was about “active engagements in photo shoots for media publications.”
During photo shoots, you can use social media to draw in readers and give them insight into live events. By actively engaging with readers, it could help also tremendously if the celebrity your article is featuring actively engages with your publication’s readers as well to help generate ‘the buzz’.
Devices such as: Facebook, Twitpic, YouTube, and Vimeo can be used to engage the reader in photo shoots for media publications.
Another secret given by Pasetsky is the importance of “Covering Social Media in Print”.
Covering social media in the print is lacking, but there are now 4 new magazine publications for the social media sites including: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and Google+.
Suggestions for publishers is to move forward is letting the readers know what is going on. As editors, you can create a package every week to focus on individuals because readers would love to get a recap.