Digital Buzz Replacing Newsstand Buzz?
Covers 05.22.12
In this wired world, the pressure for a cover to "pop" has become more important in the digital space rather than the traditional, physical newsstand. Time, Newsweek and Bloomberg Businessweek have all been seeing success with this formula.
The New York Times reported about the trend over the weekend. Of the Time breast-feeding cover, they said:
"We had a cover that captured lightning in a bottle," said Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time. "It's obviously a story that hit a nerve."A Time spokeswoman said the breast-feeding cover was its best-selling issue this year, and Time doubled the number of subscriptions typically ordered in a week.Taking their cues from digital counterparts, magazines are as interested in hitting nerves on social media as on the newsstand. The Time cover left an even more impressive mark online. On the day after the cover appeared, terms related to the cover were four out of the top five searches on Google. In the eight days after its publication, the cover was mentioned over 50,000 times on Twitter, and the magazine's Twitter followers spiked. Time also received 43,000 likes on Facebook.