Social Media Case Study: messy magazine

messy magazine is an online literary / art / music / photography / whatever-that-issue-needs-to-be-at-the-moment magazine. The basis of the magazine revolves around theme-inspired work, spanning fiction and non-fiction writing, reviews, previews, fashion, music and visual work.

messy magazine is grassroots and non-traditional. We are grateful for social media tools that will help us promote our magazine and the wealth of artistic talent and just plain interesting people and events here in northeast Ohio. We look forward to learning from the masters (most of whom are writing articles about much fancier stuff in this e-book) and thank you for the chance to include this little blurb about how we are using social media at messy magazine.

At messy magazine, we are exploring the possibilities of using social media to spread the word about upcoming themes, special events and also to distribute our product. We are currently working on creating an open source blog where our readers and friends can log on and write pieces to complement (or contradict) our bi-monthly online publication. This interactive piece will help us to further engage our audience and will help us to achieve one of our original goals of creating community and encouraging interactions between artists, creative types and those just starting out.

messy magazine has a Facebook group page and we use that to send messages, update group members on events and submission deadlines and to basically just spread the word about what we’re working on. Since our magazine is driven by user content, we frequently message and update the page so that people can keep up on what is going on and when they should jump in, either to submit, enter a contest or check out an article, local business or company that we recommend. Each staff member also reaches out to their own personal networks on Facebook, myspace and twitter, and the response has been very favorable.

In sum, we were four twenty-somethings with 9-5 jobs, Facebook pages and a huge commitment to creativity as a force to drive economic development… and now we’re four twenty-somethings with an online magazine, the popularity of which is rapidly spreading thanks to links on our friends’ blogs and promotion through various social networking sites.

We don’t always have a chance to be creative during the work day and understand if you don’t either. We want to construct a friendly online place for people to showcase their work and build relationships. It’s our own social networking vehicle- complete with great stories and compelling visuals.

messy magazine is distributed bi-monthly from Cleveland, Ohio. We welcome submissions from all over the world (and have published work from all over the country). We are currently a paperless magazine. Why? Because printing is expensive…and we really enjoy saving trees. Our paperless format also allows us to promote our publication online to a greater amount of people. Print it if you want to. Send the link to a friend. That’s kind of how we do things.

If you have given us your business card, you will be added to our email list and we will find you on Facebook and ask you to join our group. It’s a not-as-stalker-like-as-it-sounds way of saying we really want you on board for this- and we want you to tell all of your friends.

Genna is one of the four individuals that produces messy magazine from Cleveland, Ohio. The rest of the team includes Vanessa Aron, Lauren Kirk and Michael Stidham. During the day, she works for University Circle, Inc. promoting the Greater Circle Living Program to eligible employees in and around the Circle. Genna also serves on the Marketing and Development committee at SPACES gallery and is involved with the Great Lakes Urban Exchange. Her interests lie in true grassroots marketing and in promoting Cleveland as a great place to live, work and create. messy magazine was created specifically to encourage creativity, both artistically and in formulating ideas to move Cleveland forward.

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