Teen Vogue: Industry and social media blog tasks

Teen Vogue: background

Teen Vogue was launched in 2003 as a print magazine ‘little sister’ title to US Vogue. It focused on fashion and celebrity and was a conventional magazine aimed at teenage girls.

In 2015, in response to declining sales, the magazine cut back its print distribution and focused on digital content. After single-copy sales dropped 50% in the first six months of 2016 alone, the magazine went quarterly (four issues a year) before announcing the closure of the print magazine completely in November 2017.

Online growth

Led by digital director Phillip Picardi, the Teen Vogue website grew substantially as the print magazine declined.

Between January 2016 and 2017, Teen Vogue’s online traffic rocketed from 2.9m US visitors to 7.9m. The magazine then surpassed 10m unique users later in 2017. In addition, the magazine has 6m Facebook likes, 3.5m Twitter followers and a huge following on Snapchat.

Evolution and activism

The spectacular digital growth of Teen Vogue has been credited to the editor Elaine Welteroth and digital guru Picardi leading the magazine in a radically different direction to traditional teenage magazines.

Focusing on politics, activism and feminism, the magazine has developed a reputation for high-quality journalism while recruiting millions of socially-conscious, educated readers.

'Woke'

Teen Vogue considers itself a ‘woke’ brand.

Woke definition: a political term of African American origin that refers to an awareness of issues concerning social justice.

This means Teen Vogue covers issues of politics, racism and gender identity… and amazingly has expanded the appeal and reach of the brand while doing do.

Teen Vogue: Industry and social media blog task

Industry: Condé Nast

1) Research Teen Vogue publisher Condé Nast. What other magazines do they publish and how much money did they make last year?

Other magazines that have been published by Conde Nast include; GQ, Vogue, Glamour, Vanity Fair and Wired.

Parent Organisation: Advance Publications - 2.4bn revenue 2016

2) What are Teen Vogue’s main sources of income?

Main sources of income are through advertising, sponsored content and YouTube channel revenue.

3) How are traditionally print-based products like Teen Vogue diversifying to create new income streams?

One way which Teen Vogue can diversify to create new income streams is by making social media accounts such as YouTube. Their YouTube account reaches over 1million+ views and has 1.1 million subscribers. Compared to its other sources of income this may not be as significant however it does generate revenue with very minimal cost to produce a video.

4) Why is sponsored content and ‘advertorial’ particularly important in media linked to the fashion industry?

In the past magazines used to be paid by advertisers but now that has decreased and many print magazines have closed down. By diversifying the business can stay within the market and find other ways to generate profit.

5) Do you view Teen Vogue’s content as a form of public service media or is Condé Nast simply interested in clicks and profit?

I think it is both as Conde Nast is a company which focuses primarily on making a profit however it has been able to do both with Teen Vogue by providing a form of public service media to the audience with its reliable and trustworthy articles.

Closure of print edition research

Read the following short articles to learn the background to Condé Nast's decision to close the print edition of Teen Vogue in 2016 and then answer the questions below:

BBC: Teen Vogue: How will going online-only affect readers?

New York Times: Condé Nast Ends Teen Vogue’s Print Run

Folio: Your Teen Vogue Hot Takes Are All Wrong

1) Why does the BBC suggest “Teen Vogue’s digital game is strong”?

Teen Vogue has a "Highly-successful website. Six million Facebook likes. A huge following on Snapchat. Three and a half million Twitter followers."

2) What does the BBC suggest is responsible for the Teen Vogue website’s success?

Their headlines are relatable to the audience and the fact that their headlines and articles are written in first person helps this. It helps interest the readers into clicking onto the article.

3) How did Teen Vogue justify the closure of the print magazine?

"Audiences continue to evolve around content consumption". This means that audiences are using social media and the internet as their news source. They don't want to pay for print magazines and news as it is now all available on the internet for free at any time.

4) In the BBC article, David Hepworth suggests there is a risk to going digital-only. What is it?

"There are very few cases of magazines going digital-only and managing to retain the lustre on their brand. Once you let paper go you're just another website. You're just more space junk floating around out there."

5) How do online-only publications make money?

Advertisement on their websites.

6) What does Sarah Penny suggest regarding audience consumption for print and digital – and how might it be changing for Generation-Z?

Sarah Penny suggests that audiences would rather consume information through digital content rather than print as the generation already have a strong grasp of the digital presence as they grew up with it.

7) What does the New York Times say Conde Nast is known for?

Lavish spending and visually rich glossy magazines.

8) The New York Times states that Conde Nast expects to bring in less revenue in 2017 than 2016… by how much?

$100 million less.

9) The Folio article also looks at the switch from print to digital. Pick out a statistic that justifies the digital-only approach.

"Since Phillip Picardi was installed as digital editorial director in 2015 and Elaine Welteroth as the brand’s editor the following May, traffic to TeenVogue.com has surged from around 2 million monthly visitors to nearly 9 million."

10) Finally, Folio also highlights some of the aspects we have studied elsewhere. Pick out two quotes from the article that link to our work on the Teen Vogue audience, representation or design.

"And [adding politics] was largely the answer"

"In other words, Teen Vogue’s ascent from lip gloss authority to bastion of left-leaning social criticism was almost entirely unrelated to its print magazine."

Social media analysis

1) Look at the Teen Vogue Twitter feed (you don’t need to sign up to twitter to see it but may need to log-in at home). How many followers does Teen Vogue have?

3.36 million Followers

2) Now look at the content. Classify the first 20 tweets you can see using the sections on the Teen Vogue website: News & Politics, Fashion, Entertainment, Beauty, Lifestyle, Wellness and Homecoming. What does the Twitter feed focus on most? Does this differ to the website?

Teen Vogue's twitter posts are predominately focused on gossip on celebrities and lifestyle for example "Dua Lipa’s Thigh-High UGG Boots Are the Most Intense Shoes Ever"

3) How are the tweets and headlines written? Can you find examples of clickbait?

The tweets have an explanation of what the article is about followed by a picture. An example of clickbait may be a tweet about 'making money on your old iPhone thanks to Apple'

4) How does the Twitter feed use videos and images?

Tweets are written with very minimal text and are complimented with an image.

5) Analyse the Teen Vogue Facebook page. How many ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ do they have?

5.9 Million Likes.

6) Click on the Videos link on the left-hand menu. What type of content do the videos feature? Does this differ to the website or Twitter feed?

The twitter videos feature content such as celebrity news, politics and news. In a way it is similar to its Twitter feed due to the different topics that it covers.

7) Now look at the Events tab to explore past events. What are these events and what do they tell us about how audiences interact with the Teen Vogue brand?

Teen Vogue summits and meet ups. This shows how Teen Vogue attempt to interact and encourage more of its audience to take part in activities where they can meet likeminded people.

8) Go to the Teen Vogue Instagram page. How many followers do they have on Instagram?

2.4 Million Followers.

9) How does the Instagram feed differ from other social media channels?

Their Instagram account features a lot of celebrity endorsement alongside the promotion of fashion. Each post is typically followed by a hashtag which audiences can uses to interact and join in on the conversation, an example of this is #TeenVogueSummit which is used to promote their current events.

10) What examples of digital convergence and synergy can you find on Teen Vogue social media including the Teen Vogue YouTube channel? (E.g. opportunities to engage with the brand across different platforms).

By using social media Teen Vogue are able to reach a wider audience through the use of their YouTube channel. Their channel engages with film and TV celebrities and usually has a hashtag on each video which their audience can use to interact with on different social media platforms (Twitter). By doing this Teen Vogue are able to link all their social media platforms together to attract the largest audience as possible.