Posts Tagged ‘readers’
Official PlayStation Magazine – Australia readership rises 9.2% to 154,000
The Official PlayStation Magazine – Australia has experienced a 9.2% increase in readership from the July 10 – June 11 period, and is now read by 154,000 readers every month, according to Roy Morgan. This is the magazine’s highest readership since September 2006.
Citrus Media’s publishing director, Jim Flynn, said, “It’s a very strong result and reflects the magazine’s continuing role as an essential read for any PlayStation console owner. The team’s success at securing some amazing exclusive covers and the inherent strength of the PlayStation brand give us great confidence for the future as well.”
The magazine’s editor Luke Reilly was equally enthusiastic, saying, “The team is incredibly excited about yet another readership increase. The combination of a great looking magazine with some of the best gaming writers in the country, is clearly resonating with local readers and we couldn’t be happier. The team will be honing the magazine even further in the coming months to ensure it remains a crucial part of any PlayStation gamer’s diet – everything you need to know distilled into one regular, entertaining and informative package.”
This positive news comes in the same week that Game Informer – Official PlayStation Magazine – Australia’s stablemate in the Citrus Media portfolio – saw a 72% year-on-year sales increase in the same period.
Official PlayStation Magazine – Australia’s award-winning team, plus its veteran squad of long-time contributors, is dedicated to providing the best independent PlayStation coverage in the country every month.
Customers can pick up an issue for $14.95 from selected supermarkets, EB Games stores and all good newsagents. Every issue comes complete with a cover disc featuring 90 minutes of essential game videos and locally produced content. Subscriptions can be made through Magshop. To keep up-to-date with all the latest news you can find Official “PlayStation Magazine – Australia” on Facebook.
Game Informer is now Australia’s best-selling technology magazine
Game Informer is now Australia’s best-selling video game and technology magazine. The January-June 2011 ABC audit revealed the magazine is selling an average of 41,324 copies per month, an increase of 72% year-on-year and growth of 42% over the previous six months.
Citrus Media publishing director Jim Flynn is excited by the title’s growth saying, “When we launched the magazine we told our partners and advertisers we were going to hit 40,000 sales within a couple of years. Here we are on issue 20 and I’m ecstatic that we’ve achieved that. Our readers are predominantly 18-35 year old, tech savvy males who are embracing a print magazine. It’s an amazing success story and the plans moving forward are even more ambitious and exciting.”
The magazine’s editor Chris Stead sees the result as a big win for the print medium: “I strongly believe that good, consistent content is enough to not only make print succeed, but thrive in today’s market. It is absolutely possible to deliver an experience to a magazine consumer that they can’t get anywhere else and to surprise them with new and interesting product and analysis from all corners of the gaming world. It’s my goal to continue to amaze our readers with each and every issue and today’s results give me great confidence that Australian and New Zealand gamers are responding. With arguably the biggest Christmas in the video game industry’s history nearing, it’s a great time to be a gamer and a Game Informer reader.”
Game Informer issue 21 goes on sale on August 17, featuring yet another world exclusive game unveiling – Borderlands 2 – plus the best of the rest of the world’s video game news.
Customers can pick up an issue of Game Informer for only $4.95 from all good newsagents, EB Games stores and selected Coles supermarkets. Subscriptions can be made at EB Games stores or online at Magshop. Subscriptions made through EB Games stores come with a free Edge Plus card which offers added value when shopping at EB Games. Early glimpses of upcoming world exclusive covers are available by liking the Facebook group “Game Informer AU”.
Game Time: How to Incorporate Play into Custom Content Marketing
A less obvious and familiar strategy was addressed at the Custom Media Day in New York this week and has now been added to the Content Marketing World conference for this year. It is called gamification and can be defined as the use of game play mechanics (also known as ‘funware’) for non-game applications. Its aim is to encourage users to engage in desired behaviours.
Bunchball, a gamification platform, has identified that there are 120 million people enrolled in travel rewards programs (an example of gamification) and over 200 million people play online games that are reward based.
One example of a gamification component that is less obvious is the progression bar on LinkedIn. This social networking platform encourages its users to go through various stages to achieve 100% profile completeness. The natural desire to achieve 100% pushes users to go through each step, including suggesting friends to the network.
Foursquare is another excellent example of gamification – it awards badges for various milestones and has become an incredibly popular network.
Gamification is an excellent way to encourage users to sign up, suggest friends, engage in social media and share information. It taps into a very basic human desire and incorporates entertainment and fun into content.
Using Google+ for Custom Content Marketing
We’re sure you’ve noticed a few friends on Facebook and twitter ironically declaring their love for the new social network Google+. You may even be on the bandwagon yourself, after receiving an invitation from a friend or elsewhere.
This new social network is still very much undiscovered terrain but companies like Ford and Mashable have jumped on board early and made use of the network. Although Google+ is currently discouraging the use of personal profiles as company pages, they have announced that brand pages will be coming soon.
The impact of this new network is very much yet to be seen and it remains unknown whether it is worth investing time and effort into it for custom content marketing. If, however, it turns out that Google+ has the impact it believes it will, there will be one particular advantage to it in terms of customer content – collaboration.
As far as team collaboration and integration goes, Google+ offers some amazing and free ways for content marketers to collaborate, including:
Google+ Circles - Capture updates and information of a group of collaborators of any size and in any location
Google+ Huddles – Real time chat rooms
Google+ Hangouts – Meet as a group
Google+ Sparks – Keeps you in the know on topics and allows you to share information with team
Google+ Plugin – Plugs into your browser, giving real-time visibility to team communication
Google Search Home Page – Navigation menu with one-click access to almost all the other products on google
Like any new venture, only time will tell just how useful Google+ is, but its invention alone proves how important custom content really is.
