There are certain names that everyone trusts. For example, when it comes to news, The New York Times is a well-known newspaper and website. When it comes to online shopping, people often turn to Amazon. And when it comes to fashion, In Style magazine is a well-known print and online publication.
You may think that a print publication which goes online doesn’t have to focus too much on brand content. After all, don’t they just need to use the information that they’re providing in their magazine in an online format?
This is not true. The In Style magazine and the In Style website are two different entities. Sure, there’s a certain amount of overlap. But there are many interesting pieces of content on the website which you won’t find in the magazine. Here are some of the things you can learn from the In Style online experience:
Updating Often
When you publish a magazine on a monthly or even a weekly basis, you can cover all the fashion moments from the month or week before. But when you have a website, you have the option of covering fashion everyday. And In Style’s editors take advantage of this fact by posting five new outfits worn by celebs everyday.
They may not all be amazing outfits. Some of them are just shorts and t-shirts. And some are downright odd-looking outfits that most of us wouldn’t be caught dead in. But there’s a great advantage in posting something new everyday because this brings people to your website everyday, knowing that there’s going to be something new and interesting there.
This is really one of the basics of brand content—updating everyday or as often as possible, depending on your subject matter. And providing people with photos to look at is also a great idea because many of them don’t have that much time to read. But women always like to be up-to-date when it comes to fashion. So it’s fun to check out the website everyday and see what the celebs are up to.
Videos
This is another item that you can’t have in a print magazine. Sure, you can have beautiful fashion spreads, articles and interviews. But you can’t actually see the celeb speaking.
So one interesting thing that In Style’s website does is that it takes the celeb who is being featured in that month’s magazine and does an interview with them. Also, they do a little video with the celeb’s photo shoot which gives people a behind-the-scenes look in what goes on at a professional photo shoot.
People are naturally curious about celebs. Some of this curiosity might be satisfied by reading an interview. But watching a video has a feeling of immediacy which the written word simply doesn’t have.
This is something you can learn from In Style magazine’s online presence. Think about where you could add videos to your website and on what topic. But remember that all the content you add should be representative of your brand.
Retrospectives
Another interesting feature of this website is when they take old photos of celebrities and show their changing looks over the years. A lot of people are interested in seeing what Tom Cruise might have looked like when he was young as opposed to how he looks now. You get to see old fashions and contrast them with recent ones. You can check out Sara Jessica Parker’s perm from the 80s and contrast it with her look in Sex and the City.
This is yet another thing you can think about adding to your website. If you’ve been selling your product for some time, show people how it has developed over the years. A retrospective of your company and how it started can also make for interesting reading and get people to trust you more.
It’s not so much that In Style’s website does anything extremely unusual or innovative. All their ideas are variations on the same theme. But they do many little things which catch people’s attention, thus building up their brand for the long run. Plus, everything is done tastefully, in an organized way. The website is neither too busy nor completely empty. And it’s updated everyday, thus providing something fresh for people to take in.
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