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Michelle Kay Gives Be Scenesters the Low-down on Blogging

Michelle Kay, the Online News Editor for Yahoo and the new Webstories Editor for Shameless Magazine paid Be Scene’s editorial committee a visit this past Thursday. With piles of magazines in hand, and a nifty sheet of resources to check out, she led a fabulous workshop about blogging and online presence for independent magazines.

Many tips were given, and good chatting went on about current stories in process for the next issue (themed: rebellion and resistance) and how they may translate into content for the blog. One of the most useful things we took away with us was the importance of keeping up with social networking platforms. In other words, that tools like Facebook groups, blogs and Twitter can and should be used with diligent regularity in order to solidify a readership base. That befriending other youth organizations and publications can create a useful online community. And that Twitter specifically shouldn’t just be thought of as a tool for publicity, but also as a medium for us to absorb news that can inform the content we are discussing and posting. After all, our contacts are tweeting about issues that are local and personal, and that is the slant that makes the stories we publish unique.

Another important reminder Michelle gave us was about cross-referencing for maximum advertisement. This could mean lot’s of things. It could be producing web exclusive content that relates back to what we are preparing for our print editions, writing teasers for the next issue into our blog posts or advertising our blog, Facebook group and Twitter in the magazine. We are thinking we may create a section on the Be Scene blog (http://bescenemag.wordpress.com) with a list of places that people can pick up the magazine.

Michelle also went through some basic stuff, like how to embed code from youtube to put videos on the blog, and other general “how-to” kinds of things.

Here is a list of some Canadian magazine websites she recommended we check out for inspiration:

http://www.shamelessmag.com/

http://www.macleans.ca

http://www.walrusmagazine.com

http://taddlecreekmag.com

http://maisonnueve.org

http://canadianmags.blogspot.com


Thanks for reading!
-Sarah Feldbloom
Coordinator for Catch da Flava and Be Scene Magazines

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