Posted in Driving Website Traffic	May 30, 2008

A few magazines are building relationships and driving website traffic by letting their subscribers be a part of the editorial team

Several publishers dove in head-first lately, trying out new and innovative ways to create content for their users while building a trusting relationship. Recently, we’ve talked about The Future of Digital Magazines, but what some publishers are doing with their existing print properties is downright impressive.

If you’re a subscriber to Frommer’s Budget Travel, you’ll notice in your June issue, that all of the content is user-generated. That’s right, the content is contributed purely from the users, even including magazine-expensed trips for on-location articles.

The idea of soliciting stories and photographs from users isn’t completely original though. Some magazines were founded on this concept; such as Everywhere Magazine and JPG Magazine.

However, transforming a traditional magazine into an entirely user-generated circus of content deserves applause.

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When asked about the effort put into this sort of endeavor, the editor from Budget Travel Erik Torkells wrote in the FOLIO: blog:

"Let’s be perfectly clear: Making this issue was neither cheap nor easy. First, we paid our regular fees; second, we traveled more writers than we normally would (we tend to find people who live someplace); finally, we also paid for companions’ expenses (something we don’t do for professional writers). And without an extraordinary amount of deft editing—both in terms of generating ideas, sifting through submissions, working with non-professional writers and photographers, and actual text-editing—the issue would’ve been a mess.”

All of the extra work aside, don’t consider this endeavor to be a stressful regret by any means; Torkells reminded readers of the benefits to this project:

“The limitations also brought out our creativity. For 20 Tips, we normally have an illustrator illustrate a few of the tips; for this issue, we got readers’ kids to do the drawings. For the Budget Travel Upgrade, we tracked down our longest running subscriber—William Herndon of El Paso, Texas—and brought him to New York for a night at the opera. Instead of the standard service Q&A, we turned the tables: Readers answered our questions. Better yet, we took their advice (with photos to prove it).”

But Frommer’s isn’t alone here. Even more recently, Time Inc. jumped on the bandwagon and created the user-generated version of “This Old House” aka “My Old House”.

According to Folio:, “the magazine created a dedicated microsite for readers to upload materials and then called for submissions at the end of magazine stories, in e-mail blasts and at the end of the This Old House television show.”

Both magazine sites have seen a 30% increase in traffic over the past two months and that can’t just be a coincidence. Inviting your traditional media readers and viewers to get online and contribute content is possibly one of the easiest ways to drive traffic to your website.

Two hands together for these magazines that have shown a serious interest in what their users want, and have to say, for that matter.