Facebook on paper
LikeMag has achieved what all publishers struggle with: making money from Facebook. The first “best-of-social-media” print magazine (yes, you read that right—print) publishes everything from naked horseback riders to beautiful landscape photos to wacky recipes. The main thing is that it’s user-generated content.
How does it work? Anyone can log in to the website www.likemag.com with their own Facebook account and start posting, commenting and liking articles of all kinds straight away. Instead of an editorial team, readers in the digital world decide according to their own taste - the users as editors, so to speak. The best posts are picked out, published in the print version and rewarded with cool prizes.
The magazine already has over 16,000 likes on its Facebook fan page. Since November, the first Like Mag newspaper boxes have been installed at various locations in the city of Zurich alongside 20 Minuten and Blick am Abend. This makes Facebook even more mainstream. It is also becoming accessible and visible to non-Facebook users.
But why should we turn to a magazine like LikeMag instead of another free newspaper after work? LikeMag has a completely different look and feel, like a best-of social media magazine. The cover is adorned by a user in the form of a so-called "selfie", a self-portrait, which in most cases is taken in front of a mirror and of course with a smartphone. Anyone who wants to be on the cover can simply upload their self-portrait to the website and, with a bit of luck and good looks, will be chosen as the next cover girl. The table of contents is in Google style with a blue-green font. The "Plapperazzi" section in Twitter form. The main section is strongly reminiscent of a Facebook timeline. The content of the magazine is divided into various sections such as FTW, WTF, FML, Lookbook etc. (if you don't know the terms, google them). A speech bubble conversation in the iPhone message look - what else? - rounds off the digital experience. The whole magazine is a firework display of digital posts from our youth and a cross-section of social media trash. The magazine is published around ten times a year. Before each magazine is published, a "LikeMag Release Gala" is held in Zurich's Club Plaza. The perfect combination of real and digital.
Despite the different sections, readers quickly lose track of things. The posts are too similar, and the Facebook design in the main section is rather cumbersome. The topics are a jumbled mishmash. Perhaps too much of a good thing for some people? Nevertheless, I find the magazine exciting because it combines social media, print and party and thus links the digital world with the real world. LikeMag is a news magazine in digital form. Like many things on the social web, this is a matter of taste, but the attempt to come up with new models and break new ground must be honored. I Like.
Manuel P. Nappo, Director of Studies CAS Social Media Management HWZ Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich. www.fh-hwz.ch/smm
