Click here to read The Plastic Diaries editor Kimberly Nissen's take on online versus blog.
POPSUGAR Australia health and beauty editor Alison Larsen flies the flag for online journalists in the online versus blog debate:
Asking how I’m different from a blogger, or how POPSUGAR Australia is different from a blog, is a bit like asking how Zara is different from your favourite local boutique. They both provide a service – dressing the general public – but one is a global chain and the other is a standalone shop. Zara is a known and easily recognisable brand, and the local store survives mostly on word of mouth and loyal customers.
Definition
I am an online health and beauty editor, I am not a blogger. I love and respect blogs and bloggers (like The Plastic Diaries!), but that’s not my job. Just like the section editor of a magazine oversees all content being produced for a magazine, I oversee 20 stories a day. I edit two sites, manage a yearly editorial calendar and supervise a journalist who works (tirelessly) underneath me. We pitch those 20 stories to my publisher every morning at 9am, and then I’m responsible for making sure each and every one of those stories goes up in a timely manner and without any errors. I write some and edit others. On top of that, most days, I attend up to three events.
While our industry is definitely seeing an influx of magazine writers and editors jumping ship to start their own blogs, a majority of blogs both inside and outside this country are run by fashion, beauty and celebrity enthusiasts. At POPSUGAR Australia, each editor is not only a competent and experienced writer, but a Photoshop pro with an art director’s eye, a stylist’s taste, and is experienced across all aspects of the digital sphere. What we do is very unique.
Best PR Practice
I get a lot of (lovely) PRs asking me when something will run and, while I understand we all have someone answer to, it’s not always fair (or fun) to be on the receiving end of those emails multiple times a day. Saying things like: You said you’d feature xx product” is actually a lie. We never speak in absolutes online because things change every minute, and brands and agencies need to understand that breaking news will always come first for us. If we say we’ll consider it, we’ll consider it. If we say we’re not interested, we’re genuinely not interested. If we say it’s in the bank, it’s in the bank!
We’re also not interested in giving brands free run of a story. If you pay for advertorials or promotion pages in a magazine, why wouldn’t you pay on our websites? We are, after all, an online magazine. Our sales team will happily send you a media kit but otherwise, we decide how many times we say the brand’s name or what our angle will be. The worst PR practice is to pitch talent to us, and then send answers to our interview questions with multiple product recommendations. This is somewhere between and advertorial and integrated editorial, but definitely not editorial. In this case, we just won’t run it. Of course we’ll always link to your brand and feature a hero product, but interviews are not a platform for direct mentions.
Events
Because we’re reactive to news, it’s impossible to plan the entire day. We RSVP to media events because, just like print editors, we need to be across all new product launches so we can inform the 944,000 unique browsers who visit our websites each month. That said, if a celebrity dies/gets married/has a baby, we’ll have to pull out at the last minute. Which yes, does suck (I always feel terrible doing it), but I think you’ll find it become more and more common as magazines continue to close and more organisations move online. It’s all about creating sharable, curated content, and fast.
I love attending events and find them invaluable when it comes to learning about brand culture, ingredients and innovations, but the reality is, online editors don’t have the same luxury of time as print editors or bloggers. Everyone has deadlines; it’s just that ours are less than hourly not daily/weekly/monthly. And that’s not to produce content that will go to a sub or to be reworked by an editor, we have well under an hour to create publishable stories fit with captions, stockist details, correct prices, Australian-specific (high res) product images, snappy headlines, smart search headlines, witty Twitter intros…
So due to massive time constraints not lack of wanting to be there, I find the nature of beauty events very tricky. Ultimately, I couldn’t care less about the venue/food/entertainment/free stuff – I just want time to connect with the PR and the brand. Call me a martyr but I’m impressed by bespoke, exclusive content for POPSUGAR Australia, and that’s it.
For me, the most convenient time to attend an event is between 10-11 or 3-4. This allows me three hours at my desk to cover breaking news and set up some stories to schedule for when I’m out. Events after 5pm or 6pm pull at the heart strings because, like any normal human being, I’d prefer to be spending time with my loved ones than working a lot of overtime. The reality of starting at 7am does not mean I finish at 4pm, ever. That said, all beauty editors work a hell of a lot of overtime – not just online editors. It’s just the nature of what we do and I try to limit whingeing to just once a week.
Lastly, the brand and PR social media handles and the hash tag on the menu/wall/door is so helpful to us. Same goes for product deliveries. Sometimes I give up trying to put something on Instagram because it takes too long to find the right handle or hash tag.
Exclusives and images
In my experience, there’s a misconception about the quality of content reserved for online publications. We don’t want leftovers, we want exclusive content. And an exclusive is an exclusive. Whoever made up the term online exclusive” needs to be locked away forever. On top of our jazzy abilities as experienced online editors, we also have an in-house designer and an entire sales team to help us get ideas off the ground. Bloggers don’t have the resources that we do, so please don’t treat us the same and offer us the same content.
Images make or break online stories so we always use high res. That said, please don’t send your pitch with the images. A link to images is best but at the end of the day, if I want an image, I’ll probably just call or email you for it.
In Conclusion…
I could talk about the differences between websites and blogs forever, but my main point is POPSUGAR is a worldwide masthead giving print media a run for its money. We have worldwide editors, we have access to A-list stars and brands, and we require and deserve the respect that mirrors our almost one million-UB-a- month audience. I know I sound proud, but that’s because I am!
Click here to read The Plastic Diaries editor Kimberly Nissen's take on online versus blog.