Case Studies

One of the most commonly available brands of social-media snake oil now available is the kind that will help you grow your Twitter following to Greg Odom-like proportions. It’s a rare day that my inbox isn’t violated by some multi-step program that will have thousands of folks hanging on your every 140-character burst overnight. Usually the bulk of the advice is either platitudinous–Be authentic, Engage your community, Provide value–or so highly technical in nature as to miss the point of Twitter, which is simplicity. If you want a platform to game, try Google. At least, the search engine’s algorithm is complex enough to warrant some thinking about how to beat it.

Not so for Twitter. Sure, you might be best off posting at certain times of day and there might be convincing, data-driven grammatical guidance on how to earn those precious re-tweets that will give your Tweets a better chance to go viral. But that’s not what really matters.

I can say that with dead certainty because we have a site whose following has exploded over the past four months–and not from two to eight or 100 to 400 or even 5,000 to 20,000. Since January, Fashionista.com— whose Twitter handle is @fashionista_com— has gone from about 23,000 followers in January to more than 124,000 today. And it did so without relying on any gimmicks, research, or profound social-media advice unless of course you count mine. Which you probably shouldn’t.

Fashionista.com Twitter ChartThe site’s editors, Lauren Sherman and Britt Aboutaleb (who is unfortunately leaving us), have built (unofficially) the third-largest Twitter feed of any fashion news brand, trailing only Women’s Wear Daily and Elle.com, both of which have staffs that dwarf our  operation. They’ve done it by taking the sensibility that informs their blog and applying it to their Twitter feed. A radical approach, huh? Though it’s best you check out the site for yourself, I’ll try to capture their approach here: Fashionista is smart and high-curated, enthusiastic without being frothy, critical without being catty. And, importantly, I can say it’s personal without being totally subjective because it pulls in hundreds of thousands of readers every month, some of them fashion’s leading lights. And some of those, Elle Creative Director Joe Zee, fashion PR maven Kelly Cutrone and Glamour Editor Cindy Leive, have even thrown us a few retweets.

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I’m a fashion person. So I don’t read Glamour Magazine for style inspiration. For that, I read Paris Vogue and Purple and V. But you know what? None of that matters, because a significant number of smart, capable women do read Glamour. And they’ve made it the most popular–and arguably the most influential–women’s magazine in the US. A big part of that influence stems from the fact that, unlike a lot of style books, Glamour has adapted with the times. Rather than sit back and let their lunch get eaten by smart blogs like ours, Glamour is taking the web seriously.

No doubt some industry insiders were shocked when the 71-year-old publication won Magazine of the Year at last week’s National Magazine Awards.  The magazine was the only glossy nominated for the new award, which according to the American Society of Magazine Editors website “honors publications that successfully use both print and digital media in fulfilling the editorial mission.” And it represented a victory for hair removal and sundresses over the far weightier issues covered in the likes of  The Atlantic, Fast Company, Men’s Health and New York. (Well, maybe count Men’s Health out of the weighty class.)

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