As Editor and Chief, I sourced contributors and advertisers. I led the magazine's design along with the development of the color palette. I created social media and marketing campaigns for the magazine's launch.
Editorial Pieces:
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Profile and Interview Articles
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Contributing Writers
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Ghostwritten stories
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Advertisements
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Recipes
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Art Gallery
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Trivia Pieces
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Lifestyle Tips
APPROACH TO TOASTEE
The idea behind Toastee is to celebrate the extraordinary things of everyday people. Thus, the aim was the publication is to highlight individuals with smaller but growing followings to share their work and help them grow.
All contributors were found by leveraging my network and my Managing Editor's network along with referrals from our contributors.
DESIGN
As a play on words with toast, the initial promotional design focused on showcasing various types of toast. From there, emerged a bread and toast based color scheme for the magazine, using browns, beiges, and yellows.
The font was inspired by the likes of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Bon Appetit. This led to using Playfair Display as the title font. To ensure accessibility, we used a sans serif font such as Poppins and Roboto for easy readability.
When designing the magazine, the focus was on readability given that the content is text-heavy. Thus, layouts were designed to maximize text but to also provide visual interest by balancing the text with whitespace, photos, and graphic designs. It resulted in a visually pleasing design while support a lot of text.
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DIGITAL MARKETING
Led social media marketing for the magazine along with SEO optimization.
Developed social media strategy
Created all post content and copy
Leverage strategic timing and tagging to encourage sharing and increase viewership
Implemented SEO best practices improving rankings and searchability
INFLUENCER MARKETING FOCUS
The marketing strategy focused on leveraging the network of the editors and our contributors to grow Toastee's social media following and readership. Our contributors became our influencers.
In the lead up to the launch date, contributors were provided with promotional images (see right) and encouraged to use #toasteemag and tag the publication on their social networks.
Contributors were also provided with a pdf of the magazine and links to their stories. This encouraged them to share their stories after we launched. One contributor, in particular, increased our subscriber list by 30% in one day.
IMPACT OF 2 ISSUES
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35+ international contributors and advertisers
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2,000+ unique website visitors
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350+ magazine downloads
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Total social engagement rate of 13% (more than double the industry standard of 6% for a very high engagement rate)
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Raving, positive reviews from readers
REVIEWS OF TOASTEE
Special thanks to Elizabeth G. Harris for the candid interview. I cannot wait to see Toastee Mag soar new heights under your leadership. I'll raise a toast to your brilliance any day!
Jessica X.
This is AMAZING! Such great work and the site and the magazine /pdf etc are all looking amazing!! So excited to see all of this and even more excited to imagine where you and Toastee will be in the future. This is off to such a wonderful start!
Mayank B.
Voyage LA
Interesting interviews, content, and art. A breath of fresh air during lockdown, and a really enjoyable one at that!