Social Media Research on National Geographic Magazine

     For this week’s publications research work, I would like to exert my attention on social media strategy of one specific magazine—National Geographic, my favorite US magazine, which is crowned as a natural encyclopedia.

1. Introduction

    The National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations. Founded in 1888 to “increase and diffuse geographic knowledge,” this Society’s mission is to inspire people to care about the planet. The Society has encouraged conservation of natural resources and raised public awareness of the importance of natural places, the plants and wildlife that inhabit them, and the environmental problems that threaten them. National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded. There are 12 monthly issues of the National Geographic per year, plus additional map supplements. National Geographic’s explorers, writer and photographers have traveled the Earth, sharing its amazing stories with each new generation.

2. Social Media Efforts

    National Geographic is one of the most beloved brands of all time. With all of their TV shows, beautiful magazine spreads, meaningful live events and online information, National Geographic has attracted loyal fans all over the world. So it is of great significance to check out how National Geographic is optimizing social media. Actually, National Geographic used various social media platforms and means to build up its brand, so I would like to conclude its social media strategies and means as following categories:

Social Network Sites

•      Official website with 12M+ unique visitors

•      Local language websites (China, UK, Italy, Spain, etc.)

•      Facebook pages across 15 categories with more than 11M fans.

•      Twitter accounts with more than 2m followers.

•      YouTube page with more than 80m video views and more than 80k subscribers.

Magazines and Books

•      4 consumer magazines

•      58M+ readers worldwide

•      31 local language editions

•      Sold more than 2.500 subscriptions to National Geographic Magazine one day.

•      Widespread bookstore presence and multi-language publishing

•      100+ books published annually

Television and Film

•      Award-winning 2D, 3D, 4D films in theaters, IMAX, DVD and VOD

•      All Roads Film Festival

•      NatGeo Channel, NatGeo Wild (domestic and international channels)

•      NG Television partnerships with major outlets (PBS, TNT, HBO)

Mobile

•      Apps

•      Console, PC, mobile and online games

•      Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft partnerships

Music and Radio

•      NG Record label, publishing catalog and library

•      Nat Geo Music Channel

•      Music site with +25k songs, +1,500 artists

Live Events

•      54 unique trips to 39 countries with NGS experts

•      NG Live! speaker series

•      BioBlitz and photo camps

•      Traveling exhibits

•      Classroom lesson plans and curriculum

    It is through these social media approaches, National Geographic not only builds up its brand personality but also attracts numerous of fans worldwide.

3. Successful Social Network Platforms

    Among all the social media platforms National Geographic has built, some of them are really successful: they are frequently used by National Geographic’s audiences and generate a lot of dialogues and interactions. I would like to analyze three social media platforms among them.

Facebook

    I was immediately impressed by National Geographic’s robust Facebook Fan Page, touting an impressive 11m fans. National Geographic wisely updates the page’s status and provides a lot of engaging content in the Facebook tabs, met by lots of interaction by their fans. Thousands of fans have “Liked” content or commented positively. Taking a closer look, it appears that National Geographic isn’t just sharing this content directly from its magazine and website, but actively promoting fan activity and interaction. National Geographic also use the Facebook to inform fans the events recently and call on audience’s participation.

YouTube

National Geographic has loaded their YouTube page with lots of great content，but most importantly they have organized the content by category so users can easily choose which playlists they’d like to subscribe to. This helps users find content according to their interest and has resulted in rankings on some of YouTube’s “Most Popular” lists. By such efficient organization and strategy, National Geographic successfully attracted 805,109 subscribers and 809,633,611 video views on YouTube.

Apps

    Also, National Geographic tried to connect the magazine to user’s mobile phones and it did a great job. National Geographic provides some apps for iPhone and iPad users. For instance, “National Geographic Today” app enables users to get daily updates on National Geographic news, videos, and awe-inspiring photography. “National Parks by National Geographic” is an app that help users to plan a trip to a national park, discovering park secrets and view beautiful park photos. The good thing is that all these apps are free in app store! National Geographic also offers iBooks for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch as well as magazines and Books on Kindle and Kindle Fire.

4. Reflection

    Overall, National Geographic has established a really sound social media presence. Many of their social media platforms post content that is exclusive and tailored for social media. Also, the contents and strategies National Geographic conducted are different according to the peculiar properties of different social media platforms. National Geographic has successfully defined their own voice and brand through these social media platforms. Having these efforts co-promote each other allows them to receive greater traffic and new interactions.