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Flipboard Magazines Get More Business-Friendly

Two years ago, Flipboard launched its now-fundamental Magazines feature, which turns all users into content curators. Now, the company is launching a highly-requested feature with private group magazi...
Flipboard Magazines Get More Business-Friendly
Written by Chris Crum
  • Two years ago, Flipboard launched its now-fundamental Magazines feature, which turns all users into content curators. Now, the company is launching a highly-requested feature with private group magazines, which it says are ideal for classrooms, clubs, work groups, friends, and families.

    “With millions of Flipboard Magazines already being curated publicly by Flipboard users, this new private capability opens up new use cases,” the company says. “Now, Flipboard Magazines give a private place for family and friends to collect stories for each other, teams to document events, colleagues to research together or clubs to share ideas.”

    “This launch allows people to use Flipboard in new ways, giving groups a way to use our platform to stay connected and follow interests together—in the privacy of their own Flipboard Magazine,” adds product manager Christen Duong. “We’ve been testing this as a team at Flipboard and it’s been a great way to share stories relevant to our business.”

    The feature is available on Flipboards apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, as well as the recently launched desktop version at Flipboard.com.

    To create a private group magazine, tap the “+” at the bottom of any story while you’re browsing Flipboard, and start a new magazine.

    When you’re adding a title and description, you’ll have the option to select “private”.

    Then go to your magazine and click the “+” to invite contributors.

    You’ll also see a new “Invite Contributor” button for existing magazines when you look at their covers.

    Flipboard has seen over 15 million public magazines created since launching the feature two years ago. The company revealed the leading magazines in a few categories.

    The one with the most likes is Cute:

    The one with the most re-flips is Fit in 2015:

    The one with the most comments is Think Tanking:

    And the one with the most followers is How To Style:

    Flipboard also says some of the most flipped-through magazines have names like Ghost Towns Around the World, Luxury Cars, Man of Many, Mobile Photograph Daily, Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown, Recipes: The Art of Eating Asian Food, and Tangents. This illustrates that popularity can come from some pretty niche topics.

    Last week, we posted the results from our Q&A with Flipboard editorial director Josh Quittner, who told us, “We see that readers appreciate focus. General topics such as ‘technology,’ ‘food’ or ‘design’ are great if you’re curating a collection for your own reference, but if you want to build an audience, general topics don’t give readers much to get excited about. Get specific, like instead of ‘gadgets’ go for ‘gadgets for kids’ or instead of ‘recipes’ choose ‘slow-cooker recipes.’”

    “Once you’ve picked a topic, start thinking about your perspective on it,” he added. “A magazine with a point of view and a tone of voice resonates well with readers. We see magazines about the same topic but with different points of view all the time. Your take on happiness, healthcare or fast cars will be different than anyone else’s.”

    Flipboard offers some traffic opportunities to publishers. More on how to take advantage of those here. With the new private group feature, perhaps B2B publications will be able to attract more eyeballs through the service.

    Images via Flipboard

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