Following the recent boom and bust of teen magazines like Teen People and Elle Girl, the survivors have less competition on newsstands. But they also face new rivals for readers who have come of age amid social networks and other digital diversions.
To that end, Hearst's Seventeen has relaunched its Web site with a massive social networking push aimed at pulling girls away from online networks like Facebook, instant messaging, games and the like.
"It's absolutely about having girls spend more time on Seventeen," said Ann Shoket, editor in chief of Seventeen.
Seventeen.com has incorporated Facebook's Open Graph sharing platform, Twitter and Meebo liberally throughout the site to encourage visitors to share content and instant message with their friends. A new quiz tool and videos round out the site's new offerings.
The redesign also is making a bigger play for gossip, with a new celebrity news channel that's powered by LMK (Let Me Know), Hearst's aggregation site. It's one of the first times LMK is powering a news channel on a Hearst magazine Web site.
Concerns about the teen magazine category's future notwithstanding, Seventeen is actually holding its own in print. The 2.1-million circ magazine is the biggest newsstand teen title, with nearly 400,000 copies sold. Sales held steady in the second half of 2009 while the other teen titles were down, per the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Paid subs grew 8.1 percent in the same period.
Shoket contended that the proliferation of Seventeen in other forms has helped buttress print circulation. She also pointed out that while girls are spending a lot of time online, the magazine still serves a distinct purpose. "They come to the magazine for deep ideas they wouldn't have thought of on their own," she said.
