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Whether you are reading this editorial in our print magazine or online, thank you for reading. We strive to make our content available in as many easy-to-use formats as possible.
For years now, I have been asked how online media and advertising will negatively affect publishing. In my opinion, there is no negative effect. Magazines have been hosting websites and posting both content and advertising there for well over a decade.
But the web connection for the Business-to-Business publishing world has gone well beyond just websites and e-newsletters. Our content is now leveraged over all forms of social media. Using H&P as an example, our editors, Alan Hitchcox and Mary Gannon, and I use our blogs as a means for communicating with our audience. Mary and I also use Twitter and Linked- In to communicate with dedicated user groups.
In every case, we can use, refer to, and link to the same great fl uid power content that is found in our monthly magazine and Fluid Power Handbook & Directory. Along these lines, our 2012-2013 edition of the Handbook & Directory is available for the fi rst time ever as a digital edition that will be e-mailed to our digital readers and accessed from our website as well.
Social media offers us — and anyone else — the opportunity to use and reuse the ideas and solutions found in our magazine by simply forwarding links to our website, digital issues, or e-newsletters. In the past, legal advice suggested that a reader needed formal permission to reuse or pass along our content to an audience of any number. Today, you can use Twitter to refer hundreds — maybe thousands — of readers instantly.
If you follow any of our blogs, you will see links to existing content that has appeared in the magazine and content that was never printed but is relevant to our audience. We also lead potential users of our content to specifi c articles and product reviews through Twitter and Facebook. This, in turn, allows our readers to refer their contacts to the content.
Considering the power of social media, leveraging any magazine’s content over the various outlets simply increases that magazine’s reach. Studies have shown that the use of social media continues to grow. In fact, it has grown well beyond personal usage only, and now a great deal of important and useful information is sent to specific audiences via social media.
These are exciting times for the communication business, and that includes us here at Hydraulics & Pneumatics. I hope you will see us on Facebook, Twitter, Linked- In, our blogs and our forums. We hope to also follow you, because your input and knowledge are very important to us.