Things at Mindless Mag are changing.
Six months since we went live with a magazine that zoomed into the mindlessness of life.
Today we’re a storytelling platform for conscious fashion with growing international readership – we’ve hit the press, we’re now partnering up with a local university and today we launch our Social Media Takeover.
The Fail Fast Attitude of a Start-Up Business
One of the most exciting things starting up a business is watching it grow and evolve into something more tangible than the vision you started with. And it all comes from thinking big but acting small, paying attention to the details and adapting quickly.
Within a month of going live, we went from having six lifestyle themes to focusing on just one – fashion. It made sense. That was the one topic that 9/10 articles submitted were about and the one we loved and cared about the most.
Next we played around with our social media presence learning what worked and what didn’t. Interesting and motivational quotes are everybody’s favourite averaging at 300 likes per post.
We hosted events in Liverpool to bring the conversation offline and get direct feedback from participants. We noticed that over 50% of attendees at those events were Fashion or Fashion Communication students from a local university.
They were looking to learn about storytelling and SEO in the world of conscious fashion and the fact they were getting their work published on our site gave them online recognition for their proactive participation – career credits and social kudos.
And alongside the workshops, I networked. I met with the founders of The Fabric District, business owners, schools and universities, press and PR, artists and brands. I attended seminars, business round-tables and all sorts of events.
It was all coming together organically, and before long a Consciously Curated strategy had developed.
Necessity is the Mother Of All Invention
It’s only through my own direct experience that I’ve come to truly appreciate just how much time and resource companies have to invest into social media and online content if they want their business or brand to be heard of.
And at Mindless Mag, we were just about surviving; our online presence was growing, but nowhere near fast enough.
So I reached out to one of our regular local contributors, a Fashion Communications Student called Shona and we met for coffee. I asked for her thoughts on the idea of a Takeover – and she loved it.
We talked through how it would work, how we’d measure it and what value would be exchanged. Then she put me in touch with a few of her friends and fellow students who would be interested in getting involved in July.
So today, in line with our Vintage Fashion theme and pre-launch of Finders Keepers, we’re launching Mindless Mag’s Social Media Takeovers; month-long micro-internships that offer students the chance to lead and manage a social media platform for a growing start-up business.
Unlike most internships in the Fashion industry – and others for that matter, our internships are not about long-term, socially acceptable forms of slavery where students are made to work exceedingly long hours for no pay, doing the jobs that nobody else wants to do, just to have a brand name on their CV.
Our internships are built and designed for a mutual exchange of value.
Mindless Mag’s Social Media Takeovers
For an entire 30 days (give or take), students are given the opportunity to lead and manage one of our social media platforms and aside from a few simple Dos and Don’ts, the have full responsibility for what they do.
The Social Media Takeovers are measured using four basic metrics:
- FOLLOWERS
- LIKES
- CONTRIBUTIONS
- SUBSCRIBERS
Students can invest as little or as much time as they want into the project. An entrepreneurial spirit and a fail fast attitude is encouraged, but there is zero pressure from us in terms of commitment or performance.
Our Social Media Takeovers are about developing future talent for the fashion industry while growing our own online presence.
For them it’s an exciting opportunity to work as a Social Media Manager / Content Creator for a growing online publication while adding tangible business achievements to their CV before leaving university.
For us we get a constant stream of fresh ideas and an ever-evolving, highly-motivated team. We’re guaranteed to see an uptake in all of those metrics and we’ll learn from them as much as they’ll learn from us.
Hashtag everyone’s a winner.