I was wondering if anyone had any thought on advertising their sites in a print magazine like Cybersocket.
Or advertising in the annual Cybersocket directory?
I’ve been doing a classified in Cybersocket for the past few years because I liked my rep Donny. But he isn’t there now.
I’ve been seeing Cybersocket less and less, and when I do, sometimes the printing is off registration. I wish they’d offer a cool download like ADULT or Frontiers in Los Angeles.
My question for you is:
1.
Do you advertise in Cybersocket and do you see results?
Do you see Cybersocket when you go out? Are you able to pick it up?
I advertised in last years directory and I just finished a 3 month “text classified” ad run. In the ads I put in a special promo code. I never got one sale from it.
I will possibly consider trying again sometime next year.
When you look at Cybersocket, there’s nothing about the magazine that suggests a bear site is going to do well, with or without a promo code. The magazine is filled with jocks and muscle boys, so I wouldn’t expect a bear site to reap much from it.
Having said that, I’m not sure anything is really going to do terribly well in any magazine. There’s so much noise competing for attention and unfortunately magazines are really on the way out … sort of. Here are a couple of things about me, and although I don’t read Cybersocket at all, they may help. And just to clarify, I love magazines and I used to buy tons of them. I cry at the state of the magazine.
Toronto’s newspaper / magazine is called XTRA! I forget to pick it up most of the time and only usually manage to grab every other issue. They don’t have newspaper boxes anywhere near the three places I go all the time in the Village (The Second Cup, Superfresh, and Loblaws), and although they have a box only a few hundred from any of these three places, I just never seem to pass by them. So distribution and availability is key. When I do manage to pick one up there’s usually so little in it that it takes about five minutes to read, which only adds to my forgetfulness about picking up the current issue.
I subscribe to Attitude on my tablet and love it. Attitude is a UK mag (they don’t advertise porn anymore) and it’s truly one of the best mags in the world. But at $12 a copy for print issues, it’s pretty expensive. When they did advertise porn sites, I used to check out ones I saw in ads all the time. But I’m motivated, I work in the biz.
My desk is littered with paper (flyers, postcards, business cards) that I’ve picked up here and there because something looked interesting and I wanted to look it up online. But I never did, it always fell out of my head, just like seeing something in Cybersocket or any mag, would fall out of my head unless I was sitting right beside a computer.
I strongly suggest that you go to Pocket Mags and search for gay at the top. PM offers surfers digital subscriptions to magazines and your ad might be better placed in one of these. When you search for gay you’ll get all the big mags come up, and they’re probably out of your advertising budget, but if you click each one, PM will recommends others on the sidebar and you’ll find smaller mags here, some of those may have better advertising pricing.
Finally, I haven’t seen a Cybersocket mag in ages, but did look at the Cybersocket Awards site and it left me scratching my head. If you look at the new pornstar category, some of those guys have been around for a year or more. If you look at the biz awards and particularly the Business Person of the Year award, one of the nominees hasn’t been in the business for a year now and six of them I’ve never heard of. And there were some other head scratchers there, too, so one does wonder if this lack of relevance translates to the magazine, which could be why you’re having a hard time seeing it around.
Sorry for the long-winded reply, I felt like writing this morning.
Michael,
Thanks for the great advice and for sharing your thoughts.
I used to love Cybersocket and it used to be everywhere here in West Hollywood.
I wished they’d have worked harder on their online presence. It looks like Dominic Ford has swept in and modernized the whole idea with his excellent ADULT Magazine. I should find out about advertising in ADULT instead.