The Challenge
Dance Magazine is a beloved and storied print magazine. Over the decades, Dance Magazine has established itself as an icon in the dance industry, read by dancers of every age at every stage of their career.
Fred Seegal, Dance Magazine's owner, knew that there was a tremendous opportunity to take the company forward into a social-first publisher that could gain a large audience on the web. Fred also knew that trying to build this change from within through hiring would be extremely expensive, slow, and have a low chance of success. Fred had seen the work RebelMouse had done building The Dodo into the fifth largest publisher on Facebook, and our work with PAPER Magazine to rebuild them into a digital-first property. Our challenge together was clear: modernize the company, and build a new audience and a new digital revenue stream.
Project Requirements:
- Migrate Dance Magazine's four web properties off of their static and outdated WordPress platform, and launch a fresh, social-first property.
- Work with the Dance Magazine content and social teams to understand how to retain the voice of the magazine, but to do so in a way that could see massive success in social and on the web.
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"RebelMouse has been an incredible partner. Paul Berry immediately understood my vision and hopes for the company. He and his team have worked strategically and creatively with the management team and writers here. I get incredible feedback on the new site — RebelMouse has opened up exciting opportunities for us." Fred Seegal, Owner |
Our Solution
RebelMouse is a contagious media company with deep technology solutions. The RebelMouse Distributed CMS is a modern solution built in the age of social. The writing tools and social integrations have new media strategy and tactics built in at their core, so that writers and social teams can learn through the software as they publish. The front-end experience for readers of the properties we launch is next generation, built under a " Social UX for Media" framework that mimics the platforms they are so used to consuming.
RebelMouse doesn't just understand technology — the company understands how traffic works on the internet, and how to take advantage of those opportunities. RebelMouse worked with Dance Magazine's video editor to show him how to create videos that could go viral on social, and how to be super efficient with time. The result has been a massive 10x growth in video views and reach that began just weeks after engaging with RebelMouse.
*DANCE MAG FB VIDEO EMBED*
RebelMouse understands how to make complex things simple. The RebelMouse team plays the role of a "Sherpa" by helping create digital transformation in a way that is actually fun and exciting for everyone at Dance Magazine.
Results
Dance Magazine has had an immediate and massive performance lift on the re-platform from WordPress. Within 10 days of their launch date, Dance Magazine saw the following lift:
|
Page Views |
Sessions |
Users |
Time On Site |
Pages/Session |
|
+252% |
+103% |
+73% |
+57% |
+73% |
Along with the increased audience and engagement, Dance Magazine now enjoys new revenue opportunities. And RebelMouse is a partner in turning those into deals that can close and fuel the new growth of the business. RebelMouse understands how media companies can go beyond banner ads to create more compelling, integrated experiences for brands, and works with the CRO at Dance Magazine to package this.
More audience, more engagement from each reader, and more revenue---this is what RebelMouse was built for.
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