Mass Appeal magazine was founded in 1996. It served the people as its document of their urban landscape. When the brand relaunched online (MassAppeal.com) in 2012, Mass Appeal carried on the tradition since its inception—curating, dictating and participating in the converging worlds of graffiti, music and fashion. Staying relevant with the today's trends has been essential in the success of such a publication that created its legacy before magazines transitioned to the internet. Using social media tools, from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, Mass Appeal has developed a strategy to deliver articles from its website on every platform where it has the potential to gain a new audience. The buck doesn't stop with posting a link and leaving it there for someone to find it. Creating a conversation around the article whether through a comment-reply sequence on Twitter, or a series of shares and likes on Facebook, keeps eyeballs on the content. Why wait for users to come to a start-up website when we can take the content directly to the people?

Mass Appeal is culturally relevant. It pulls from local and international sources for inspiration. Mass Appeal's daily news articles were edited and often written by Richard "Treats" Dryden. Every news post was unique. For example, recurring posts like the Daily Dingle was focused on an illustration created by MA's design department. The image is an easily digestible piece of content. The concept takes an idea like Michael Jackson's 25h anniversary of his Bad album, but re-imagines it with the main characters of the popular sitcom, Breaking Bad. The picture spoke volumes resulting in a spike of shares and likes on Mass Appeal's Facebook page. Sometimes the most sticky content is the low hanging fruit of the internet. Mass Appeal turned the terminology on its head with a more clever slug that should speak for itself. Other recurring features is Miss Appeal, a profile on a woman in a creative field—music, horseback riding, modeling.

 

Hey, You're Cool! is also a profile on individuals who've earned notoriety. New York's Klughaus Gallery has displayed the work of great contemporary artists like OBLVN, photographer Ricky Powell, and KATSU. One of the figures behind Klughaus is the gallery's publicist, and freelance writer, Liz Suman. The feature on Suman was actually peeled away another layer into the events hosted at Klughaus, with the first being the New York City Type Off. Mass Appeal's coverage of Suman's typing contest at the art gallery was posted on the Type Off's fan page, Suman's personal page, and shared on all of Mass Appeal's social platforms to ensure that it gets maximum exposure.

 

 

Given Mass Appeal's newly launched presence on the web, it made sense for its first event to occur during NYC's annual Internet Week. Over 100 speakers and four parties were part of the itinerary for participants looking to celebrate brands thriving on the internet. Mass Appeal sponsored the first of the festivities at the Tribeca Grand Hotel featuring performances by Baltimore dance and electronic music sensations: Blaqstarr and Rye Rye, and Brooklyn rapper, Mr. MFN eXquire. Twitter was one of the primary sources for support for the event. All of the talent tweeted about the event, mentioning each other, and retweeting to raise the awareness of Mass Appeal and its social graph.

2012 has gone down in history as the hottest summer in the history of the United States. The amount of heat generated at the BPM LWR LVL bi-weekly party series might have something to do with it. Mass Appeal's media sponsorship of the dance party was one of the most talked-about events at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Some of the biggest DJs in the underground electronic dance music scene were booked from Mike Q, to Kingdom, to Mess Kid. Guests included Chloe Sevigny and Spankrock. As each party ended, Mass Appeal recapped coverage of the event online with photos. The archive of photos became one of the most dynamic additions to its Facebook profile. It gives insight to the young audience that represents the Mass Appeal readership in this major turning point for the brand revitalizing itself for a new generation.