Thursday, August 2, 2012

Leigh Reeves launches Social South Magazine

"I love our culture: famous writers, incomparable musicians, world-class athletes, cutting edge inventors/innovators, and well-mannered citizens who love their mothers." So wrote Leigh Reeves in her new publication Social South Magazine. The founder of VIP Magazine rolled out the first edition last week. Social South will cover social events, culture, travel, and fashion in the Jackson area. Mrs. Reeves said Social South will expand its coverage and distribution to major cities in the Southeast such as Memphis and Atlanta in the next twelve months. The magazine printed 15,000 copies in its first run.

Mrs. Reeves created VIP in 2004 and then sold the magazine to Gannett. She returned to the magazine business since she "liked working with customers, developing a product my readers enjoy, and creating avenues for customers to advertise.

The magazine is available in print and digital editions. Mrs. Reeves said Social South will launch an app for Iphones and Android in the next sixty days. She said the market has changed a great deal since 2004 when people hardly even texted each other. Now we get text messages, emails, and photos sent to our phones. We were one of only three niche magazines in the market. There were no blogs or Eat Jacksons. I wanted to create a product that was creative and changing with the times but people could enjoy and read in a variety of platforms. You can access it from paper to desktop to table to smartphones." Mrs. Reeves said the competition is much tougher than in years past as "advertisers have more choices now than they did several years ago. I'm lucky in that I have a loyal following that can trust me with their advertising dollars.

The magazine currently has a staff of six employees. Crave Branding designed the logos and the website. The magazine will be published bi-monthly. Readers can follow the magazine on Twitter @socialsouthmag.

Editor Lacey Cain said "We have quite the talented team here at Social South! Our publisher, Leigh Reeves, has the ideal combo of impeccable style and keen business sense and serves as a great leader for our group. Casey McGraw, our graphic designer, is a bright new talent whose creative eye makes all of our jobs easier! The lovely Ellen Skrmetti and Lisa Gray serve as our dedicated and enthusiastic account executives – there's never a dull moment when these two are at the office!

Whether its traveling to New Orleans to shoot Fashion Week, interviewing a Mississippi artist, or blogging about a favorite restaurant in Birmingham, I have truly relished every minute of this new adventure and am looking forward to sharing more of our enthusiasm for Southern culture."

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

Leigh is Tate Reeves' sister-in-law?

Anonymous said...

Received a copy in the mail, wasn't really impressed - looked like the Northside Sun's Society pages!

Anonymous said...

yes, Tate is Leigh's brother-in-law

Anonymous said...

Impressive magazine.....good work. Hope it is around for many years....

Anonymous said...

Also received in the mail unsolicited. A yawner.

Anonymous said...

And she is as cute as can be.

Anonymous said...

Oh, she's nothing compared to that cute little husband of hers! She went for the cute, fun one of the group!

Anonymous said...

Leigh is awesome - and will be successful at anything she does! Thanks for a great magazine, Leigh!!!! Good job!

Anonymous said...

I 2nd 2:57. The magazine is great & have also enjoyed the website & fun facebook updates covering things all throughout the South. Much more interesting than seeing the same old tired stories & people that northside sun mag & the others put out month after month. Job well done Leigh.

stilettoGOP said...

I enjoyed mine- cover to cover!

Anonymous said...

Hey JJ, have you seen the new Eat, Drink, Mississippi mag.? It's about a year old now. Pretty good I think.

Anonymous said...

This is dumb. Who needs another social photo publication? Arrogance.

Anonymous said...

Looks like KF has a new crush!

Anonymous said...

"Editor Lacey Cain said "We have quite the talented team here at Social South!"

I agree. They should do a swimsuit calendar. In house. I would make Ms. Cain Ms. July.

hominahominahominahomina

Anonymous said...

Yeah, we'll see. Maybe she can broaden her horizons and appeal to an audience beyond the 125 wives of lawyers and doctors who regularly appear in and read VIP Jackson.

Anonymous said...

VIP was a great....until the CL bought it. Moved half the first floor in marketing to set up new offices...and now I understand the CL version of VIP is gone.

Anonymous said...

But Leigh ran it after they bought it, right? Not sure I understand the comment at 7:18. I still pick mine up every month so I know it's still kicking. It's my favorite mag in the market of all the free ones.

Anonymous said...

Lets just say its less than in the past.

When CL bought it high circulation. Did not take long for the Gannett local management to cut number placed so more money could be made. The choice was lower circ # to cut cost even if it led to few people being able to find or have access to it. I was there when we fielded calls from locations that carried it. After a day of two it was placed it was gone and was not replenished. That is until the next issue and then the whole process started over. They printed a fixed number no matter what the demand. Those poor folks that came over from the origional group had no say or control, sad to say.

Anonymous said...

I buy advertising in VIP and get great results. Since I've been with them they've printed 20,000 issues per month. Are you saying they used to print more and now print less? Circulation hasn't changed since I've been with them. They even upped their print run for the golf tourney with magazines in every trophy suite. It was great.

Anonymous said...

My complimentary copy was beautiful. As content broadens so will readership, no doubt. Kudos to the staff on a job well done.

Anonymous said...

So when is someone going to publish material about the those who live a "real" life?

You know, living paycheck to paycheck, driving older cars, kids in public school, going to church in last year's styles, trying to pay the mortgage or rent.

Anonymous said...

Never 8:10, because no one gives a shit about people like that.

BORING.....

Anonymous said...

She's cute as a bug but the mag feels predictably shallow. Sorry. I give it a "snore" on the excitement scale.

Anonymous said...

Leigh has the Midas touch - SocialSouth will be a great success as is everything she gets involved with. Look for SS to grow in size and readership. Proud to see MS business that will undoubtably take over the South region and promote us.

Anonymous said...

"YAWN"

Shadowfax said...

What's the point in publishing, worse yet, buying or even picking up free copies of this shit? Everyone wants to see pictures of themselves schmoozing with others while hiding glasses of wine behind their backs or hoping nobody notices they're arm in arm with another homosexual. Kingfish, as usual, has his radar fixed on T&A and this cutie has at least one of them. Can't see the other.

Anonymous said...

Lord at the lovefest. I'm over her like I'm over chick-fila. Much ado about nothing. KF, you've sunk to an all time low. I'm assuming she donated enthusiastically to your last big fundraising effort.

Anonymous said...

Dear Shadowfax: #1 your an idiot, #2 so are you saying you were one of the ones "picking up a copy of this shit" as you refer to it? If so, there's your answer to your "what's the point in publishing" question, dummy. But if not, then... #3 you're an idiot #4 Too bad you don't have both your hands "hiding glasses ofwine behind your back" & could spare us all from the fecal blizzards. #5 your an idiot.

9:22pm: you're an idiot as well.

Both Leigh & her new Social South publication is great & if you don't like it then don't let you're posting your sorrows on KF take you away from the more important things in your life like.........oh wait.......nevermind.

Shadowfax said...

2:11. Instead of being up pud-pulling at 2 a.m. you should have been using proper sentence structure. "Leigh & her new Social South publication" ARE.....

Pee Ess: I've never intentionally gone anywhere to 'pick up' a copy of this drivel. I've seen it at Red Arrow before they closed up though. Again, this rag is good for one thing. So all the artsy-fartsy Jos A. Bank crowd can laminate bad photos of themselves with red eyes. Hold ON! There's a photo of Tom Head and Alan Lange on the veranda.

Curt Crowley said...

Shadowfax, the purpose in obtaining a copy of this publication is because it (presumably) has pictures of hot chicks in it. If there are indeed pictures of hot chicks in it, then it is a worthy endeavor.

Anonymous said...

I got a copy Crowley. It was bereft of anything approaching hot chicks.

Anonymous said...

Got it at home - totally worthless - can't imagine why anyone would buy an ad in this rag. Nothing new here.

Anonymous said...

Anderson sure has a burr in his saddle about this mag. He's trolling everywhere trying to strike up a chorus to join him in mocking it. Why so obsessed Anderson?



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