This week saw three of Bauer Media’s editors – Lucie Cave from Heat, James McMahon from Kerrang! & Alison Perry from more! – join a panel with Twitter’s UK head of sales, Bruce Daisley and Carat’s head of social media, Ben Ayers for a topical debate about the relationship journalists and magazines have with social media. The Big Bauer Debate was held during Carat’s press week.

Trade media press coverage following the recent ABCs has been dominated by talk of magazine tablet editions and whether the brands are fully utilising digital platforms as a whole. As Alasdair Reid put it in his Campaign article this week, tablets have given publishers a second chance to make amends after the “land-grab” mentality of magazine websites that basically gave away content for free – see the full article here… Campaign – Magazine tablet editions

Before I hand the mic over to Mr Ray Snoddy – the debate’s chairperson – to fill you in on the panel, my top 3 takeaways were:

1. Social media lets us find our readers, rather than them having to come to us – Kerrang editor, James McMahon

2. Magazines need to get better at packaging up their commercial offering to give brands 360 penetration, including print, online, tablets & social media. In addition, brands want to work with editors – who naturally know their audiences – to create campaigns that are fully integrated and targeted – Ben Ayers, head of social media, Carat

3. The print magazine is the mothership – everything else compliments that, including social media – Heat editor, Lucie Cave

And now over to Ray for an interesting take on proceedings … MediaTel – Should magazines embrace social media?