| Q/A with Chief Content Executive at iVillage.com, Angela Matusik |
| Written by Yelizaveta Belilovskaya | |||
| Friday, 30 September 2011 03:51 | |||
 iVillage.com is one of largest content-driven communities for women on the web today. There are approximately 30 million unique visitors to the site per month. The impressive stats sparked some questions on my part: What is the appeal of the site? How is the content selected? To answer these questions, I sat down with the head Chief Content Executive of iVillage.com, Angela Matusik. TS: You are the Content Chief at iVillage - what were the biggest adjustments that you had to make for the revamping of the site when you first got this position? When did you get this position? AM: The site has changed a great deal in the past couple of years. I keep a copy of what it looked like about 2 -2.5 years ago - before I joined - on my wall so that I can remember how far we've come. In lots of ways, we stayed true to the brand, which is a really vital brand for women's lives. We talk about things that they care about, connecting them to other women and their communities, but so much has changed in the past 2 -5 years. To continue to be relevant to women's lives, a brand has to constantly continue evolving and changing. We are always looking at new ways to connect valuable information and content with women and with communities. So a long time ago, we used to be just a content site that got content from other women's brands and we had message boards. Now we create a lot of our own original content, we have video...We still have message boards but we also have Facebook and Twitter and all these other ways to engage with people. So it's always evolving. TS: How did you get this position (you sought it out, the company found you)? Serendipity? AM: Well, you don't usually find jobs through happy coincidence. They are usually a lot of hard work and ideas. I heard about the opportunity the way you hear about openings. I was so enchanted by the brand. I loved the idea of helping women in their lives and sort of figuring out ways to make things easy and simple for today's busy women. I think that iVillage is a brand that has so much potential that I'm just so interested in it. I'm very fortunate that I was able to express my passion and get the job. TS: What is the strategy behind the content that is being put out? AM: We are a really deep and broad site. We cover a lot of different subjects, so on one hand we have things that people suggest to us through newsletters and through search when they are trying to figure out an answer. We often like to say that we are a woman's 3 am call. If someone is coughing in the middle of the night or is worried about something pertaining to a to-do list, we have a lot of great content that will help figure something out. But on top of that, we also like to be very topical in addressing what's going on in women's minds. We love the idea that people come to our site perhaps feeling stressed, anxious, or with something to figure out , and end up leaving feeling a little bit better. I like to call it a topical service. You look at the world and what is happening around you and then you turn it back to somebody's life. That can be anything from an Anthony Weiner scandal or bragging about how you deal with your husband. When Sandra Bullock suddenly found herself being a single mom we had advice from real life single moms to Sandra Bullock saying "here are the things that you need to know that we've learned and figured out along the way". That's the stuff I think we do really well. TS: What are the main challenges that you face when you select or evaluate content for women, what is the demographic that you target andhow does it change for the younger/ older population? AM: I think that's a really interesting question because women's needs definitely change as they go through different life phases. Our younger audience - I like to say that she (young woman) is about to become the woman she will be for the rest of her life - she might be more interested in consuming our entertainment, celebrity, or style content. A large chunk of our audience who we call "mobile moms" - essentially women in the throws of motherhood who might have just gotten pregnant, just had a baby or baby number 2. Basically their life and decision making process is focused on juggling everything around them. These women are our biggest audience and most voracious consumers of content because they are the ones most in need of guidance and information because they are going through important changes in life. Once you sort of get past that phase where your children are not perhaps so needy, you are allowed to think about yourself again. That's when you can go back and think about decorating or gardening or you can be a bit more adventurous with the type of food you are cooking over the weekend. You can finally crack that diet you wanted to try or exercise again or take up a new sport. We would like to think that the movie coming out "I Don't Know How She Does It" really fits this idea we have, that all women who manage a household walk around with all this information in their head all the time - worry about family finances or what they are going to cook for dinner this weekend, or an anniversary coming up that they have not bought a gift for yet. It's just that today's women are so busy. Technology and digital things are there to help but sometimes can add to the confusion. Here at iVillage we try really hard to help them. We are always improving and working on new things as new technologies and platforms come around, we have to stay on top of these things. TS: What news do you notice trends more often? What content seems to be attractive - celebrity news or politics? AM: You know, it's a little bit of both. We have a great program that we just launched. It's called iVoices, which is a group of citizen journalists. They are women and a couple of dads from around the country who report on things in their neighborhoods and their lives. It could be anything from what it's like to send your kids to school for the first time to things like someone going to the John Stewart rally last year in Washington D.C. It is another example of how you bring community to life through content so it's taking real, live people in America and making them the stars. We may not have an icon like a Martha Stewart or an Oprah Winfrey behind us but we have real, live people to help us figure things out. In news stories, I do think it's a combination of things that are happening around us now. For example, I might need to know about a crib recall or preparing for a hurricane, but obviously people love to talk about celebrity parenting. Celebrity parenting does really well in that it's something everyone can relate to, so you get pulled in. It brings it back to a personal level that allows them to talk about their own lives while relating to the news. TS: What is the most rewarding experience for you at this job? AM: I think the most rewarding experience about working at iVillage is when every now and then, you get to hear stories about how we affect peoples lives, whether it's a comment that is left on Facebook or a story that bubbles up from the message boards. You really know you are affecting women who sometimes might feel alone or stressed or anxious and they can say "iVillage was there to help me and made me feel l wasn't alone", or "iVillage helped me meet other women going through a similar experience as I did," and then you are actually doing some good and are not just creating more noise in the digital sphere, but changing people's real lives. TS: Do you have a favorite section of iVillage? AM: I don't know, I have to say I use the site all the time. Just today I looked a piece that we did on how to potty train your child. Last time I looked at that article I did not potty train my daughter, now that I have been through it, I thought "Wow, this is really great advice". I use our recipes - we have great recipes. Just this weekend, I plan to make mac-n-cheese muffins from the site. I mean, how can you go wrong with mac-n-cheese muffins? TS: How has having a child changed your perspective on women oriented content? AM: I think that being a working mom is one of those things that makes you better at your job because you learn how to manage your time better than ever before. You're suddenly a very good multi-tasker and are able to get things done. I think here, for my role at iVillage, it helps me understand more of our audience's needs because I understand women today are juggling being bread winners at home and a family. Their careers are important to them but their health needs to fit in there somewhere and can't be neglected. I think that just being in that situation myself, trying to manage my role, is a constant reminder on how we can't waste women's time. So as you are creating content for today's woman, you have to understand that it is a privilege that she is spending time with you. Her time is very precious so you have to give her something important and worthwhile. TS: What is your favorite color? AM: My favorite color is iVillage red. TS: You founded Shelteriffic.com in 2006. What inspired you to take a more home oriented approach to it? AM: Shelteriffic is something that I started right after Budget Living folded. So I was the Editor-In-Chief of this fantastic magazine that sadly went out of business, and when it went out of business I had a lot of great information and ideas in my head. It was right when blogs were starting to explode. I just thought "I am going to figure out this blog thing for myself", in 2006 so I launched it with a bunch of other Budget Living colleagues of mine, some of which still contribute to the site. Since then I made a lot of digital friends. It has always been centered around domesticity, so its not about home improvement so much as it is about enjoying the aspects of homemaking in a modern way. It is a labor of love, like a garden I planted in 2006 that keeps growing. TS: How long have you been a writer and a fan of women oriented content? - InStyle, People, Hearst Media etc? AM: I have been in publishing for a really long time - almost 20 years. When I started off, I went to Harper's Baazar. The first place I ever worked was at InStyle for 9 years. I was the features editor, I launched InStyle.com, I did a lot of things there. Then I did some other projects at other companies. I was at People and I had been doing women's stuff for a long time. Originally when I was younger, in my 20's, I was really interested in movies and pop culture. I am a huge film buff and it steered me in the direction of InStyle. I used to go to a lot of film festivals and wrote movie reviews and as I got older, I started nesting more. I was the Editor-In-Chief at Budget Living. I still love movies and love decorating, but now I have a kid, so iVillage is really a great place for me to be. TS: What magazines do you currently have in your bedroom or kitchen? AM: I get New York Magazine every week, which I think I get only because I am addicted to the grid on the last page. I still read InStyle, Martha Stewart Living and I buy cooking magazines all the time because I love to rip and save recipes and try new things on the weekend. TS: Have you met any challenges in the field being a woman? AM: I have been very fortunate throughout my career. I have always worked in focused brands and I've met a lot of very powerful women who have served as mentors. There are fantastically strong women here at iVillage and NBC in leadership roles. I think that I've never experienced [those challenges] because I have always worked at a women's brand in a media company where women had serious roles. I think that maybe other women are not as fortunate. If you are working in a more male-dominated space, then I don't really know what that experience is like. For more articles like Q/A with Head Content Chief at iVillage.com, Angela Matusik, please visit the NYC/The New Yorkers Section of TimesSquare.com
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