The Block by Block Conference in Chicago attracted over 100 local site owners, foundations, academics and others whose livelihoods and/or obsessions revolve around on-line local news operations and how to sustain them.
Because this conference is organized as more of an on-going conversation groups than of podium lectures, I thought it might be useful to put some of those threads and insights into bite sized pieces:
Community Engagement Panel: Discussion about how to draw readers and get them to stay.
Susan Mernit, Oakland Local moderated, with David Cohn, Spot.us; Tracy Record, West Seattle Blog; and Andre Natta, The Terminal, Birmingham, AL.
Tracy found that once her site was turning a profit, they have found success by
- sponsoring local events by giving advertising and money. The event becomes associated with her site and creates loyalty.
- Forums. Tracy learned to let them take on a life of their own and not moderate. It brings engaged people to the site who have something they want to talk about
- existing event that needed a new “owner”, they run the huge local community garage sale. Coordinating registration via paypal and making the paper and on-line map.
- Showing up. They throw up a no-frills table at local events just to…talk.
Andre’s TheTerminal in Birmingham seems to have mastered the art of twitter, with a weekly tweet-up where he sends out 5-6 questions and starts conversations about issues in the community that often lead to stories on this site.
OaklandLocal finds the diversity of its own team is tied to community engagement. Training programs teach readers how to use social media and write simple stories.
From Andre: “Since we have no money, a good marketing tool is to shout out great not for profit events…getting out to events is critical for us too.
David from Spot.us said he felt like “A duck on panel of chickens because one of things we’re trying to do is build tools for sites that have their own communities to distribute the financial burden.”
David’s idea “of bringing transparency to the process of Journalism – traditionally made behind closed doors, people can engage from the beginning to the end.”
In terms of spot.us as a stand alone site, “I don’t believe spot. us is a single source for great content…people feel energized…an adrenalin rush..when they see..cross pollenization so to speak.” 6 organizations covered a trial in LA…exciting for people who would go to these sites individually”
People can submit story ideas at spot.us, as well.
Patricio Espinoza of AlamoCityTimes.com- couldn’t get peeps to comment on his site or on his Facebook page, so he asked questions, and people came. He has also put together community training camps in partnership with a local University lab- teaching citizens how to set up youTube or create photo slide show so they can tell stories that they want to tell.
In Davidson, NC, DavidsonNews.net owner David Boraks said that coming from traditional journalism and a traditional approach- the change in mindset took a lot of getting used to. He remembers the thrill of having his picture in the newspaper as a child and thinks how that can motivate people he covers back to the site.
At edhat.com in Santa Barbara, all it takes to write for the site: send a picture and a paragraph and that’s all you have to do to participate. Every story is equal.
Denise from the Rapidian in Grand Rapids has a twitter feed on front page headed “right now” where people can literally tweet in news and on the right top is the photo of the day- thru this she made close ties to robust photography community in her area.
Several people shared different journalistic philosophies about handling names in the Police Blotter. I personally shared that our police blotter at theLoop is one of the most heavilly trafficked areas…we go light with the Crime of the Week. And don’t post mug shots.
Anne Galloway at Vtdigger.org in Vermont asked the group how do you choose what to do each day if youre a One Man Band running a site? Tracy Record from Seattle says you *have* to be able to do it all simultaneously: watching twitter/forums/scanner/emails/comments, can’t not know multitasking.
Fortunately, we had David Cohn to save us all from burnout, who said he once thought,”The internet doesn’t sleep, so I can’t either.” Now, he says, he only checks e-mail twice a day.
and on that note…
I sat on the next panel, so, may I introduce Guest Blogger Andrew Pergam, Editorial Director at J-Lab…
“ABC’s of Advertising”
The issue of how to make hyperlocal advertising work was resolved in 90 minutes this morning.
Far from it, the session weaved through a number of hotspots, including partnerships, bartering, sponsored content, coupon deals, and selling remnant ad space.
It boiled down to this nugget from moderator Mark Potts (CEO and Co-Founder, Growthspur): Local ads are a $100 million business. You want a piece of it.
With a hat-tip to a recent Knight Digital Media Center training, he told the crowd that your audience is not readers – it’s your advertisers. They’re paying your bills.
INTERACTING WITH ADVERTISERS
Polly Kreisman (http://www.theloopny.com), believes community publishers need to “reframe our relationships with advertisers”. That means figuring out how sites can help advertisers grow their business, she says, and to her, becoming collaborators makes that happen.
She’ll bring advertisers into the tent with traditional banner ads, and then, once advertisers see the value, they evolve into more interesting options. For example, she’ll include tweets from advertisers on her front page and write sponsored stories about them. “I’ll do a feature about them. I’ll make it a little different from an infomercial,” she said, but it generates traffic because the advertiser will share it, increasing new traffic for her site.
Same for Patricio Espinoza (http://www.alamocitynews.com), who writes features about advertisers: “They are profiles that may never be told by traditional journalism. I feel okay with it, so long as its labeled.”
MECHANICS OF SELLING
So how do you start? Make a rate card, says Potts. His formula: “Pick a number. And by the way, pick a number higher than you think. Your site is worth more than you think. Pick a number and see what happens.”
Include in your rate card reader comments and media recognition, says Liz George (http://baristanet.com).
Conference participants, like Peter Sklar (http://www.edhat.com), offered another approach: A simple, one price banner ad. It’s $100 a month. That’s it. No sizes, no CPMs, no takeovers. And he says it’s working.
Lots of local advertisers don’t know or understand CPMs, noted Potts. So why confuse them?
The team at Pegasus News (http://www.pegasusnews.com/) actually built a behavioral tracking tool, so the site could parse out bluegrass fans in a particular zipcode. But, says founder Mike Orren, that was too much for their advertisers. They were actually “complicating” themselves out of sales.
In another example, he explained how a test campaign for a car dealer outdid all other tools by a factor of eight. Ready to seal a year-long deal, the dealership owner hadn’t heard of Pegasus News, checked with another person, and came back to the ad buyer with: ‘Well, I don’t know this Pegasus News, so put us back in the newspaper.’ Overcoming that is a challenge, but Orren has found that former radio sales representatives are up for it. They’re used to figuring out ways to engage readers and encourage them to come down to visit an advertiser.
Pegasus News also dropped to the bottom of their page Google Ads that were running in remnant space. Their paying advertisers felt, rightly so, that it was diluting their ad unit. But Pegasus will use it as a source to find new clients: They’ll local advertisers and then contact them directly.
With revenue of more than $50,000 a month, Orren can now pay his ad sales team a combination of base salary, plus commission, plus bonuses. “Don’t be stingy in compensating people who are bringing in your revenue,” he said. “You want them to be excited each morning when they wake up.”
PARTNERSHIPS
As Polly Kreisman pointed out, the reality is that most site operators are one-man-bands. Publishers are trying to keep up with technology and a thousand other things – the last thing they want to do is sell ads. But collaborating with others down the road makes sense, she says.