Going Hyperlocal on Facebook
by Matt on Nov 18, 2008 in Promotion | Leave a Comment
Last month on my Small Business Search Marketing blog, I included Facebook in a post about social sites for local networking … but William Perrin, a hyperlocal publisher over in England, takes the idea a lot further with concrete examples of how to use Facebook to build hyperlocal communities:
These Facebook groups can work powerfully with hyper or ultra local sites to cross over content and messages. I set up I Love Kings Cross as an experimental sideline to my Kings Cross community site. The 160 odd people in the Facebook group are about 75% different to the 140-odd people who sign up to my Feedburner emails from the community site.
That’s an interesting idea to me. I’ve joined the requisite local network groups on Facebook, and have installed the “Neighborhoods” app to try to find other locals (hasn’t worked), but I’ve never given any thought to setting up Facebook groups to cross-promote my hyperlocal blogs. That may be a better way to connect with local people than to wait for them to install the right Facebook apps.
William’s article is a good read. Here’s the link: Facebook and hyperlocal voice.
Content Idea: Local Flu Shot Information
by Matt on Nov 17, 2008 in Content | Leave a Comment
This is one of those I totally didn’t expect this, but it’s cool! kind of discoveries, and I think it’s worth passing along at this time of year.
About a month ago, I wrote almost identical blog posts about flu shots on three of our four hyperlocal blogs. You can see them here:
- Richland flu shots, which currently ranks #1 on Google
- Kennewick flu shots, which also ranks #1 on Google
- Pasco flu shots, which currently ranks #3
I didn’t think much of those posts at the time, especially since there’s almost no substance there — just some date, cost, and location information. So you can imagine my surprise when I was looking at Google Analytics for those three blogs and saw all kinds of flu-related keywords bringing search engine traffic to the blogs. Have a look:
(click for larger version)
These posts didn’t bring in a ton of new traffic, but I’m not gonna complain about any unexpected new visitors we get. Are you? I guess the lesson here, which should’ve been obvious before I looked at our analytics, is that people are searching for local health information on the web. As a local blogger, you’re in position to give it to them.
What to do: Check your local County Health Department web site, or call them, to find out if there are any planned flu shots coming up in your area. Blog about it. And, if you get some new search engine traffic, leave me a note in the comments. 
outside.in Having a Good 2008
by Matt on Nov 10, 2008 in Industry | 1 Comment
In a blog post designed more to talk about finding a new CTO, the folks at outside.in also managed to share a couple stats about their growth:
- “Our audience is up 400% year to date and growing.” (
I assume “audience” means unique visitors or some similar metric.As CEO Mark Josephson says down below in the comments, “audience” refers to Unique Users per Month. Thx Mark.) - Their products are “being used already by more than 1,200 local content creators.” (This refers to products like StoryMaps and the GeoToolkit.)
Let’s keep an eye out for similar stats from others in the hyperlocal industry so we can see just how quickly this industry is growing.
Hyperlocal Blogging Hits Search Engine Land
by Matt on Nov 10, 2008 in Blogging | 1 Comment
Nice to see a big, juicy article about hyperlocal blogging on Search Engine Land last week:
A Business Idea For Joe The Plumber: HyperLocal Blogging
David Mihm is the author, and you may recognize him from his occasional appearances in the comments here on Hyperlocal Blogger. In his article, David suggests local blogging as a good marketing strategy for the (literal and figurative) “Joe the Plumber.” Why hyperlocal blogging? Here’s David’s bullet list:
- More content.
- More incoming links from other bloggers.
- More links and citations from other local websites.
- Name recognition among key members of your community.
- Name recognition among key members of your industry.
I think that about sums it up. Good article, David.
Signs of Blogging Life in the Tri-Cities
by Matt on Nov 8, 2008 in Blogging | 1 Comment
I spent all day Friday attending (and speaking at) a small business web marketing conference called Learn About Web. There were many things that stand out for me now, 24 hours later, but one is that small/local business owners appeared to be interested in learning about local blogging.
The attendees were mostly small business owners/employees, and in terms of online marketing knowledge/experience, they would mostly have to be considered novices — that’s who the conference was for, and that’s why they were there.
There were sessions on everything ranging from link building to local search, social media to web security, and more.
Mack Collier did a talk on business blogging that had everyone’s attention. Then, during the Q&A session at the end, there were a few more questions from local business owners asking about starting a blog, finding blog topics, and so forth.
As it stands now, my wife and I are a rare breed — there aren’t many other Richland bloggers, Kennewick bloggers, and so forth in the Tri-Cities area.
It would be nice to see a few more local bloggers join us, and maybe after yesterday’s seminar, they will.
Submit Your Blog to EveryBlock.com
by Matt on Nov 6, 2008 in Industry, Promotion | 5 Comments
EveryBlock is a very interesting player in the hyperlocal space, and one that I’ll be watching in the future. If you blog locally about the cities that EveryBlock covers, it’s also a site that you should submit your content to for possible distribution. (more on that in a bit)
Where many hyperlocal sites focus on town-level or city-level news, EveryBlock focuses on what its name suggests: every block, every street corner in the cities where it’s available. Of course, you begin at a city page, like this one for Seattle:
See that “Explore the City” section in the upper right? You can dig into the site by neighborhood, zip code, or … get this … street. And no matter which path you choose, you might eventually land on this phenomenal content page for the 700 – 798 block of 5th Avenue North. Look at all the hyperlocal content on this page:
- nearby news articles & blog posts
- nearby fire dispatch calls
- nearby building permits
- nearby photos
- nearby liquor license actions
- nearby business reviews (from Yelp and/or Menuism)
- etc.
Amazing, isn’t it? EveryBlock has developed relationships with government agencies to tap into their databases (for restaurant inspection results, building permits, crimes, etc.). They tap into newspaper and blog content that specifically references streets, intersections, and addresses. They get local photos from Flickr’s geo-tagging system, local classifieds from Craigslist, and much more.
I recently traded emails with the founder, Adrian Holovaty, and asked him if he considers local portals like Topix.com or MapQuest as the competition:
I wouldn’t necessarily say we’re competing directly with Topix or the MapQuest Local site — only tangentially. We’re a bit more granular, in that we give news at the *block* level, or the neighborhood level, as opposed to the city level. Our closest competitors, per se, are mashups, such as crime lookups, that display specific information on maps. We’re pulling everything together in one place.
If you’re a hyperlocal blogger, the question you want answered is this:
How To Submit Your Local Blog to EveryBlock
EveryBlock does rely heavily on hyperlocal blogs in the cities the site covers. Here’s a list of EveryBlock’s Seattle news sources, and you’ll see plenty of local blogs included.
Here’s what Adrian said about getting your local blog on their radar:
Local bloggers can just drop us a quick e-mail for inclusion in our indexing process. We look for local blogs that write about specific locations, like neighborhoods, local schools/parks/restaurants/businesses, real estate, etc. Our goal is to point people at anything and everything that’s being written about in their immediate geographic area.
The email address to use is info [at] everyblock [dot] com.
If you’re curious to learn more about EveryBlock, their about page is the best place to start. Fascinating web site, I say — a great example of what hyperlocal is and can become.
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