Hyperlocal News Roundup
(This has been a lost week in so many ways. Not a bad week, just lost. One of those weeks where you don’t get done anything you wanted to get done.)
On the bright side, I’ve been discovering a bunch of new hyperlocal-targeted blogs — some about blogging, others just about the industry in general. I’m going to start posting the occasional recap of interesting things about the industry, even if they don’t specifically deal with local blogging. My logic is that, if we local bloggers want to be at the heart of the hyperlocal movement, we need to know what’s going on in the rest of the body.
The New York Times tackled the subject of hyperlocal real estate blogging this week, with a very positive piece on how agents and brokers are using their local blogs to gain business:
For brokers, blogs are, of course, a handy marketing tool: they’re economical, practical and easy to update. But for prospective buyers, a sophisticated blog — one with more than an agent’s plea, “check out my new listing” — can help potential buyers forge a connection to a faraway community, learn the landscape of an area and, ultimately, make informed purchasing decisions.
There’s a great quote a couple paragraphs later from a real estate agent who blogs about his local area: “If you’re going to sell a home in the mountains, you’re going to have to sell the mountains.”
Neighborsville, a new site which aims to be a hyperlocal portal of sorts for neighborhoods, has announced that they’re opening up a limited beta of their first neighborhood — the Willow Glen neighborhood in San Jose, CA. Good luck to Ryan Kuder and crew.
American Towns announced a major jump in traffic in the 3rd quarter of this year — 80% over Q2 and six times better than traffic levels at the end of 2007. Revenues and user-generated content are also up. American Towns calls itself “the fastest growing site in the hyper-local space.”
Your Turn: If you know of any hyperlocal-related news, please let me know in the comments!
Learning From Other Local Bloggers
Quick post here: I’m a big believer in learning from the successes (and failures) of others, so Eric Blackwell’s recent post on the Bloodhound (Real Estate) Blog caught my eye. It’s about some creative things he and some friends/associates are doing to develop their local blogs. I’ll let you read the blog post for the specific examples, but here’s the conclusion:
The more of these creative blog projects I do, the more I am finding that there are infinite ways to connect within a community. You can build your online authority faster as well as your bank account, by using a blog to connect.
Well said, Eric.
Topix.com as a Hyperlocal Portal
Peter Krasilovsky has a fairly brief interview with Topix CEO Chris Tolles about how the site has been remade over the years from a pure news aggregator into a local portal site.
They talk about the addition of business listings (from InfoUSA) and classifieds, and Tolles shares some interesting stats about the site’s growth. Here’s one quote from Tolles that jumps out at you:
“Nobody has our reach on the net. We have engagement from 20,000 cities and towns every month.”
That’s impressive, but I still find the new MapQuest Local to be a more compelling local portal experience. Ironically, MapQuest is pulling its local news content from … Topix.
But there’s one big difference: MapQuest wants people like you and me, local bloggers, to send them our content.
I don’t see any similar efforts from Topix to get local content from the people that are on the street writing it. That’d be a nice addition.
Reader Poll: How Do You Blog?
Hi Hyperlocal Blogger readers,
I’m curious to know: How do you blog?
More often than not, I use a text editor to write my blog posts and then cut and paste it into WordPress for publishing.
Do you use Microsoft Word to write your blog posts? Do you go straight to your WordPress “new post” screen and start writing? (or whatever blogging platform you’re on)
Just curious,
Matt
What Makes a Great Local Blogger
As hyperlocal blogging grows, we can expect more people to wonder … Can I do this? Am I cut out to be a good local blogger? While I don’t think there’s a formula or recipe for local blogging success, I do think there are some personality traits that will make you more likely to succeed. I’ll share those below, along with a couple traits I think are unnecessary. And, please, add to my list in the comments — I value your wisdom and contributions.
Things You Need to Succeed in Local Blogging
1. Passion
I’m choosing my words carefully here. I don’t think you need to love your hometown, but I do think you have to care about it … a lot. Passion can be expressed in different ways, including being critical of the things you see happening in your hometown. You don’t have to love all the decisions your city council makes, for example, but you’ll be a better local blogger if you’re passionate about those decisions and what they mean to you and your neighbors. You should have a passion for where you live, and the people that live there.
2. Interestingness
This can be expressed in different ways:
- Being an interesting blogger. We connect with people who are interesting, who have personality. We’re drawn to people with opinions, even if those opinions aren’t the same as ours.
- Having interesting content. If you’re not Joe Personality or Jane Opinion, interesting local content can still attract readers and make a great local blog. How do we define “interesting local content?” That sounds like a post for another day but, in short, I’d include things like local business reviews, interviews with local politicians or newsmakers, local photo tours/galleries, etc.
3. Good Writer
You don’t have to be Hemingway, but I’ve always believed that better writers attract larger crowds. I can easily name several exceptions to this rule in the marketing blogosphere, and I’m sure you could name exceptions, too. But if you’re one of several local bloggers in your area, I believe … all other things being equal … that the better writers will be the most successful.
4. Outgoing
You need to connect with people to grow your blog. This is true whether you’re a local blogger or not. Blogging is a conversation, and if you’re not the type to want to connect with others, you’ll probably find it much harder to succeed. Outgoing people are typically more interested in what others believe, and that curiosity will be very helpful as you grow your hyperlocal blog.
5. Newshound
Not every hyperlocal blog is going to be about local news. You don’t have to attend city council meetings to run a good local blog. But no matter what your local focus is, I think it’s important to want to know about your community and be able to sort out what matters to other local people/readers. Even if you’re blogging about the best shopping deals in your city, or doing posts on local stay-at-home dads, or families that home school … there’s still an element of being a newshound in all of that.
6. Honesty
The old saying tells us that everyone can be anonymous on the Internet, and that anonymity often allows bloggers/commenters/web users the freedom to stretch the truth. I don’t think you have that luxury with a local blog. Your readers will be your neighbors. They’ll often be as familiar with what you’re writing about as you are. You don’t have the luxury of pretending to be something you’re not, or making up content that tells a good local story … but isn’t quite true.
7. Patience
Hyperlocalblogging is still in its infancy. Blogging itself took years to go mainstream, and in most cases it’ll take local blogs a while to gain widespread respect and trust. You’ll need to promote your hyperlocal blog, and you’ll need to be patient as it grows.
Things You Don’t Need to Succeed in Local Blogging
1. Longevity
There’s a common perception (that I’ve probably perpetuated on HyperlocalBlogger.com) that a successful local blogger is someone who’s an authority, someone who’s been living in the area a long time and knows the local people, places, and stories that are worth telling. But I think a good writer could easily create a compelling local blog even if s/he is new to the area. In fact, in some ways, reading the local blog of a newcomer could be a lot more fun and interesting than reading the blog of someone who’s been around the block a few times (as they say).
If you’re new to your area, don’t let that stop from you starting a local blog.
2. Technical Skills and/or Money
This applies to any of type of blog: There are almost no barriers to starting a local blog. Blogger and Wordpress.com are free; just choose a name, a blog design, and start writing. Digital cameras are brain-dead simple these days, not to mention unbelievably inexpensive. Blogging used to be the realm of geeks and early adopters, but today anyone can do it. If you think you’re not techie enough to start blogging about your neighborhood, I’d encourage you to give it a try anyway.
Your Turn: What did I miss? What do you agree or disagree with?
A Must-Have WordPress Plugin for Local Blogs
If you’re a WordPress blogger, and you’re interested in having your blog content be customized for display on the iPhone and iPod Touch, you’ll want to use this plugin:
WPTouch: WordPress on the iPhone
WPTouch creates a custom theme for your blog that’s only shown to iPhone and iPod Touch users. And, the theme has a few tweaks you can make, too. Yes, the iPhone and iPod Touch have a basically standard Safari web browser and using it is often just like using a regular computer. But the benefit of using a plugin like WPTouch is that your blog loads light years faster because of the lighter theme.
I just installed the plugin here on HyperLocal Blogger. The image at right is what the “home page” looks like on my iPhone; I think it looks terrific, and it loaded almost instantaneously.
When you click into an individual blog post, it continues to have a very readable, elegant appearance. Here are a couple screenshots of the post immediately before this one, about the outside.in hyperlocal blog series:
I love the little flair on the blockquote (left) and even the comments look good. It’s a very iPhone-friendly theme — certainly not a necessity for local blogging success, but one of those “nice to have” additions if you expect a fair amount of visitors using the iPhone or IPod Touch.
-
-
Featured Video
