Defining Your Audience
(This is a guest post by John Hawbaker, editor of Chattarati.com, a community news and opinion site serving metro Chattanooga, Tenn.)
If you’re starting a hyperlocal news blog, one of your biggest opportunities may seem at first like a big problem: you don’t have an audience.
Before you laugh, think about the daily newspaper in your town. It has probably been around for decades, and it may be the only reliable source for community news. And like traditional news outlets all over the country, it may be struggling to maintain its subscription and advertising rates. To do that, it needs to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. It needs to be all things to all people.
You don’t.
Matt’s recent post on the Pew Research Center’s “State of the Media” report cited some revealing statistics: only 35% have a favorite place to get news, and news consumers are frequently searching for local topics. Like Matt, I see this as a huge opportunity for new news outlets.
To take advantage of that opportunity, you need to first develop a community of devoted readers. You need quality over quantity. And that means that you need to define your target audience. With an eye towards the overarching goals for your blog, here are a few questions to help:
- What are 3 words you would use to describe your ideal readers?
- Are they active in civic or community affairs?
- Where do they typically shop or dine out?
- What national news and culture websites do they frequent?
- What do they think is missing from local news coverage?
Answering these questions should help you understand who you’re writing for and what you can offer that is distinct from other local news sources–key components for building a brand that inspires loyalty. This understanding should inform everything from what topics you cover to how and where you promote your site.
At Chattarati, our initial target audience looked a lot like our initial group of contributing writers: young, curious, tech- and design-savvy, with a host of influences ranging from Gothamist to GOOD to The New York Times. We’re passionate about politics and education; arts and culture; and creating lively, thoughtful discussions around the issues that affect our region.
Seth Godin recently wrote about “driveby culture,” asking whether he should write posts to increase traffic or help change the way people think:
In the race between ‘who’ and ‘how many’, who usually wins–if action is your goal. Find the right people, those that are willing to listen to what you have to say, and ignore the masses that are just going to race on, unchanged.
Because of his focus on the latter, Godin has actually done both.
You’ll have to make that choice on your own site, but choose wisely. How you define your audience early on will ultimately decide how they define you.
The Problems of a Growing Community (Blog)
Good post today on Talk About Local by Clare White about the problems that crop up when you have a growing community on/around your hyperlocal blog/site. It’s a point that I don’t think gets talked about too often: We all love and want to grow our readers, commenters, community … but more people can mean more problems. Clare talks about these:
- The anonymity-causes-idiocy problem
- The Control problem
- The ‘we’re too small’ problem
- The ‘we’re too big’ problem
- The business-plan problem
And it’s not just a list of problems; Clare also covers some possible solutions for each. Here’s the full article: Community surgery: how to tackle the problems that could kill your blog.
AOL’s Worldwide Plans for Patch
AOL “believes that conceivably there could be a Patch in every community in the world. So, international expansion is in the cards.”
From AOL mapping VP Jon Brod, speaking at the Marketplaces 2010 conference in San Diego this week. So apparently I wasn’t too far off when I recently suggested that AOL could become our hyperlocal overlords.
More coverage of Brod’s appearance: Marketplaces 2010: Local Is Largest Opportunity Yet to Be Won Online
Boston-area Blogger Threatened by Town Officials
The elected leaders of Southborough, Massachusetts, are up in arms over comments left on Susan Fitzgerald’s hyperlocal blog, MySouthborough.com. How up in arms? Well, according to the local paper, one “selectman” (similar to a councilperson, I gather) has contacted the state attorney general’s office for legal advice.
This all dates back to last summer, when someone using the name “Marty” left comments on MySouthborough.com (I believe in this post) that were critical of how the town was conducting its search for a new police chief. The town’s lawyer sent Susan a letter saying they “expect” her to reveal Marty’s identity. In the newspaper article, Selectman Sal Giorlandino had this to say about the person leaving the comments:
“What the individual does not appreciate is that one day he will have to answer in a legal forum and it will have financial consequences,” he said. “I’m not looking to get wealthy, I’m looking to make a statement. This is about promoting civil discourse and this is not the way to behave.”
For her part, Susan wrote a blog post on Friday saying, “I have not revealed the identity of any of the commenters on this blog, nor do I intend to.”
My Thoughts
I’m obviously not a lawyer, but the newspaper article does mention recent court cases that would appear to protect Susan and the commenter on her blog. More than that, though, is the bigger picture:
As hyperlocal blogging/news grows, we’ll continue to see episodes like this — and similar things — that epitomize a growing friction between new forms of journalism and conversation, and local agencies that aren’t used to them.
It wasn’t too long ago that I wrote about the UK blogger who was kicked out of court and an Oregon blogger who also faced a legal threat. Get ready for more of this going forward. (In fact, I’ve decided to start a legal issues category here on Hyperlocal Blogger.)
I’m reminded of Dan Slee’s blog post from last year that talked about the relationship between local bloggers and local government. Though Dan is UK-based, what he writes rings true for local bloggers anywhere, I’d bet.
Hyperlocal News Roundup
It’s all I can do these days to keep up with the local scene around me, the SEO scene for my other blog, and all the other stuff going on. So some of the links below may well be a few weeks old (or older), but they’re still worth mentioning in this latest hyperlocal news roundup. Leave a comment if anything here catches your eye.
- Planning on a hyperlocal business plan — Jennifer Deseo writes about using an editorial planning calendar as the first step in creating a business plan for her new hyperlocal web site. Interesting idea, I say.
- ‘Citizen journalists’ shine a light on their own communities
- A local journalists Twitter guide
- 3 common challenges of local blogging — Hyperlocal Blogger reader Drew Hubbard talks about which blog platform to use, how to handle the time commitment of blogging, and where to get content ideas for your local blog
- Making a local site that can support itself
- AOL Sets Up $10 Million Venture Fund To Back Local Startups
- Face it. Hyperlocal needs Facebook — Joni Ayn asks a good question: “why are so many hyperlocal startups ignoring the behemoth of social media?” (Any readers doing much with Facebook and your hyperlocal blogs?)
- The New York Times Partners With Fwix To License Realtime Hyperlocal News Stream
- Outside.in to AOL’s Patch: Bring It On
Seattle’s Hyperlocal Scene Profiled in P-I
It’s said that Brooklyn, NY, is the capital of local blogging, but I’ll put my bets on Seattle anytime as a real leader in hyperlocal news/blogging/journalism.
The Seattle P-I has some proof in a neat profile today of seven “new media ventures” — most of which play very squarely in the hyperlocal news/blogging space. Most of them, I’ve heard of — and you probably have, too. But there are a couple I think will be new to most readers.
And whether your know theses sites or not, it’s somewhat inspiration to see how far and fast the hyperlocal news scene is moving in Seattle. Congrats to all profiled there, as well as to the many who weren’t.
(There’s some additional discussion of this on MediaGazer.)
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