Using Facebook to Promote a Local Blog
[Ed. note: While I've written briefly on Facebook as a marketing tool in the past, I don't have any specific experience using Facebook ads. I've asked Geordie Romer to write up some of his thoughts on using Facebook ads and Facebook's other promotional opportunities for local bloggers.]
(This is a guest post from Geordie Romer, a real estate agent in Leavenworth WA. You can find his writing on his Leavenworth Real Estate blog and, if you “like,” you can join his fans on Facebook.)
Matt asked if I would write a guest post about how I use Facebook in my business. I don’t profess to be a Facebook expert and certainly not a guru. I’m just small business owner trying to find my way in the world. (I’m a real estate agent in a vacation destination with a population of about 7,000.)
With that caveat in mind:
1. Create a page.
Lots of other folks have written great guides on the how and the why of creating a separate page for your business or blog. If you are a real pro, you should have a dedicated “landing page” or welcome tab instead of sending everyone to your wall. I’ll admit to not being there quite yet.
There are a lot of great articles about creating a fan page. Smashing Magazine published one of the most comprehensive.
2. PPC fan ads
If I had known I was going to write a blog post about my experiment, I would have taken better notes. Luckily, Facebook does a pretty good job of keeping records for me on my “Insights” page.
On June 7th, we had 30 total “likes” or fans. A month later, we had 40. Apparently we were doing something right since we had organic growth.
On July 11th, I started my experiment with Facebook ads. I had done some advertising earlier with Facebook, but not much for the fan page. I set my budget for $3.00 a day and up to $1 per click.
Though I’d love to have thousands of fans, I’d rather have past clients, future clients, and readers of my blog. I set my Facebook ads to reach a very specific demographic.
- Over 30 years old
- Lives in Washington State
- Who are not already fans…
- But… who have friends who ARE fans
I think this last criterion is critical. Friends of friends are a great target audience. You don’t need to target income, education, ZIP codes or religion. We all tend to like people who like the same things we like.
Facebook doesn’t give you much room to work with when creating an ad, but here’s what worked for us.
My partner Allyson and I have stronger “personal brands” than our website. We took advantage of our personal name recognition in these ads.
So, is it working?
I have been pleased with the steady growth that advertising has helped with. As of August 9, we’re up to 103 fans. (And only 35 of those fans are Facebook friends of mine.)
(click for larger version)
We have had 168 clicks, but we’re only paying $0.51 per average click for a total of $86. Let’s assume that 10 of these new fans are organic and not PPC generated. The average fan only cost $1.62.
I was curious what $100 would buy me. I’ve been happy to see very measurable results.
Other Tools
1.) It’s now possible to have Facebook “Like” buttons for blog posts. If a reader likes a particular article and decides to “like” it, the link can appear on their Facebook wall and is shared with their friends. For Wordpress users, here is a free plug-in from the folks at Homequest.
2.) Since email is so ubiquitous, it seems silly not to have a link to your fanpage from your email signature. I use an image provided by Facebook – it seems so much cooler to click on a button than a url.
3.) It makes sense that you might tell your blog readers about your Facebook page too. Certainly a post inviting them to join you on Facebook isn’t a bad idea. Facebook has created “badges” for you to place on your blog which link back to your fan page. They show how many fans you have and also a snippet of your most recent activity.
I use one that fits nicely in my sidebar without being too distracting.
How are you using Facebook with your hyperlocal blog? Are you driving traffic to your blog from Facebook or are you turning loyal readers into Facebook fans?
10 Qualities Great Hyperlocal Bloggers Have in Common
(This is a guest post from Esther Brown, who serves as the Community Manager at Outside.in, where she has the pleasure of interviewing hyperlocal bloggers for the company’s weekly ‘Bloggers We Love’ series. She can be reached at esther@outside.in or via Twitter: @outsidein or @estheribrown.)
When Matt suggested I write a guest post about “What Great Hyperlocal Bloggers Have in Common,” I was psyched: it’s always a pleasure to introduce a new audience to the amazing hyperlocal bloggers I get to interview each week for Outside.in’s ‘Bloggers We Love,’ series.
I was also stumped: I’ve interviewed bloggers from big cities and smaller towns and everywhere in between. They blog about everything from fashion to photography to politics, and each of them has a singular personality that shines through their online presence. To me, every single one of the ‘Bloggers We Love’ is unique: what could they have in common (beyond the obvious: they’re bloggers who’d love to have more hours in the day)? I began poring over my interview archives for commonalities, and I realized that it’s not all about what they do or where they come from, but rather it’s about who they are as people and how they choose to conduct themselves. They may be unique, but each of these dynamic characters share important character traits—and, while there are surely great hyperlocal bloggers who don’t exhibit one or more of these qualities, I’ve yet to meet one.
This one’s for all the hyperlocal bloggers out there who’ve demonstrated their greatness by showing us that…
10. They’re passionate. Tremendously passionate — they care deeply about their town, their subject matter and their readership. They value their community and respect it. They channel their passion into their blog, their personal relationships and all of their other, varied interests. Take Tasha Ball, for example, who’s fervent — evangelical, even — in her love for her hometown of Tulsa, OK. You can’t fake that kind of passion.
9. They’re dedicated. The hyperlocal bloggers I’ve come to know and love log some serious hours in the name of blogging — like Steve Sherron of the Monroe Scoop, who’ll spend hours editing video footage to get it just right. They’re hustlers: whether they’re blogging, organizing, hosting and attending events, Tweeting, posting updates to Facebook, adding photos to Flickr, you name it — they blog HARD.
8. They’re generous. They make a practice out of living generously, both online and off. They share the wealth when it comes to utilizing the social capital or publicity that their blog generates (like Jill Harrison of For the Love of Brooklyn who invites readers to contribute their photography to her site). They also share of themselves and their time, and they support and promote other bloggers by commenting on their blog posts, inviting them to guest post on their own blogs and tweeting about them.
7. They’re innovative. They’re always willing to try new things and step outside of their comfort zones. They like to pioneer new ways of doing things. Take Tessa Horehled of Atlanta’s Drive a Faster Car: for her, hyperlocal blogging meant skipping college and putting her career on the fast track. Creating your own possibilities in life? That’s innovative.
6. They’re omnipresent. They know how important it is to step away from the computer and get out from behind the keyboard. They don’t hide behind the anonymity that the Internet offers — rather, they use their blog and their online presence to build community and foster connections between people and things that matter to them. They understand the importance of networking and work to forge meaningful partnerships, both online and off. Like Christy Frink and Morgan Levy of Nashvillest, they’re accessible to their community, responding actively to their readers’ comments and interacting with them at local events.
5. They’re students. Top-notch hyperlocal bloggers —- like Liz Stambaugh of What’s to Eat, Baltimore? —- know that there’s always something else to learn, and they embrace this fact by constantly seeking out knowledge from their peers and mentors. They also don’t take themselves too seriously, and they ask for help when they need it.
4. They’re do-ers. They make things happen, get stuff done, execute -— like Jay Sears of My Rye, who rallied his community to secure a 4-way stop sign for his neighborhood. No matter what you call it, the fact is that great hyperlocal bloggers are the kinds of people you want on your team.
3. They’re fearless. They aren’t afraid to make a splash or write something that might raise a few eyebrows. Take Steve Shanafelt and the team at Spartanburg Spark: they ignited controversy by coming out against allowing concealed weapons on school property in their South Carolina city. Shanafelt and his team show us that hyperlocal bloggers worth their salt are willing to take a stand about the things that matter to them.
2. They’re valuable. Dana Freeman of Find and Go Seek in Burlington, Vermont, started her blog after realizing that there was a real dearth of family-friendly information available to parents in her area. The best hyperlocal bloggers listen to their community, pay attention to what it wants and needs, and provide content that fills the void.
1. They’re resilient. The most impressive hyperlocal bloggers I’ve gotten to know have responded to the challenges that they’ve encountered with ingenuity, bravery and aplomb. Take Corey Jackson of Downtown Lynn, for instance: when a local paper turned down his advertising dollars, he turned things around by getting others to write about the snub — and his traffic went through the roof.
Are there other qualities you think a great hyperlocal blogger should possess? Or, do you have suggestions for someone Outside.in should profile for our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.
Own Your Neighborhood, Keep the Big Boys Away
(This is a guest post from Adam Shapiro, who first got the hyperlocal bug working for Neighborhood News 12 in 1999, and is now heading up hyperlocal efforts for Zebek. Adam is a “recovering” television newscast producer who also consults for Spyderlynk and Ripfone, and can be reached at adamjshapiro21@yahoo.com.)
It all seems so obvious now…
… Friendster? “Like someone can do social networking better than us.”
… WebCrawler? “What’s a Google, anyway?”
… CompuServe. “We can auction off Sony Walkmans online. Who’s gonna top that?”
As crazy at it sounds, there was a time when those brands owned digital verticals that are now billion dollar categories. Then, as you’d expect, competitors followed and the territory that was once theirs… was gone.
The New Competition
Now there’s a new threat out there specifically targeting the neighborhoods our hyperlocal bloggers own: The Big Boys.
You know who I mean: AOL, Google, etc., there’s even a rumor Yahoo! is entering the fray. They’re all coming after your neighborhoods aggressively and from different angles. We’ve seen big corporations try to build “community” before and fail, and personally I think the odds are against them again here.
But you can never sit back and rely on that. Instead, now’s the time to retrench and take ownership of your neighborhoods as much as you can. In this sense, competition is good – it forces you to innovate and maybe even make money in the process. But the goal is to avoid saying one day: “Wow, we had it… and we lost it.”
Yes, it’s easier said than done. Few hyperlocal publishers have multi-million dollar marketing budgets and hundreds of employees at their fingertips (if you do, you’re probably on the wrong site). But I would argue that you have something more valuable – you know your communities better than they do and because of that you have more valuable content.
How Do You Leverage Being Small?
You find ways to take advantage of today’s innovation to further engage and entrench your communities. In the process you will no doubt find way to increase your revenue, a portion of which you can reinvest in your business.
However, theory is one thing… practicality another. So how do you specifically do it?
First off, every hour you spend creating content should be complemented by another hour working on your strategy and business plan. It sounds like a lot, and many of you have other jobs to think about too, but a focus on building the business (community and revenue) is more of a priority now than ever before.
Second, investigate the new digital technologies that come across your desk. It’s often as simple as plugging in a URL or picking up the phone. Every time Matt writes about a tool like Rusty Budget, Fwix or Woo Themes, see if the tools are right for you.
One thing to always keep in mind is that where there is an audience, there are many ways to drive revenue without sacrificing the quality of the experience you provide. The value is in the superior targeting you deliver every day. For example, often a business that’s in your coverage area will pay to sponsor your content, e.g. perhaps a local car insurer would own your Radio Reference feed. It’s targeting for them… and delivering content your advertisers want to put their name on.
What About Mobile?
Many believe that it’s the Holy Grail of hyperlocal, so consider investigating things like the SeattleCrime iPhone app. Could you do the same?
Perhaps the new video capabilities of the iPhone can help you create a video news element to your blog, as an easy way to improve CPM rates.
Here’s the good news: this research won’t take as long as you think. I know that because I’m living it. In interest of full disclosure, I work with a company that’s in the process of rolling out free iPhone, Blackberry and Android apps for more than 20 local blogs in early July (including notables like Baristanet, Maplewood Online, MyRye.com, Brooklynian, and BococaLand). We’re partnering to together figure out innovative and engaging tools for their content, while developing new revenue streams. We’re now in midst of finding our next wave of partners.
We’re excited to see how our collective efforts pan out – all of our partners agree that there’s a larger community to be had and, importantly, money to be made out there. Crazy at it sounds, our success might help them take that long-overdue vacation, but perhaps more importantly, allow them to reinvest in their brand.
The reality is… if not now, then when? The clock is ticking for all of us, before those Big Boys come knocking.
What Happens To Your Blog If You Move Away?
(This is a guest post from Ed Walker, a journalist with Media Wales in Cardiff, Wales, UK who setup and still runs the community news site, Blog Preston, for Preston, Lancashire, UK.)
Hyperlocal blogs are all about location and are generally run by people who live in the area they seek to serve. But what happens when you’ve built up a local blog and move away from the area?
I don’t think many of us would stay in an area just to keep up a local blog. We have relationships, job opportunities or other reasons for moving to pastures new. Building up a hyperlocal site takes time and dedication; you build a community around your content and, to a certain extent, yourself, but what if you’re not there?
I started up Blog Preston to act as a hub of community news, views and information in January 2009 for Preston, Lancashire, UK. I’d had the idea for a while but finally sat down one cold Sunday afternoon and got it started.
In November of 2009 I was offered a job in a different part of the country, and being 23, ambitious and wanting to further my career, I had to take it. But what about the hyperlocal site I’d created and had decent traffic coming to? It seemed such a shame to let it become tumbleweed in a Google search.
Throughout the time of Blog Preston I’d always been keen on getting guest contributors and giving them the chance to air their views about local issues. So, I turned to the community I’d built up to find someone who could take on the day-to-day running of the site.
Step forward the lovely Lisa who took on the task of filling the blog with content. She brought a whole new perspective to the role as I moved to Cardiff, but I still kept in touch and kept a watchful eye behind the scenes on how the site was doing.
I found myself impressed by the content Lisa was producing and the different angle and direction she was taking. As a parent and living in a different part of Preston she had a different take on things. And this was good. It brought a new direction and energy to the site, not to mention a new audience.
However, after five great months she had a change in circumstances and couldn’t commit the time to continue with the site. I spent a few weeks wondering what to do with Blog Preston. I’d tried with someone else and found myself back again without anyone to manage the site. Should I just give up and accept it wouldn’t be kept going?
Enter Andy Halls and Joseph Stashko, two budding student journalists at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston. I studied there myself and had come into contact with Andy and Jo after they wanted to setup a hyperlocal site called MyPreston. I gambled: I offered them the chance to join forces – using the established name of Blog Preston – and in return they would take over editorial of the site.
It’s been a hit. With more people on board we’re able to produce more content, and their fantastic live blogging of the general and local election results in Preston brought us national praise. Having them running the show frees me up to focus on long-term opportunities and the potential to monetise the site. I’ve always been able to spend time working with my web designer friend to improve the look of the site.
But, I come back to that winter’s day in January 2009 when I set up that site. Often hyperlocal sites are a one-person band, but keep an eye on what you’re going to do in the future. Who would run your site while you went on holiday? What if you had to move away? Once you have a successful site, people start to expect content and you will feel like you have a duty to keep going. Make sure you’ve got a plan for your hyperlocal sites in the future – even if you’re not around.
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.
Hyperlocal Sports: Tapping Into Hometown Passion
(This is a guest post by David Brazeal. By day, as director of Learfield InterAction, David helps organizations figure out how social media fits into their marketing plans. By night, he produces RepublicTigerSports.com, a hyperlocal sports site focused on his hometown Republic Tigers in southwest Missouri.)
About six months ago, I decided to start a new hobby. I’ve always been a sports fan. I used to do a little sportscasting on a small radio station. And my Friday nights were free.
So I started a Wordpress website, RepublicTigerSports.com, to keep track of the local high school football team. I hoped to stream some play-by-play of the football games, get a few friends to listen, and maybe snag a sponsor or two.
But coaches and parents for every sport — football, softball, volleyball, etc. — jumped on the idea. They started sending me scores and stats and photos, even when I wasn’t at their games. They spread the word among their friends and relatives. Soon, people knew they could get up-to-the minute scores and in-depth game summaries from the website, instead of waiting until the next day or the next week.
I used my iPhone to record video, and uploaded highlights while the game was still happening. I posted quick status updates to Twitter. I over-delivered for what a community this size expects for its local sports media coverage. And the community embraced it.
I should say that there are lots of places to find information on high school sports in this area. The Springfield News-Leader covers all of southwest Missouri. The Republic Monitor has excellent weekly coverage (and their sports reporter has been great to work with). A recently launched website covers high school sports for al of southwest Missouri. And yet another sports reporter has started a site that is focused on the Central Ozark Conference, the league in which Republic competes.
But I think a few key ingredients differentiate RepublicTigerSports.com from those outlets.
1. Over-kill
Six months ago, the Republic Tigers got occasional coverage in the Springfield News-Leader, weekly coverage in the Republic Monitor, and sporadic mention on one of the local TV stations. Now, local fans can get real-time scores, video highlights, audio play-by-play, mobile phone updates, high-quality photos, and more. It seems ridiculous, really — but it’s not that hard to do, if you get creative with some free online tools.
2. Hyper-hyperlocal
Even the weekly Republic Monitor must cover sports in some nearby smaller towns. It’s the nature of the newspaper business that they need to sell copies in those other communities. I had the luxury of building an audience from scratch. If it doesn’t happen in Republic, I don’t cover it. If it’s not sports, I don’t cover it. Focusing so narrowly has helped me tap into the passion of the community in a way that a regional site can’t. And it opens the door for a great fit with local business sponsors, some of whom have already signed up.
3. Free stuff
I wanted to give something to the community, because this is my hometown. And because this is a hobby, I haven’t felt like I need to monetize every single thing. If I snap a good action shot, I post it to Flickr and tell the player’s parents how to download the full-size photo, put it on a thumb drive, and take it to Wal-Mart to print it. If I get a video or play-by-play highlight, I email it around. I’ve given stuff away at every opportunity.
4. Social media
On a lark, I started a Facebook fan page for the site and emailed a few friends. Within a few weeks, it had several hundred fans. Now, that number is around 1,000. In a town of 14,000, that’s not too shabby.
In fact, the Facebook page is now the primary place where people see and interact with the content. Interaction with my audience on Facebook is off the charts. I get way more feedback on the Facebook page than on the website itself. And Facebook allows me to deliver updates right into the news feeds of fans, instead of waiting for them to come to the website.
I don’t know where this site is headed. But less than a year in, it’s far more popular than I expected. And I built it with a Wordpress theme, an iPhone, a Facebook fan page, and a few free social media tools. I have a few generous sponsors who helped me buy a nice camera and pay for some bandwidth. And I’ll have enough left over for a gadget or two. All without really putting much effort into selling the site.
But the most important ingredient has been the passion of the community for local sports. Tapping into that community passion makes hyper-local sports a major opportunity for people who are willing to put in a little work and be creative.
If you have questions about how it’s worked in Republic, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at david@republictigersports.com.
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