How do you define Hyperlocal?
by Matt on Oct 12, 2009 in Industry
I’m curious to learn your definition of “hyperlocal.” When does a web site or blog qualify for the name? How wide/small of an area can a hyperlocal blog/site cover? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, please.
October 12, 2009 | Filed Under Industry
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16 Responses to “How do you define Hyperlocal?”
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I would call the site I run hyperlocal and it covers a Seattle suburb of 20,000 people. I’ve heard some people say it really only applies to the neighborhood level, which may be true in a larger city.
I have an unique situation. I’m not sure that my blog classes as a “hyperlocal”, maybe just local. It is the only town within 1000 miles and only has a population of 18,000.
Because of the size and location I am interested in reading others opinions of what hyperlocal is.
Hyper-local, in terms of a website, covers a particularly small area, no more than one city.
If the city you cover is huge or segmented (i.e. Chicago, New York City, or LA), then the “Hyper-Local” term would apply to a specific segment or area of the city (i.e. in Chicago, your site would focus heavily on the North or South Side).
Hyper-Local in a topical sense does cover a majority of geo-local news for the area, but can also cover broader, far-reaching topics, that are tied in to the local.
I don’t know that the area served has to be small for a site to be hyperlocal. I think it’s more important what content is served up vs. what area is being served.
I’d determine a site or post as hyperlocal when it covers a particular topic in greater detail then anyone else does.
For me, hyperlocal earns the designation because the product or service is not generally delivered over the normally defined “market area” – it is a subset of the whole market area.
After that, how large that “hyper-local” area is will be unique to each service or product, driven by the consumer’s distance tolerance, which I think is driven by level of competition and brand differentiation. Hyperlocal to a grocery store will probably look different than a department store.
Grocery store shoppers define that area as fairly small, generally large enough to include 3-5 stores in a 2-5 mile radius. That gives them sufficient diversity to meet their needs. No improvement is made in competitiveness or variety by casting the net wider. To incorporate the same level of satisfaction for competitiveness and variety for department stores, they are likely to have to cast the net wider, maybe 5-7 stores in a 5-15 mile radius.
It feels like the size of the hyperlocal market is the result of a consumer’s cost/benefit assessment (neuro-economic) that varies by service and product. A site or blog would qualify if it’s message seeks to satisfy those issues of proximity and convenience within this newly-defined market area.
I think it’s really difficult to pin point a specific size to be considered hyper local, because a square mile in New York, NY, could contain a million people, but a square mile in rural montana, maybe 5 to 20,000 people. If you specifically blog about one location that would be hyper local to me.
I think my blog about my town of Florence, SC is a hyperlocal blog. I think neighborhood blogs are hyperlocal, and any blog dedicated to something in one town or city (Midtown lunch for example).
I run two hyperlocal blogs, and I class them as hyperlocal as they each cover small rural towns in North-West England. The print newspapers for these two towns tend to feature news from neighbouring villages – something I try to avoid unless it’s really relevant to the town, so hopefully the sites appeal to those who want to get straight to the stuff that affects/interests them most. I would say English cities need to be broken down into postcode areas for example, to really be ‘hyper’ local.
I don’t think there’s a way to put a physical size definition for hyperlocal – but rather its more about a locale that generates enough interest among people who live, work or spend time in that area.
As long as there is a community (interests, content, advertisers, etc.), there is a hyperlocal area.
If I hear a weird sound at night, and in the morning there’s a post on a blog explaining it (gunshots? car crash? thunder? raccoons knocking boots?), that’s my kinda hyperlocal.
Thanks for the great comments, gang. Interesting thoughts so far. I’ll follow-up with another post on this topic soon…
I don’t get too hung up on the term ‘hyper-local’. I think we can get confused by buzzwords.
But what I do know is that I run a website (http://www.blogpreston.co.uk) that covers Preston, Lancashire – and roughly 120,000 people live in Preston and its surrounding areas.
There are blogs underneath me that cover specific areas of Preston (http://www.ashtononribble.com), so I guess if I was ‘hyperlocal’ they are ‘microlocal’?
Then it goes down a stage further to undefined council areas/street level areas of Preston e.g. Broadgate (http://broadgateisgreat.blogspot.com/) – Broadgate is a road, but also includes the surrounding roads as locals refer to the ‘Broadgate area’.
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For my website “hyperlocal” is anywhere you can easily travel by foot, bike or a car on only a few dollars of gas. So maybe a radius of 10 to 20 miles. In the country that may cover only a couple thousand people, in the city it could cover 100,000 people.
As oil gets more expensive the hyperlocal radius shrinks.
I posted this on your more recent post on the subject, but I wanted to make sure to share this here:
I think there’s some real merit in the distinction between hyperlocal and local. I covered this very topic back in September: http://christopherwink.com/2009/09/29/hyperlocal-news-a-definition/
[...] : Ma démarche est largement inspirée de celle de Matt McGee il y a quelques semaines dont on retrouve le bilan sur son blog. Une vision anglo-saxonne à laquelle il serait intéressant [...]