using social media to activate local communities
Post on 12-May-2015
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CONFIDENTIAL
Using social media to activate local communitiesBrad Flora
Founder, http://windycitizen.com
CONFIDENTIAL
About Me
Founder, WindyCitizen.com Lives in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood @bradflora on Twitter College Admissions Officer -> Summer Camp
Counselor -> Journalist -> Start-up guy
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What makes something “local”?
Anything that appeals to people specifically because they share a connection to a geographic region.
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How are these communities being reached now?
Two approaches
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How are these communities being reached now?
Two approaches Editorial approach
Create content that attracts an audience, Vertical Newspaper/Magazine sites, blogs, TV, radio, newsletters
CONFIDENTIAL
How are these communities being reached now?
Two approaches Editorial approach
Create content that attracts an audience, Vertical Newspaper/Magazine sites, blogs, TV, radio, newsletters
Social approach Create a place where people can interact with each other, create their own content, Horizontal/bottom-up Yelp, LikeThis
CONFIDENTIAL
How are these communities being reached now?
Two approaches Editorial approach
Create content that attracts an audience, Vertical Newspaper/Magazine sites, blogs, TV, radio, newsletters
Social approach Create a place where people can interact with each other, create their own content, Horizontal/bottom-up Yelp, LikeThis
Trend Editorial businesses looking to go social
Huffington Post’s new Facebook page NYTimes letting you track who’s reading what, connect with other NYTimes readers
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My approach
Problem Local media fragmenting
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My approach
Problem Local media fragmenting
Chicago has 150+ sources creating local content each day
CONFIDENTIAL
My approach
Problem Local media fragmenting
Chicago has 150+ sources creating local content each day City blogs, TV networks, newspapers, magazines, local guides, flickr, yelp Reverting to situation 100 years ago
CONFIDENTIAL
My approach
Problem Local media fragmenting
Chicago has 150+ sources creating local content each day City blogs, TV networks, newspapers, magazines, local guides, flickr, yelp Reverting to situation 100 years ago
How do you find what’s hot right now and meet people who also like it?
CONFIDENTIAL
My approach
Problem Local media fragmenting
Chicago has 150+ sources creating local content each day City blogs, TV networks, newspapers, magazines, local guides, flickr, yelp Reverting to situation 100 years ago
How do you find what’s hot right now and meet people who also like it?
Windy Citizen Surface the best of Chicago, offer a central place to talk about it
CONFIDENTIAL
My approach
Problem Local media fragmenting
Chicago has 150+ sources creating local content each day City blogs, TV networks, newspapers, magazines, local guides, flickr, yelp Reverting to situation 100 years ago
How do you find what’s hot right now and meet people who also like it?
Windy Citizen Surface the best of Chicago, offer a central place to talk about it Crowd-powered city guide
CONFIDENTIAL
My approach
Problem Local media fragmenting
Chicago has 150+ sources creating local content each day City blogs, TV networks, newspapers, magazines, local guides, flickr, yelp Reverting to situation 100 years ago
How do you find what’s hot right now and meet people who also like it?
Windy Citizen Surface the best of Chicago, offer a central place to talk about it Crowd-powered city guide Launched proof-of-concept site Jan. 2009
CONFIDENTIAL
My approach
Problem Local media fragmenting
Chicago has 150+ sources creating local content each day City blogs, TV networks, newspapers, magazines, local guides, flickr, yelp Reverting to situation 100 years ago
How do you find what’s hot right now and meet people who also like it?
Windy Citizen Surface the best of Chicago, offer a central place to talk about it Crowd-powered city guide Launched proof-of-concept site Jan. 2009
3-5k uniques/day 100-150 comments/day 550-600 votes/day cast on stories and comments Sending ~2k/day visitors away to local sites Ad-supported Just received grant from Chicago Community Trust to develop real deal
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Why go after local communities?
Pros: Passionate users: People
who care, care A LOT Can leverage the power
of beer to connect with early adopters
Creating social capital, making the world better
No one’s figured it out yet
It just feels awesome
Cons: Market deceptively small Getting press coverage
works differently, if at all Won’t get you laid
(unless it’s a dating site)
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Deceptive Market Size
3 million people in a region != 3 million audience
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Deceptive Market Size
3 million people in a region != 3 million audience Local isn’t a niche, it’s a niche inside of a niche
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Deceptive Market Size
3 million people in a region != 3 million audience Local isn’t a niche, it’s a niche inside of a niche
e.g. (sports(Chicago)) or (bars(Chicago)) or (politics(Chicago)) RedEye devotes < 4 pages/day to local coverage for a reason
CONFIDENTIAL
Deceptive Market Size
3 million people in a region != 3 million audience Local isn’t a niche, it’s a niche inside of a niche
e.g. (sports(Chicago)) or (bars(Chicago)) or (politics(Chicago)) RedEye devotes < 4 pages/day to local coverage for a reason
Kevin Rose: “There’s not enough content in any one city to require a solution as drastic as crowdsourcing. The local sites do a good enough job already.”
CONFIDENTIAL
Deceptive Market Size
3 million people in a region != 3 million audience Local isn’t a niche, it’s a niche inside of a niche
e.g. (sports(Chicago)) or (bars(Chicago)) or (politics(Chicago)) RedEye devotes < 4 pages/day to local coverage for a reason
Kevin Rose: “There’s not enough content in any one city to require a solution as drastic as crowdsourcing. The local sites do a good enough job already.” Metafilter guy: Critical mass for a community= 100 active users
When your potential audience is 100,000, getting those 100 people is a lot harder than when it’s 5 million
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Media can only help so much
When you go local… Bye-bye tech blogs, reddit, Digg, other apps that announce new things
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Media can’t help you so much
When you go local… Bye-bye tech blogs, reddit, Digg, other apps that announce new things Leaves you with local media
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Media can’t help you so much
When you go local… Bye-bye tech blogs, reddit, Digg, other apps that announce new things Leaves you with local media
The “pipes” are owned by 1-2 players
CONFIDENTIAL
Media can’t help you so much
When you go local… Bye-bye tech blogs, reddit, Digg, other apps that announce new things Leaves you with local media
The “pipes” are owned by 1-2 players They’re finally realizing that every web site on the web is competition
CONFIDENTIAL
Media can’t help you so much
When you go local… Bye-bye tech blogs, reddit, Digg, other apps that announce new things Leaves you with local media
The “pipes” are owned by 1-2 players They’re finally realizing that every web site on the web is competition They’re backwards about linking out
Chicago Tribune wrote story about launch, no backlink in online article Reporters have told me they won’t cover WC since it hits too close to home
CONFIDENTIAL
Media can’t help you so much
When you go local… Bye-bye tech blogs, reddit, Digg, other apps that announce new things Leaves you with local media
The “pipes” are owned by 1-2 players They’re finally realizing that every web site on the web is competition They’re backwards about linking out
Chicago Tribune wrote story about launch, no backlink in online article Reporters have told me they won’t cover WC since it hits too close to home
Limited news budget for techie stuff
CONFIDENTIAL
Media can’t help you so much
When you go local… Bye-bye tech blogs, reddit, Digg, other apps that announce new things Leaves you with local media
The “pipes” are owned by 1-2 players They’re finally realizing that every web site on the web is competition They’re backwards about linking out
Chicago Tribune wrote story about launch, no backlink in online article Reporters have told me they won’t cover WC since it hits too close to home
Limited news budget for techie stuff Local blogs
Still too small for any 1-2 to be able to help you much
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What’s worked
Giving users ways to connect with each other
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What’s worked
Giving users ways to connect with each other Monthly meetups Focusing on making social activity easy
More important to improve commenting system than our posting process
CONFIDENTIAL
What’s worked
Giving users ways to connect with each other Monthly meetups Focusing on making social activity easy
More important to improve commenting system than our posting process Partnerships with fish too small for big fishermen
CBS2 Widget Buttons on prominent local blogs, news org sites
CONFIDENTIAL
What’s worked
Giving users ways to connect with each other Monthly meetups Focusing on making social activity easy
More important to improve commenting system than our posting process Partnerships with fish too small for big fishermen
CBS2 Widget Buttons on prominent local blogs, news org sites
Face to face meetings with users Easier to sell a vision over beer and burgers
CONFIDENTIAL
What’s worked
Giving users ways to connect with each other Monthly meetups Focusing on making social activity easy
More important to improve commenting system than our posting process Partnerships with fish too small for big fishermen
CBS2 Widget Buttons on prominent local blogs, news org sites
Face to face meetings with users Easier to sell a vision over beer and burgers
Syncing into social media Mainstream media “owns” Digg, trying to do same with Twitter, not there yet Successes:
Twitter/Facebook alerts for stories that get voted up/down Publish once on WC, push to Facebook/Twitter
CONFIDENTIAL
What’s worked
Giving users ways to connect with each other Monthly meetups Focusing on making social activity easy
More important to improve commenting system than our posting process Partnerships with fish too small for big fishermen
CBS2 Widget Buttons on prominent local blogs, news org sites
Face to face meetings with users Easier to sell a vision over beer and burgers
Syncing into social media Mainstream media “owns” Digg, trying to do same with Twitter, not there yet Successes:
Twitter/Facebook alerts for stories that get voted up/down Publish once on WC, push to Facebook/Twitter
E-mail strategy Newspapers don’t own inboxes, product can get a fair shake Thrillist, Daily Candy, Groupon have build large business just on e-mail products
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Fin.
The local web is virgin territory still waiting to be claimed
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Fin.
The local web is virgin territory still waiting to be claimed Though substantial, the territory is smaller than it looks
CONFIDENTIAL
Fin.
The local web is virgin territory still waiting to be claimed Though substantial, the territory is smaller than it looks Current media conditions make it harder to get known
CONFIDENTIAL
Fin.
The local web is virgin territory still waiting to be claimed Though substantial, the territory is smaller than it looks Existing media conditions make it difficult to get a foothold If your product has a local focus or angle, events, social media, and e-mail will do more for you than mainstream local media coverage
CONFIDENTIAL
Fin.
The local web is virgin territory still waiting to be claimed Though substantial, the territory is smaller than it looks Existing media conditions make it difficult to get a foothold If your product has a local focus or angle, events, social media, and e-mail will do more for you than mainstream local media coverage
Questions?
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