using social media to activate local communities

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Using social media to activate local communitiesBrad Flora

Founder, http://windycitizen.com

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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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Two approaches Editorial approach

Create content that attracts an audience, Vertical Newspaper/Magazine sites, blogs, TV, radio, newsletters

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Social approach Create a place where people can interact with each other, create their own content, Horizontal/bottom-up Yelp, LikeThis

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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


Chicago has 150+ sources creating local content each day

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My approach


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

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My approach



How do you find what’s hot right now and meet people who also like it?

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My approach




Windy Citizen Surface the best of Chicago, offer a central place to talk about it

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My approach




Windy Citizen Surface the best of Chicago, offer a central place to talk about it Crowd-powered city guide

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My approach




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

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My approach




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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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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e.g. (sports(Chicago)) or (bars(Chicago)) or (politics(Chicago)) RedEye devotes < 4 pages/day to local coverage for a reason

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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.”

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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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The “pipes” are owned by 1-2 players

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The “pipes” are owned by 1-2 players They’re finally realizing that every web site on the web is competition

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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

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Limited news budget for techie stuff

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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

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What’s worked


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

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What’s worked




Face to face meetings with users Easier to sell a vision over beer and burgers

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What’s worked





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

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What’s worked





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

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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 Current media conditions make it harder to get known

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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 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

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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 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?

using social media to activate local communities

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