Getting close to website readers and advertisers

Readers and advertisers have more choices online now. They're looking for conviction, not convenience. News publishers need to offer their communities more to entice them to engage, to subscribe and to advertise.

via OJR: Online Journalism Review

In the past newspapers were one of the best social networkers, bringing readers together and ensuring businesses were placed in front of local customers.

Robert Niles in his piece quoted above, Engagement is the key to winning back readers and advertisers, looks at some of the reasons why this connection has been broken.

And while Robert aims his thoughts and ideas at newspaper groups, I think much of what he writes can be used by many of the local online news services that have recently popped up.

Being involved in the comments section, working with advertisers, highlighting the smallest of groups and shining a light on the work of others will give local sites a competitive advantage over the websites published by larger newspaper groups.

This is because the people behind many of the local websites are living in the area already and have friends and contacts which they have a strong connection with.

Many site owners are there for the long term as well, the staff turnover levels in newspapers offices would make you dizzy, so again this advantage can enable a presence to be built up.

If your site becomes the place that helps people with their questions, enables them to grow their business and makes readers feel they are part of a community both online and off then your own work will be spread far and wide.

Comments

[Ed Walker]

Good post Craig and very true. Someone who is involved and engaged in the community is always going to have a better shot than someone who is just driving by for a few months.

If you take a look at Llandaff News, a local site covering a small area of Cardiff, it does some great stuff covering things like coffee mornings (see: http://www.llandaffnews.com/2010/11/16/llandaff-nspcc-packs-parish-hall-for-coffee-morning/).

These would never be sustainable for a reporter from a 'big media' operation to go to, let alone a photographer. It might get into the news in brief or what's on section, but that'd be it, unless it had a major celeb coming to it.