Hyper-Local is The Way To Go

Nov 28, 2008 by Mark Maier

I don't know what is happening in your market with the newspaper but I am guessing you are seeing the same things we are, the paper is cutting back staff & coverage to become a more "regional newspaper" that completely ignores what is happening in the local communities.  When I read Craigslist founder Craig Newmark's comments in the Los Angeles Times called "Paper or Pixels" it brought to light an opportunity in Radio, Television and Interactive....Be Hyper-Local.....

"What people seem to want are a few sources of national news overall and then a lot of very local stuff, because now and then we do care about really big issues, and that's important, and for that reason people do want national newspapers in some form. And that's why I recently, for the first time ever, subscribed to the New York Times. If you're ever talking to Arthur Sulzberger, tell him you've heard about the mysterious Wendy who convinced me to subscribe to the Times. It's a running joke.

We also need to see the hyper-local stuff, and I think that's the way many newspapers are going to survive, because, you know, we may not care about what's happening across the country, but we may care about the guy walking his dog in a neighborhood. I guess what we care about is what's happening around us, because we all do live in neighborhoods and communities, and in our culture now, we have this Bowling Alone effect, where we do feel frequently isolated from the people around us. You know, you might live in a big building where you don't know the people around you, or if you live in a neighborhood that's more modest -- no high-rises or whatever -- you may want to get to know the people around, because we do have that need to connect. But, you know, the mechanisms for that don't really exist very well."

The old adage that the company that gets their first will be first is very true in this case.  If you do a great job of being the local property, promoting and talking about local events, news, & sports then it makes it very hard for your competititors to usurp your positon in the marketplace especially if you promote it well and become THE local source. 

To paraphrase a story that made a property; a few years ago in Kelowna, British Columbia, Castanet.net and Silk Fm were intertwined media properties and Castanet was growing but hadn't demonstrated to the community that they were indispensable.  That all changed with fires that erupted in the area that took radio and television stations off the air, people needed up to date information on the fires as they threatened homes, travel, and commerce.  The source that emerged was Castanet.net, they were the local source for information during the community crisis and emerged as the area's community news, sports, and event information leader.  A role that the others could not fill and have never usurped.

Your chance will come to create the same image, it may take several events or ongoing efforts to get there, the key is to become Hyper-local while your competitors are backing away.
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