Hyperlocal Blogs, Journalism & News Gathering, The Basics

Social Media and your local community
Let’s say that you have decided to play a much bigger Social Media role in your community and decide to build a hyperlocal community website. First of all, let me congratulate you on your decision. It’s a very rewarding endeavor. Let’s assume that today you are starting your hyperlocal blogging efforts from scratch.

How to get stories for your hyperlocal website
In essence, you will become a “beat reporter” for your community. I want to share a very basic concept to help you get started. I do this almost every day. When you go hyperlocal, you will find yourself searching every possible avenue for stories, events and news in your community. It almost becomes an obsession. It’s a lot of fun and I equate it with being an investigative reporter. The cool thing is that it’s actually very easy and the stories and articles for your hyperlocal blog are right in front of you every day.

The very first thing I want you to do is to buy a small digital recorder. You can easily find one for around $30 at your local office supply store. For a few extra bucks, I might recommend grabbing a model that you can download your audio notes to your PC and store them in a folder. After you buy this little digital assistant of yours, I want you to put it in your car. Your recorder needs to find a home in the vehicle you drive the most. If it’s not there, when you need it the most, it will not do you any good.

Basic Hyperlocal Journalism
Here’s where we go basic. As you normally ride around town, I want you to pay very special notice to every sign posted on every telephone pole you pass. I want you to pay special attention to all of those vinyl banners to see in front of schools and community colleges and churches. With recorder in hand, speak your notes about the event as you pass. It’s a good idea to speak a telephone number first if it’s listed and then make a note of the event. If you don’t get it all, get it on your trip back home.

When you see signs and banners, you already see that these folks are seeking publicity for their cause or event. Make the call from your voice recorder notes and almost 100% of the time they will be very excited that you called and offer you a ton of information about the event that will make a great story for your hyperlocal blog. Many times they will share additional stories about future events. Before you get off the phone, you will have a ton of information, a new friend and also a new Ambassador for your website. When you publish your article guess who is going to send the link to everyone they know? Watch your visitor stats after doing this and watch your traffic grow.

SEO Benefit
There is an additional SEO benefit to hyperlocal blogs when you follow these steps. When your new contact shares information about a future event or news story, it’s like a gift from Google. It’s your responsibility to get the jump on everyone else by writing and building a link or two to your article. As the time draws near to the event, many people will perform searches in your community about the event or story. Guess what they will find? That’s right, they will find your article sitting at #1 because you were proactive, got indexed early and you easily outrank all others for the search.

This is possibly the easiest way to find stories and news in your community. You will be surprised at the stories you may actually find when covering a beat. A sign on a pole is Advertising 101. If you keep a sharp eye and a recorder handy, I promise you will have more stories to publish than you ever thought possible. You can become a powerful media source in your community in a short time. Practice the basics of hyperlocal journalism and build your community around it.

2010 EchelonMedia.com

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