Matt McGee’s Secret Hyperlocal Blogging Formula

I found Matt in November of 2008. I wasn’t searching for Matt but I found him. I was searching for something however. Sometimes you have to face the bitter truth and be honest with yourself. I was experiencing one of those moments at the end of last year. It was a very hard pill to swallow for me personally. 3 years of hard, passionate work and a lot of hard earned money was apparently headed for the drain. It’s a pretty sinking feeling when one makes the decision to be honest with yourself. For a lot of us, being true to ones own self is the hardest because we are the last person we want to deal with.

I had spent the last 3 years in real estate development and poured my life into it. It all started in 2004 when I purchased land on the coast. I took early retirement from a corporate job in 2006 to devote myself to it full time. The economy is booming and you actually have to try and fail. Can’t possibly lose. By the end of 2008 the economy is in shambles and I’m sitting on beautiful property in coastal NC and there is not a buyer in sight.

That’s when I found Matt McGee from Hyperlocalblogger.com. I’m just like you and the zillion others on the internet who dreamed of making a living online. Working from home. Work in your pajamas. Watch the money roll in. Yea that’s right, I’m no different than all the others. I thought that was a pretty cool gig if you could get it. I started searching for ways to make an impact on the internet. Even if it was a small impact, I wanted to carve out my little piece that I could be proud of. I wrote about my start in hyperlocal blogging more extensively in one of my first articles here on Bloggerlens.

I kept discovering that one of the newest trends emerging online was hyperlocal blogging for your community or neighborhood or city. So many newspapers were starting to bite the dust and there were voids being created that needed to be filled. Guess what, these voids were being filled by regular everyday people who didn’t have journalism degrees. These voids were being filled by people who weren’t former TV or Radio personalities. These voids were being filled by housewives, mechanics and anyone who had a desire to spread the word about your local community. Matt McGee was writing all about it and I found him.

I consider hyperlocalblogger.com the first stop you must make if you are considering going hyperlocal. Matt’s been blogging for around 5 years and Matt’s been writing on hyperlocalblogger since August of 2008. His first post was a video blog entry.

One of the reasons Matt launched hyperlocalblogger was due to the fact that he and his wife, Cari, were launching 4 hyperlocal blogs in the area he lives in. Yes, I did say 4 blogs. That is a tremendous challenge that Matt & Cari took on.

Matt freely shares his knowledge and encourages his readers to do the same. Like Matt said in his video, there are not many centralized locations on the internet that aggregates information on Hyperlocal Blogging. Matt fills a need for all of us out here trying to figure this out. After reading everything that Matt had written I made the decision to go hyperlocal in Monroe, N.C., my hometown.

One of my favorite articles on Hyperlocal Blogger is Marketing a hyperlocal blog. This article, in my opinion, summarizes the art of hyperlocal. I believe this article holds the secret to being a successful citizen journalist. Whether Matt realizes it or not, he reveals the simple secret that will make you successful. The article is simple but is the crucial element to success. “Marketing your blog”. Matt reveals the secret in one article and a 43 second video. Here is the video. Before you watch the video, let me tell you this. It’s a simple video with little to no editing. Shot with a hand held video camera from a distance. The audio is not that great either. What you must understand though, is that the secret is revealed in just 43 seconds. Watch the video now.

I want you to visit his article but I will briefly outline the secret steps that Matt understands, I’m beginning to understand as I go along and you should learn as Hyperlocal 101. Matt shot the video above of a top prospect for the Colorado Rockies. After a Google search he sent the link to many Colorado Rockies baseball bloggers. The video and article was picked up and linked to by many blogs. Matt received good quality traffic. Case closed, move on to next article.

Matt’s Secret Formula…don’t tell anyone.

Write a unique story or shoot a simple video
Post it or upload it.
Market your work! Don’t sit on your rear end and wait for traffic. Did you write or video your Mayor? Write him and the entire City Council. Spread the word.
Rinse & Repeat.

There you go, I just revealed the Matt McGee Secret Hyperlocal Blogging Formula.

If you are considering starting a Hyperlocal Blog, your first stop should be to Matt McGee’s hyperlocalblogger.com.

Matt is a great person to follow on Twitter. @mattmcgee

Matt also writes an awesome blog about Small Business Search Marketing.

Matt is also a huge U2 fan and has authority blogs on the Band. http://www.u2diary.com and also http://www.atu2blog.com

Matt McGee

May 21, 2009 at 4:33 pm

I so don’t deserve all this attention, Steve – but thanks. I’m honored that something I’m posting is helping you and perhaps others. Very cool. Thank you.

May 21, 2009 at 11:33 am

David Mihm

May 21, 2009 at 11:51 pm

LOL Matt, how much did you pay Steve to write this? Seriously, it does boil down the essence of success in HyperLocal. Cover interesting stories that no one else is and don’t forget to “spread the word.”

May 21, 2009 at 6:51 pm

Allyn

May 23, 2009 at 12:14 pm

Great stuff. I can see that with a hyper local blog, you could really do just about anything. Whereas in my business model, I have to keep on an extremely tight niche in order to preserve my traffic.
With the local blogs, pretty much anyone in the geography is your target and you would have to spread out: sports, news, features, etc.
Hey, just like a newspaper! LOL
AL

May 23, 2009 at 7:14 am