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Marketing Tips For Your Hyperlocal Blog

Steve Sherron — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:36:10 +0000

Stats, stats, stats. Most bloggers are obsessed with their individual blog stats. Market your blog and the stats will come. That sounds very similar to Kevin Costner in Field Of Dreams. “Build it and they will come”. I enjoy seeing my stats move in a positive way but I have not reached the point of obsession yet. When I began my journey as a hyperlocal blogger, I tried to train myself that this is a long road to travel. I didn’t want to get caught up in the day-to-day web traffic and possibly get discouraged by some stupid numbers. Notice I called them “stupid numbers”. This is partly how I was trying to trick myself.

Of course we all know the stat numbers are not stupid but very important to our efforts. I also think that the numbers can be your worst enemy if you let them. I have a strong feeling that many bloggers burn out just before they are ready for take-off because they concentrated on their numbers more than their content and long range goals.

Do any of you ride motorcycles? I rode years ago and before I just jumped on a bike, I attended a safety course at the local Harley Davidson dealership. It was a 3 day course and everyone was treated as if it was the first time you had ever touched a bike. I attended the course because I wanted to survive. I wanted to last a long time. I wanted to learn the tips and tricks that would allow my children to continue to have a father, even though Dad may be going through a little phase in his life.

One of the things they teach you is when entering a curve in the road, is to look ahead and pick a spot ahead of you in the curve in which you want to arrive. Never look just before you in front of your tire. Bad things can happen if you do. If you pick a spot ahead you are more likely to arrive safely. If you are obsessed with your stats on a daily basis, you may not arrive at your destination ahead of you.

Marketing your blog and your stats go hand in hand. Believe me, I see the fruits of my marketing efforts in my stats. My hyperlocal site, Monroe Scoop, is just over 5 months old now and I’m pretty happy with the progress of the site. There is so much more to do however. There are things that need to be done that I’m not even aware of. There is not a repository of information out there that gives me the step by step guide on what I need to do and when I need to do it. If you go hyperlocal, you are pretty much breaking new ground in your community and it’s trial and error for the most part.

Here are some of my recommendations to you to market your hyperlocal blog.

Business cards. Simple but effective. Make your site name large on the front of the card. Name, phone number and e-mail address. Leave cards everywhere. Bulletin boards, at the table when you leave a tip. When you go out, put a few in your front pocket and freely give them away to everyone.

Get an e-mail address with the same domain as your hyperlocal site. To me nothing looks worse than having a hyperlocal site called bishopvilleblog.com and having an e-mail address with something like rocket44774@gmail.com. You should present a professional e-mail that matches your domain. steve@bishopvilleblog.com or editor@bishopvilleblog.com is much more professional.

Hyperlocal blogs are about people. Local people. Local people love to see their names in newspapers, web sites and videos. Make a point to always mention names in photos, videos and articles. This is great marketing because when you do, they send out the link to everyone they know. Your traffic increases and you expose more people to your site. Whenever I mention someone in one of my articles, I make an effort to contact the individual. Let’s say I know a name and I know where they work but that’s all. I call their place of work and ask for the individual. If I cannot speak to them, I leave a voice mail. This especially works for local politicians who attend local events shaking hands. I may be there shooting video, but do not get a chance to speak with them. You can bet that they will appear in my video when I edit. I then call their office and give them a link. They love it and will usually e-mail or call back and thank you for the publicity.

When I show up at a local event with my video camera, I always wear my monroescoop.com shirt. Many people come up to me and ask me about the site and what I’m doing. I’m treated as if I’m with the Press Corp, and I guess I am, although it still feels weird being treated that way. However, it’s very cool.

Early on, whenever you publish an article, e-mail it to all of your friends on your personal e-mail contact list. Write a very brief summary of your article and post the link. Ask everyone if they would please forward your e-mail to their friends. At the bottom of your e-mail, ask your friends if they have ideas for articles. Try to make them a part of what you are doing. There have been psychological studies that have determined that someone needs to see something so many times before it sinks into memory. I think the number is 13 if I remember correctly. Keep sending those e-mail alerts to your friends until you are sure your site has sunk into their memory.

Contact every non-profit organization that you can think of in your community and offer free press release publishing on your site. If you see an article published online from your local newspaper or online from another site, republish the information on your site. Give credit to your source and then contact the group to let them know you have published their article on your new site. I promise they will appreciate it. Ask them to add you to their e-mail list for press releases. When you receive a press release, publish it quickly and let them know. Almost every organization in your community is starving for publicity. Your local newspaper does not always publish articles they deem not newsworthy. Let these organizations know that you are the “go to” source for publicity. They will love you.

Did you go into a local merchant in your community and receive great customer service? If so, let you community know about it. This is a no-brainer for your site and I promise you will receive traffic from it. The people in your community want to know the good merchants in your community where they can receive good service and fair prices. When you publish a hyperlocal blog, you are in charge of a powerful public platform that can influence the decisions of others. A while back, I needed a tire for my wife’s car. I went in search of a new tire at a local tire store. I received such good service that I offered to do a free story on my site highlighting the Tire Store. I asked the manager if he would mind. He loved the idea. I had a camera in the car and took a few shots. He even gathered his work crew and posed for a group picture. I found a hyperlocal story in my normal day-to-day activity. The story has sent me a lot of traffic. I’m sure it has sent him some business. If you would like to read the story, here is the link to the Tire Town on Monroe Scoop. Articles and marketing for your hyperlocal blog are all around you everyday. Never leave home without a camera! This merchant will hear from me again and I will give him an opportunity to be an advertiser on the site. I’ve already laid the groundwork.

Twitter. I will usually send out a Twitter message to my followers after I publish an article. I will stress this, don’t overdo it though. If I have an interesting article or new video posted I may send out a Tweet in the morning and one in the afternoon. Don’t be boring though. Send a message such as, “Police shut down school in Monroe, NC after phone threats. Here is the only known video of the lockdown”. That will get you traffic from your followers and others. Notice I put Monroe, NC in the tweet. Many people set up searches for your local community. You want to catch these people who may not be following you yet. I also depend on my followers to “Re-Tweet” my tweets. How can one depend on people to re-tweet your stuff? It’s easy, re-tweet their stuff. I do it all the time. Rarely does a day go by that I do not re-tweet things I see from those I follow. Your Twitter friends will appreciate what you do and will return the favor for you. It’s free and easy to be nice to other folks in your social media circle.

Facebook. I share most of what I do to my Facebook page. I’m not a huge Facebook user myself. I’m late in the game to Facebook but it’s very easy to share your articles to your page. I use the “Share This” widget on my blog, which makes it super easy to send my articles to Facebook. It’s free and you should be using this widget on your blog also.

These are just a few of the things I do to market my blog. These methods are free and easy and should be a part of your activities every day. I will share more of my methods as time marches on but these are the basic core methods that I have used since day 1. You don’t have to have a marketing degree or background to do this. It’s all about common sense. Every chance you get to put your site in front of people, don’t waste the opportunity. Even 1 person can make a difference.

Be a loudmouth.

Matt McGee’s Secret Hyperlocal Blogging Formula

Steve Sherron — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:30:21 +0000

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