Posts FromMay, 2010

Ultimately, the test of a great plate of nachos comes down to the chips: are the chips high quality (good enough to get noticed and keep people coming back for more)? Are they fresh and plentiful? Do the chips hold up under all the toppings, or do they get soggy? Just as all of these factors matter with chips, they matter with blog content. Are your posts innovative, interesting, compelling? Do you post often enough to keep your blog fresh? These are all questions you should ask yourself as a blogger (and especially as a local blogger). NachosNY, for example, finds that their blogging niche — the quest for the best nachos in New York City — provides them with a deep well (a veritable all-you-can-eat nacho buffet!) of quality story ideas to draw from :

LEE: My favorite spot is El Maguey y La Tuna, it’s on East Houston and Attorney. They have like 8 different kinds of nachos, even nachos with broccoli, which are awesome. They also have a really awesome jalapeno margarita. Nobody else likes it, because it’s a little painful – but that’s why I like it. But we’ve also eaten these bad nachos so you don’t have to go and eat them. New York is NOT known for its Mexican food by any means, but in New York you can still find all kinds of great food all over the place. I know there are places that we haven’t uncovered that that probably have really great nachos that we just haven’t gotten to yet.

RACHEL: After a nacho crawl we’ll stop for a couple of days – but we’ll never be finished.

2. MEAT & BEANS : PASSION

Meat and beans (think ground beef, grilled chicken, black beans or refried pintos) are what make nachos into a meal: the protein packs a real energy punch. The same is true of passion and blogging – passion is what gives bloggers their initial jolt of energy, as well as the fortitude and staying power to keep on bloggin’:

LEE: I love nachos. I used to talk about nachos so much that the girl I was dating at the time made me a ‘I <3 Nachos,’ T-shirt. I wasn’t even in New York yet. I was living in China, and I was blogging there about the city I was in. When I came back I wanted to start another blog because I really enjoyed it – and my friend was telling me how it had to be niche, how I had to find something I knew and liked. Nachos was, like, the first thing I could think of – I love nachos.

RACHEL: Learn to be confident in what you’re doing, whether it’s nachos or a cause or something – you have to be able to talk about it and be proud of what you’re doing.

3. SOUR CREAM : MERCHANDISE & SIGNATURE EVENTS

Sour cream can only make nachos cooler, right? The same goes with signature events and merchandise sold on your blog, particularly if they’re conceived and branded just for your blog and its audience (making some extra money on the side? Super cool, especially if you can spend it on… more nachos!):

LEE: We have the merchandise, we have three T-shirts that we sell. They do pretty well, especially at the events – we’ll do nacho crawls and then we just had the Guactacular, which was completely sold out – 370 people showed up. This year’s Guactacular was our first successful event, money-wise.

4. CHEESE & SALSA : COMMUNITY

Salsa and cheese are the elements on your nachos that really tie the whole nacho experience together. The same can be said of your blog’s readership: nearly every blogger we’ve spoken to has said their blog’s community is what ties the whole blogging experience together for them and gives it meaning. Blog communities are as varied and diverse as types of salsa, but the best of them are always fresh, lively and full of local flavor — though of course there’s also nothing like a blog community that has ripened and matured, like a beautifully aged cheddar:

LEE: We like how it’s a shareable thing: there are so many people we can meet and so many people we can talk to about nachos. I actually really like getting emails from people where they’re like, ‘um, my family, like, really likes nachos that are made with Doritos. Do you know where we can find some of those in New York?’ and at first I’m, like, flinching, because, you know, that sounds gross— but then I try to figure it out. I like getting emails like that, or tweets about things like that.

RACHEL: I want more people to feel more comfortable commenting and being more involved in the process. We’re really interested in seeing what other people have to say and getting formal nacho reviews from other people, or just interacting with others on Twitter, trying to get more of a solid community.

LEE: … You should come eat nachos with us.

5. GUACAMOLE : CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS

Guacamole: the luscious, buttery dip made from avocados, joy, and a few other ingredients (usually onions, tomatoes, lime juice, salt and perhaps some spices). We think guacamole is mostly joy, though — and the same can be said of corporate sponsorships for your blog and/or blogging-related events. NachosNY was certainly joyful upon securing an amazing corporate sponsorship for this year’s Guactacular:

LEE: There’s a company called Avocados From Mexico. One of the people that was competing [in the Guactacular] works at Ketchum PR, and they represent Avocados From Mexico, and they were really interested in the event, so they approached us and gave us all 720 avocados. Every avocado used in the event was from them. So it really came in handy.

6. CHILI: NEW SKILLS

Chili is a magical dish: you find it all over the culinary map: beans, no beans, meat, no meat, red, white, you name it. You can make chili however you like it, and when you do you may notice that your particular chili recipe is pretty special — kinda like the new skills you’ll learn as a blogger. Not every blogger will learn the same skills — whether you’re mastering HTML, video blogging, podcasting or photography, you’re making your own unique brand of chili, and it will only improve your blog, and ultimately your skill set as an individual. Plus, even if you’re not crazy about chili on your nachos, if you eat ‘em often enough you’ll find that chili can’t always be avoided — just as every blogger will inevitably pick up new skills, whether they were intending to or not:

RACHEL: I have my undergrad in Gender Studies, so it’s kind of not really focused on any sort of career path, but now I work at a women’s non-profit and I do web design and IT and I’m in charge of all of their social media. I’ve been able to kind of tailor my blog experience to my job now.

7. PEPPERS & HOT SAUCE : THE HUMAN CONNECTION

Just as chili peppers and hot sauce add heat to your nachos, human connections made via blogging adventures will add heat to your life and fuel your passion for blogging. In fact, the effect can be life-changing. Real friendships, business contacts, even romantic relationships are forged every day via blogging adventures:

LEE: I met my girlfriend at the last Guactactular, a year ago. The night of the event she was there, and we were closing down the event, and we, like, just made eye contact and it’s been a fairytale ever since.

8. ONIONS : SOCIAL MEDIA

Ah, onions. Some of us almost can’t live without them – they’re in the base of so many cuisines (mirepoix, sofrito – it seems like every holy trinity has ‘em). I won’t go so far as to say that every great dish of nachos must contain onions, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that many of the best nachos wouldn’t be nearly as delicious if they weren’t flavored by onions in some way. Whether they’re found in the salsa, in the seasoning of the meat, or as a simple topping, onions of all types can be found in nachos the world over. The same can be said of social media tools: not all of the best bloggers use them, but most do – and for most, they’re indispensable:

RACHEL: Twitter has been really great for us – we love interacting with readers on Twitter.

LEE: I have a Google Alert that I have for ‘nachos’ that I get every day and I’m like, “oh, that’s a funny tweet to send out.”

9. OLIVES : MOBILE BLOGGING

Not everyone loves olives on their nachos, but those of us that do also know that they’re a pretty great snack in a pinch. You’ll often find them in a martini or as a snack at the bar, plus you can always pack them up for a picnic. They may not be the MOST portable snack, but they’re pretty good — a lot like mobile blogging tools (such as the iPad, cleverly compared to nachos here). Blogging on-the-go isn’t ideal, but for some of us, it’s really useful:

RACHEL: The WordPress iPhone App is actually kind of awesome. I use that now, whenever I eat at a restaurant, I try to do it on the subway on the way home, because you can just do it and save the draft to your iPhone, and then I publish it later.

10. CILANTRO & LETTUCE: CONTROVERSIAL CONTENT

Some of us love cilantro with an undying passion, while for others, cilantro is as repulsive as a mouthful of soap (literally). The same kind of gulf exists between the lettuce/no lettuce schools of thought in the nacho world. That said, it must be pointed out that even if some of your readers may disagree with you vehemently, one sure way to engage your readership is to experiment with controversial content. NachosNY does this annually on St. Patrick’s Day with their Irish Nachos. Sometimes it works and others… not so much:

RACHEL: [Irish Nachos are] supposed to be some sort of potato product, cheese and bacon. The first year was actually thick slices of potato – it wasn’t even fries or anything, you had to eat it with a knife – and it was gouda and bacon and sour cream.

LEE: It was delicious.

RACHEL: And then this year was really kind of gross – it was loaded cheese fries.

LEE: Disgusting.

11. LIME JUICE : INNOVATIVE EVENTS

The acidity of lime juice balances the richness of the cheese, sour cream, meat and other delicious ingredients that give your nachos heft. Think of new, innovative events as the thing that can give your blog that extra squeeze of freshness that it needs from time to time. NachosNY peppers their calendar with events throughout the year, and they’re always trying zesty new things:

RACHEL: July 19, 2010 is actually our first Guactac Boat Cruise. We’re doing a boat cruise through Rocks Off Concert Cruises. We just finalized that last week, so we’re making plans and booking bands for that right now. We’re hoping to put on a great concert and have good food on a fun boat cruise. We’re also going to hopefully do a Salsa Slam competition in September.

12. BACON : BLOG + TUMBLR

Bacon is that little something extra on your nachos that might seem counter-intuitive to some of us, but when we finally give it a try, we realize it’s actually a pretty nice addition (as bacon tends to be). NachosNY‘s is thinking of creating a Tumblr to supplement their already-popular WordPress blog [JULY 2010 UPDATE: Nachos Nation is here!]. The idea sounds overindulgent, but — like bacon on barbacoa nachos — it could turn out to be a welcome topping:

LEE: We like hearing from people, so one of the things I want to start is a Tumblr to go along with the blog that would be more of a nationwide thing so people could send us a picture of the nachos they just ate and what was on it or why they liked it, or whatever. We never wanted to say that we’re the best people to be doing this: everybody can be eating nachos and telling us about it. If more people were talking about it, everybody would find the best ones even quicker.

P.S.: Local bloggers, don’t forget to register your blog here. It’s quick, simple, and will help drive traffic to your blog.

P.P.S.: If you’d like to be featured in our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series (or you’d like to nominate your favorite local blogger(s) for inclusion), we’d love to hear from you! Simply send an email to esther@outside.in

21
May 10

Bloggers We Love: Top 10 Time Management Tips

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

We’ve been doing our ‘Bloggers We Love‘ series here on the Outside.in blog for a few months now, and one theme that keeps coming up amongst bloggers is that there simply isn’t enough TIME to get everything done. Blogging takes a lot of time, and it can be challenging (though not impossible!) to do it regularly and effectively while simultaneously balancing a personal life, and likely another full-time job as well.

I myself have been meaning to write this blog post for about a month now, but things keep getting in the way – oh, the irony of lacking the time to write a post about time management! Clearly, I need to be employing some of these strategies myself.

So, without further ado, here are some top tips from top bloggers on how to carve out ample time for blogging! If you have more tips, please leave them in the comments or feel free to email them to me any time: esther@outside.in.

THE TOP 10 TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS

(For awesome bloggers, from Bloggers We Love)

10. PLAN AHEAD

“Pre-post your articles and preset the time and date it goes live. WordPress makes this easy. Work several hours and then take the rest of the week off.”

- Video blogging/SEO evangelist Steve Sherron of the Monroe Scoop

9. REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

“I start with a tweet, the ‘Must See, Must Do,’ blurb from my homepage, a review/collection of reviews I have written, and turn it into a longer blog post. I try to get as much mileage and value as I can from the things I have already written about. Why ‘reinvent the wheel,’ so to speak?”

- the go-to gal for family-friendly fun in Vermont, Dana Freeman of Find and Go Seek (the blog and the website!)

8. GUEST BLOGGERS!

“Get others to write content. I have a series called ‘They’re Talking About Lynn,’ where I get memories from other people and then I just put a thin wrapper around it and hit ‘post.”

- The inspiring Corey Jackson of Downtown Lynn

7. GO ORGANIC

“Employ some simple SEO on your site to attract organic search traffic. This brings you a stream of constant traffic, whether you publish or not.”

- Steve Sherron of the Monroe Scoop

6. DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF

“Don’t edit yourself too much. I try to check for spelling and obvious idiot mistakes, but other than that, I write and hit ‘publish’!”

- Corey Jackson of Downtown Lynn

5. UNPLUG & RECHARGE

“Allow yourself to shut down your laptop at a certain time every night. FULL shut down – so you don’t get into some ‘quick,’ thing.”

- The blogosphere‘s expert on ballpark cuisine and the 30-something bar scene in NYC, Sara Pepitone of Scoreboard Gourmet and 30 to Midnight

4. TAKE THE SHOW ON THE ROAD

“Get and iPad/iPhone and blog during commutes.”

- Corey Jackson of Downtown Lynn (NOTE: we do not endorse blogging while driving!)

3. BLOGGER, PING THYSELF

“Schedule time to write. Set yourself reminders to blog, follow-up on emails, gather multimedia and contact sources. I have Remember The Milk send me text message reminders!”

- The über-experienced blogger Tessa Horehled of Drive a Faster Car

2. LIVE, LOVE, BLOG

“What you write about should be something you’re living out. That way the research just sort of happens, rather than it being a chore.”

- Corey Jackson of Downtown Lynn

1. NO EXCUSES

“There’s never time and always something else going on. You have to make it!”

- Tessa Horehled of Drive a Faster Car

20
May 10

StarNewsOnline Goes Hyperlocal with Outside.in

Posted by Jared in Announcements / General / News / Outside.in for Publishers — View Comments

Last weekend, we launched MyBackyard with StarNewsOnline of Wilmington, NC. MyBackyard enables its readers to browse everything from news to real estate to events in dozens of neighborhoods in Wilmington. Vaughn Hagerty, an enterprising developer at StarNews, leads the project and sings the praises of our hyperlocal platform, Outside.in for Publishers:

MyBackyard requires accurate address-level location information for items in our news feed. In addition, we need to have the option to attach more than one lat/long to a piece of content if necessary. Doing this accurately and consistently really requires a human editor with easy-to-use curation tools. We explored a few options, and Outside.in’s publisher tools fit the requirements nicely. Using them, a single editor can maintain our feeds in about 20 minutes a day.

We’re thrilled to have StarNewsOnline kick off our work with The New York Times Regional News Group and proud to have a product that meets their needs so well.

19
May 10

Bloggers We Love: Christy Frink and Morgan Levy

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / CNN / General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

BLOGGERS: Christy Frink and Morgan Levy (we spoke to Frink)

FEATURED BLOG(S): Nashvillest

TWITTER:
@Nashvillest
@ChristyFrink

@MorganLevy

FACEBOOK: Nashvillest on Facebook

FLICKR: Nashvillest on Flickr

THE TOP 15 THINGS I LEARNED FROM NASHVILLEST

I decided to do ‘Bloggers We Love’ in a list format this week! I hope you like it. And GO!

15. TALK IS CHEAP, BABY

In spring 2008, newly-minted college grad Christy Frink and her freshly laid-off roommate, Morgan Levy, found themselves simultaneously unemployed and bored in Nashville. Tired of complaining to one another about the lack of a DCist-style blog in Nashville, Frink and Levy decided to take matters into their own hands, right then and there. And so, Nashvillest was born.

Morgan Levy & Christy Frink. Photo courtesy of Molly Povolny.

“We just asked ourselves, ‘why don’t we start it?’ — We did a trial for about two days to make sure we could keep up with it, and then we told a couple of our blogger friends and they put the word out. It took root really quickly, and it’s just grown steadily from there.” – Christy Frink

We can all complain (and we all do), but it takes a certain kind of person to channel that negative energy into a positive act: creation. That said, if you’re upset about the lack of solid hyperlocal content in your neighborhood, why not do something about it, and start a hyperlocal blog of your own?

14. TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Well, perhaps not everything, but timing can be HUGE. Sometimes a blogger is better equipped to respond to a local story, for instance the recent floods in Nashville.

“When the city started flooding on Saturday, I was sitting at home and just started pushing out information to our Twitter followers. Traditional media outlets are sometimes unprepared for something like that over the weekend [at least in terms of getting information out quickly], because they have a few more hoops to jump through. As a blog we’re limited in the information we’re able to gather, but we also have the advantage of being able to push out the information as we get it, and so the flood story was really big for us. There were just so many levels to the flood situation – there were a lot of rumors going around and we were trying to balance those and keep people calm as well as getting the correct information out. I think a lot of people were looking for information and we were the ones that had it at the time.” – Christy Frink

Frink says that during the days following the flooding, Nashvillest more than doubled its Twitter followers and traffic went through the roof. Obviously, it’s incredibly unfortunate that the circumstances couldn’t have been more positive– but nevertheless the recent floods were a turning point for Nashvillest.

13. YOU CAN LOVE YOUR DAY JOB AND BLOG LIKE AN ALL-STAR

You heard it here, folks: it is possible to love your day job and still blog like an all-star– especially if you have all-star teammates, as Frink and Levy have in one another. Today, Nashvillest keeps the once-unemployed Frink and Levy – who are each gainfully employed now, in positions unrelated to Nashvillest— very busy in their free time.

“Morgan and I both have day jobs we love, so we work on the blog early in the morning, in the evening, and during our lunch hour. I probably spend 2 hours a day on actual blog content and probably an additional 2-3 hours on other stuff, like Flickr and Twitter. Morgan is the one that deals with the emails coming in and the backend, and she does the more in-depth features. We probably both spend 4-5 hours a day on the blog.” – Christy Frink

Loving your career while blogging like an all-star takes dedication, but the rewards can be great. Nashvillest is now the city’s go-to hyperlocal blog, boasting a diverse, engaged following.

12. EVEN IF YOU DON’T PLAN ON MAKING A CAREER OF IT, BLOGGING CAN HELP YOU PROFESSIONALLY

“It has helped me so much. I handle a lot of the communications/design/writing projects at work now, and that has all grown out of having the experience [from Nashvillest]. I’ve developed an interest in doing communications for nonprofits someday, and hopefully [blogging] will help get me where I want to go.” – Christy Frink

11. PEOPLE LIKE FREE STUFF (AND BEER, APPARENTLY)

Shocker, I know, but it’s true!

“People like to read about free things. We’re really keen on bargains ourselves!” – Christy Frink

So are we, Christy, so are we– and judging from all the Gilt Groupes and Groupons and Tipprs out there, so is everyone else. In case you needed a reminder, these are tough times, people. Still, it’s worth pointing out: if you have a hyperlocal blog and you’d like to increase readership and community engagement, try telling your readers about local deals and freebies. They’ll love you for it. Oh, and try to write about beer sometimes.

“One of our most popular post was about a Belgian brewery. I guess people like beer, which is understandable!” – Christy Frink

Totally understandable. In fact, we wouldn’t mind sipping a tasty Belgian brew right now. We know you agree (at least finish reading the blog post first, OK?).

10. TWITTER LOVES NASHVILLE

Exhibit A:

The tweet says it all: #WeAreNashville, a Twibbon started in response to the Nashville floods, is the most supported Twibbon OF ALL TIME. That’s HUGE, and Nashvillest was one of the hashtag’s early adopters.

9. NASHVILLE IS FIERCELY LOYAL

The ‘We Are Nashville‘ campaign’s popularity comes not only from the fact that people love Nashville, but also from the fact that Nashville people love one another.

“Nashville is very locally focused. We’re a fiercely loyal group of people who like to frequent local business and listen to each others’ music. The ‘We Are Nashville’ campaign really speaks to who we are and the spirit of our city. In fact, FEMA has said that Nashville has had he best local volunteer response to any disaster that they’ve ever seen. Seeing how people have pulled together [after the flood] really embodies the Nashville that I love.” – Christy Frink

Of course, the community-oriented spirit of Nashville existed even before the recent floods there. Take Nashvillest’s stunning blog design, for example: it was designed especially for Nashvillest as a gift from a local design firm who took note of Nashvillest and decided to offer their services, gratis.

“We started out with a standard WordPress template for about the first year and then a very talented firm, Centersource, approached us and asked us if we wanted to redesign it. I love it, they did an awesome job.” – Christy Frink

8. TWITTER & FLICKR WORK WONDERS FOR HYPERLOCAL BLOGS

While she’s yet to figure out how to best engage Nashvillest’s readers on Facebook, Frink says both Twitter and Flickr have really driven engagement on the blog.

“Twitter is our main tool – we almost push as much content through Twitter as we do though the blog. We have a pretty active Flickr community, too, which has been really cool, and that’s one thing I absolutely got from DCist. When I was an intern in DC and fell in love with DCist, I was able to get a few of my photos posted on DCist and I remember thinking that was really cool. I [post user-submitted photos] on Nashvillest, too, and people seem to really like it.” – Christy Frink

7. BE ACCESSIBLE TO YOUR READERSHIP

“Morgan and I are both out at a lot of city events, and we hang out with our readers, which is really cool— it exposes you to a lot of different kinds of people. We’ve also been able to build a lot of really great relationships with local businesses, and we really like to try to maintain the idea that we’re part of the community: we’re your friends, we’re your neighbors. We don’t have any kind of pretense.” – Christy Frink

6. NASHVILLE HAS SOME TASTY NACHOS

Right before I interviewed Frink, I asked our Twitter followers what they’d like me to ask her. @NachosNY, one of my favorite New York City food bloggers, had this question:

We are very happy to report that the nacho scene is alive and well in Nashville:

“The nacho scene here is wonderful. I can attest to that! Jim’s Nachos is close to my house, kind of in the Western part of Nashville. It’s a Mexican place, across from a college campus, and they serve really good, cheap nachos.” – Christy Frink

5. YOU DON’T NEED TO MONETIZE YOUR BLOG IF … [INSERT REASON HERE]

You don’t need to monetize your blog if you don’t have the time, you don’t know how, you don’t want to or you’re not ready to. In fact, you don’t need to monetize your blog at all, if you love doing it enough. Many bloggers don’t monetize their blogs. Actually, if my unscentific research is any indication, I’d wager that most bloggers don’t monetize their blogs in any significant way. In the case of Nashvillest, monetization is just not something they’ve figured out or gotten around to yet — and that’s perfectly fine!

“We haven’t monetized it at all, and I’m sure that we could, I think, because we’re always promoting local businesses and we’ve built up a really high level of trust with our readership. It’s a little bit of a gray area if we start taking money from [those businesses]. We realize we have a really large focus group, basically– trendsetters in the community — but it’s something that we’d want to be careful not to exploit. [Monetization] is definitely in the backs of our minds, but we haven’t even had time to do it, honestly. I would say that in two years… sure! Hopefully we will have monetized it in some way, if only because that would give us the resources to host more events and do more within the community. That would be a good goal for the next two years, for sure.” – Christy Frink

Whatever your reason for blogging, the important thing is that you do it. Don’t let monetization worries keep you from starting or doing what you love.

4. YOU DON’T NEED AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR

“I haven’t thought past, like, next week! I’m not sure. I think we’re going to keep doing it as long as people keep reading it.” – Christy Frink

Can a blogger benefit from an editorial calendar? Sure. Is it necessary? No. Do whatever works for you. There are no hard and fast rules in the blogosphere – we create them as we go, and that’s a beautiful thing.

3. IT’S GOOD TO HAVE FRIENDS IN THE BLOGOSPHERE

“We do have some ties with Chattanooga’s Chattarati and Knoxville’s Knoxify. They started shortly after we did, and I think we’ve all kind of benefitted from each other. Chattrati does original reporting and has broken some big stories down there. Those guys are brilliant– they do things differently than we do, but it’s awesome to watch them. We’ve got a Basecamp set up where we’re sharing tips and ideas. They’ve been a great support for us and they’ve been great to us. Tennessee is like three different states: West, Middle and East – three very different regions. I think establishing those ties with other communities has been a real strength. We’re all unique but there have been things going on that tie us all together, like the floods. Both of those blogs are doing fundraisers for Nashville flood relief and they asked us – ‘what can we do?’ – it’s been really cool.” – Christy Frink

2. LISTEN TO YOUR READERSHIP

“One good piece of advice in terms of local blogging relates to the fact that you often have a lot of people trying to do the same thing, and blogs kind of fade in and out. It’s not so much about how many people are doing those things, it’s more about how you’re doing it a little bit differently and a little bit better – that makes it interesting. Try to pay attention to your readers – tailor your feature content to the things people will like. We do pay attention to our page statistics and we pay attention to our Twitter feed and we engage people and we listen. We always strive to be a resource that’s listening to our community instead of just being an outlet that pushes out information.” – Christy Frink

1. OUTSIDE.IN IS COOL (BUT BLOGGERS ARE COOLER)

Shameless plug! I didn’t need Christy to tell us we’re cool, but I’m sure glad she did. It’s always nice to hear — and it’s even nicer to hear that she’s seeing traffic both from our core site and from our ecosystem.

“I saw the referrals coming over from CNN and that was really exciting. We like what you do to support the hyperlocal blogging community and we think it’s cool.” – Christy Frink

Thanks, Christy (and Morgan!). Clearly, we think you’re pretty cool, too. Keep being awesome, and please enjoy some nachos and beer on our behalf as soon as possible.

P.S.: If you’d like to get in on the action, register your blog here. It’s quick, simple, and will help drive your blog traffic.

P.P.S.: If you’d like to be featured in our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series (or you’d like to nominate your favorite local blogger(s) for inclusion), we’d love to hear from you! Simply send an email to esther[at]outside[dot]in.

How to Help Nashville (msatheists.org)
Nashville Flood Relief Efforts (the9513.com)
The Other Disaster Down South (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
Tennessee Under Water And Nobody Gives A Dang (milkandcookies.com)
The benefits of having your disaster snubbed by the national media (RexBlog.com)

13
May 10

Bloggers We Love: Steve Shanafelt

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General — View Comments

BLOGGER: Steve Shanafelt
FEATURED BLOG(S): The Spartanburg Spark
TWITTER: @TheSpark
FACEBOOK: The Spark on Facebook
YOUTUBE: The Spark on YouTube

SPARTANBURGSPARK.COM

What happens when a seasoned media professional moves to a new town and decides to start a hyperlocal blog?

Some pretty amazing things, as it turns out: a community gets its long-anticipated downtown café and somebody finally starts taping the City Council meetings, for example. Those inspiring nuggets are just a few of the reasons we’ve chosen to use this week’s Bloggers We Love post to introduce you to SpartanburgSpark.com (“The Spark”), the hyperlocal blog that writer and editor Steve Shanafelt launched after moving from Asheville, NC to Spartanburg, SC.

Having worked for many years at Asheville’s Mountain Xpress, Shanafelt felt it was time for a new venture in a new town. Spartanburg seemed like the right spot: an agreeable town with a serious dearth of local news and a lack of sufficient opportunities for community members to converge and discuss Spartanburg issues and happenings.

Steve Shanafelt, founder of The Spartanburg Spark

“When we decided to move, Spartanburg was one of these fantastic places— it just seemed to be crying out for some project to stitch it together,” Shanafelt says. “I’m continually surprised by how good that instinct turned out to be.”

COMMUNITY MATTERS

And so, in August 2008, The Spark was born, providing Spartanburg-centric news, as well as online forums, an events calendar, a music calendar, regular podcasts (a new feature that The Spark community has embraced, even though Shanafelt & Co. are unabashedly inexperienced– yet honest, funny and compelling– podcasters), a reader soapbox, a blogroll (SparkleCityBlogs – Spartanburg gets its nickname from a 1950′s rockabilly group) and a curated page of local headlines from other sources, such as local Etsy listings (HubCityHeadlines – Spartanburg is also called the Hub City, because it was once a major regional transportation hub).

Shanafelt borrowed much of his inspiration for the site from Mountain Xpress, whose mission statement charges that the paper exists “to build community and strengthen democracy by serving an active, thoughtful readership at the local level – where the impact of citizen action is greatest.”

As we mentioned above, one way The Spark lives up to this ideal is by filming all Spartanburg City Council meetings and making them available on YouTube, something that was born out of necessity, as the City Council didn’t have the resources to accomplish this itself and, evidently, no local mainstream media source had used its resources to do this, either. It took a blogger to bring the City Council to the people, which further solidifies something we believe to be true: when mainstream media sources no longer have the resources to effectively cover their beats, oftentimes local bloggers step up and fill the gap, providing an invaluable public service to their communities, and one we’re honored to celebrate in our own small way.

Shanafelt doesn’t bring home the bacon via The Spark (rather, he continues to freelance), however he won’t diminish it by calling it a hobby. Instead, he refers to it as a “community project,” which is appropriate, considering his focus has been on the Spartanburg community from the very beginning, and community donations also allow The Spark to pay for itself.

“We started off like every other similar project, with ten people reading, and it’s been a steep progression from there,” Shanafelt says. “We’re now at about 1000 readers per day. What we’re talking about is super local—the City of Spartanburg—and there’s a cap on how many people would ever be interested in that— but we’re trying to make it so those people have access to some information that they care about.”

MAKING AN IMPACT

In a city of fewer than 40,000 residents—even fewer of who live in the downtown area, which is where The Spark focuses—Shanafelt and his collaborators are clearly making an impact, and the response from the Spartanburg community has been overwhelmingly positive thus far.

“One of the things that’s been bizarre – in a good way – is the high level of community support,” Shanafelt says. “I tend to look at Spartanburg as a place that has all this dried grass, and if you strike a match, you can start a fire,” he adds, alluding to the site’s name.

Shanafelt uses many different channels to build community on his site, including social media tools, but for him one of the most exciting initiatives has been a series that runs on Wednesdays, called the Big Idea, wherein Shanafelt suggests ‘big ideas,’ and lets the community run with them.

“It’s like a brainstorming topic,” Shanafelt says. “Like, ‘what if Spartanburg had a dog park?’ Here [in Spartanburg]. That’s a novel idea.”

A few of these Big Ideas have actually been propelled forward by the community and have become realities. For instance, Shanafelt and his collaborators have lobbied for downtown café – which sounds pretty simple, but it’s something that doesn’t exist in downtown Spartanburg. Sure, there’s a Starbucks with Wi-Fi in greater Spartanburg, but it’s not downtown, and it’s not the community hub that Shanafelt and the community have envisioned, either.

“Even though there are colleges here, realtors say that [a downtown café] would never work,” Shanafelt says. “After complaining for several blog posts, someone from within the community decided to start a downtown bakery/café/bookstore, and it’ll be open in a couple of months. I’m sure that people have been talking about a downtown café for longer than we’ve been around, but now [that The Spark exists], there’s a place where the community can talk to itself. People are just excited and appreciative about being able to talk about zoning or any of the topics that we discuss, which is an incredibly rewarding thing. You can write something— and then you can get a flood of reactions over something that’s relatively simple! People in the community have been desperate to talk about these things and have not had that forum before. People in larger cities kind of take that [forum] for granted.”

CONTROVERSY

Of course, this isn’t to say that Shanafelt and his collaborators never face any negative feedback from their readers.

“Spartanburg is a traditionally conservative area with a very strong Libertarian bent– meaning, ‘all government is bad, taxes of any form are bad, spending money on public education is bad,’ – and there’s also a very strong affinity for gun rights,” Shanafelt says. “We wrote an opinion piece questioning the necessity of a bill— now a law— allowing concealed weapon permit holders to bring guns on school property and carry them into bars.”

Shanafelt says that while the opinion piece did garner a lot of disagreement from the community, he’s mostly been struck by how few of these negative incidents have occurred.

“My background is in arts reviews, and I faced a lot more negative or opinionated feedback then. We’re talking about some relatively serious things [on The Spark], but most of the stuff we’re writing about isn’t particularly partisan.”

ENCOURAGING BLOGGERS

Shanafelt says he likes to think of Spartanburg as “an anachronistic movie about the 1990s – a place that’s walking 15 years in the past in a lot of ways, culturally and awareness-wise,” but qualifies this by adding that “South Carolina, you know – it gets sort of dismissed as well, but there are so many astonishing things going on here that are flying under people’s radars. It’s getting better, and part of our job is to foster that.”

To this end, Shanafelt created SparkleCityBlogs, an extensive blogroll of Spartanburg-based blogs. Shanafelt writes a weekly update on the goings-on in the Sparkle City blogosphere, and also looks for ways to encourage passionate Spartanburg residents to start their own blogs.

Still, in spite of his passion for local blogs and community journalism, Shanafelt maintains a realistic view about blogging and about the blog as a platform.

“We’ve certainly gone out of our way to get certain individuals to start [blogging], but we’ve had limited success with that. You can’t sort of force that, somehow. Also, a lot of blogs are boring – but you’ve got to try! You’ve got to give them a chance to shine,” Shanafelt says, adding that blogs have a natural lifespan—which isn’t shameful at all:

“Blogs die for the same reason that any project dies,” Shanafelt says. “Something gets someone mad or passionate about that subject, and eventually people move on. If someone has a blog that’s passionate for a while, why is that invalid? I wouldn’t want someone to feel obligatory about something they’re not passionate about anymore.”

For our part, we hope Shanafelt and his collaborators at The Spark keep on blogging as long as it’s still fun for them—and by the looks of things, that could ensure we’ll be hearing from them for a long time to come. Or, as Shanafelt put it:

“It gives a level of intellectual nourishment to me that people are out here doing this— it’s real, and it’s honest, which is something that’s increasingly rare in the world.”

STEVE SHANAFELT’S TIPS FOR BLOGGERS:

JUST DO IT: “Just do it! Just do it! Forget everybody else.”

BE YOURSELF: “Don’t worry too much about being professional. We’ve tried to present an image of being more than we are [in the past], and we’ve had much more success [when we’ve been authentic].”

DON’T CALL YOURSELF AN EXPERT IF YOU’RE NOT: “A lot of people are trying to present themselves as experts. I don’t think we need experts, we need people.”

P.S.: If you’d like to be featured in our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series (or you’d like to nominate your favorite local blogger(s) for inclusion), we’d love to hear from you! Simply send an email to esther[at]outside[dot]in.

5
May 10

Bloggers We Love: Steve Sherron

Posted by Esther Brown in Bloggers We Love / General — View Comments

BLOGGER: Steve Sherron
FEATURED BLOG(S):
The Monroe Scoop
OTHER BLOG:
Blogger Lens
OTHER WEBSITE:
Echelon Media
TWITTER:
@SteveSherron
@EchelonMedia
FACEBOOK:
The Monroe Scoop on Facebook
Echelon Media on Facebook

Click ‘PLAY’ to listen to Steve discuss video, hyperlocal, the Networked Journalism Project, community engagement, and out-of-town Facebook Fans!

THE MONROE SCOOP

One fantastic example of hyperlocal done well is The Monroe Scoop, published by Steve Sherron, a native of Monroe, North Carolina. Started in December 2008, The Monroe Scoop now enjoys a healthy following in the Charlotte suburb– and, in 2009, the Monroe Scoop was selected by the Charlotte Observer to be part of the Networked Journalism Project, a one-year project funded by the Knight foundation, in collaboration with American University’s J-Lab: the Institute for Interactive Journalism (more on that project in a minute).

A PROFESSIONAL HOBBYIST?

While his success has been notable, Sherron started The Monroe Scoop in much the same way that most hyperlocal bloggers do: as a personal hobby.

Sherron says he was inspired to launch The Monroe Scoop when he moved back to Monroe after working in real estate development in coastal North Carolina. As the real estate market cooled, Sherron found himself with extra time on his hands and began searching for something to do with it. He quickly found inspiration through his hobby of videography, as well as through HyperlocalBlogger, a website published by Matt McGee, another blogger who uses Outside.in.

“Just as a – on a lark, I started the Monroe Scoop, and started publishing about, you know, our local community news. I had been searching for a – something to do online because I was interested in that – and I want to say that one of the people that inspired me was Matt McGee at HyperlocalBlogger.com, [...] and I’ve always told Matt that he’s a whole lot responsible for me getting into what I’m doing, because I used to read his website a lot, and I still do – he’s got probably the number one hyperlocal resource website on the internet.”

What began as outlet where he could write and continue to practice shooting and editing video quickly took on a life of its own, however. Pretty soon, Sherron found himself working on the blog on an almost full-time basis.

“Hobbies are supposed to be something that you just go out and do for fun, but [...] I probably treat it more like a job than a hobby– that’s one way that I know to describe it. It’s still – overall, it’s still a fun hobby for me, although I treat it [...] more like a full-time job,” Sherron says. “It’s like a small child– you just about can’t take your eyes off it, and it needs constant attention. [...] I have to spend time on it and tend to it all the time, daily.”

Sherron’s affection for video content also calls for a lot of his time, something he says not many people understand: what ends up running as a 3 minute video on the site may have involved several hours on location plus and additional 4-5 hours to edit, render and upload the video. Still, in spite of the time-investment that video requires, Sherron finds that video boosts engagement more than any other kind of content. “Video stands head and shoulders above the rest, as far as views,” he says.

COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTIONS

Sherron’s readership is clearly active and engaged. One way that that Sherron encourages this is by soliciting and accepting guest contributions:

“I have a few [contributors] that are regular, and I think it’s important,” Sherron says. “I allow anybody to submit a story, and I don’t care who you are. I may not publish every story, because some people are better writers than others – but I have a form that makes it really easy to submit a story or upload a tip. A lot of local people want exposure, and when you have a site like mine that garners a good bit of traffic and has a pretty high community profile, [contributing to it] really boosts [someone's] profile in the community.”

THE NETWORKED JOURNALISM PROJECT & WHY EVERY BLOGGER NEEDS TO KNOW SEO

Just as Sherron’s readership may get a boost in the community from having their contributions appear on his site, Sherron himself has felt a real boost from his involvement in the Networked Journalism Project, which we mentioned earlier. He says the partnership has involved a lot of teaching and learning on both sides – the Charlotte Observer will teach Sherron and the other hyperlocal sites (namely: DavidsonNews.net, QCityMetro.com, TegaCayTalk, and Villa Heights Voice) who are part of the experiment about the media business– and the hyperlocalists, in turn, will share with the Charlotte Observer about their communities and experiences.

“They have been awesome,” Sherron says. “They’re ask us, ‘OK, what do you want to know?’ — and we’ll say, ‘we want to learn more about journalism,’ or ‘we want to learn about advertising,’ and they’ll schedule a specific class with industry experts, just for us. That’s one of the great things about this partnership.”

Sherron says he would like to learn to be better at journalism, and hopes the Networked Journalism Project will help him in that quest. He also adds that he thinks all hyperlocal bloggers could stand to learn a thing or two about SEO if they don’t know about it already. The reason? Even hyperlocal bloggers need to kick back and go on vacation every once in a while, but they may neglect this because they feel they can’t be away from the blog, not even for a day– a misconception Sherron feels can be resolved through a little SEO:

“Once you reach a certain phase in your blog, I think that parts of it are out of your control. In other words, I think that I could not post for a couple weeks, and there’s not a doubt in my mind that traffic would continue to flow. I’ve done a lot of SEO on my site, and a lot of people find it through organic Google searches. Fast breaking articles are great, and if you posted a timely article, you’re going to get a lot of traffic TODAY, and basically NONE two weeks from now. But if you’ve written about your local high schools or city government, these are searches that go on forever in Google and you’ll be sitting there on top of the search engines and you’ll get that traffic. After you get established, you can take a two-week vacation, and I don’t think your traffic will take a serious hit.”

SOCIAL MEDIA & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Community contributions aren’t the only way Sherron works to build community around his site — certain social media tools have also proven invaluable to him in terms of engagement. Video content uploaded to Facebook, for instance, fosters loyalty and drives traffic, Sherron finds, even though he’s not simply pushing blog content onto his Facebook page.

“You don’t always have to put what you’re doing on the site in your Facebook,” Sherron says. “You don’t want to double up the content. Now, if I have interesting stories, I’ll post a link [...] but some of the other things I like to do– I like to take a Flip cameras, and when I’m out and about in the community, I might shoot little 1 minute videos – sometimes I call those the ‘Monroe Minute’ – [...] the people appreciate that.”

Appreciation converts into engagement– which is why Sherron says that in his particular market, Facebook is king amongst all the social media tools.

“The number one thing that I do to engage the community is a strong Facebook presence. Facebook – you can drive tremendous amounts of traffic to your website through Facebook. [...] If you engage with your Facebook fans and you treat [...] your Facebook page like an extension of yourself and your site, your Facebook fans will [...] definitely climb in numbers every week, they will support your site, they will send your site traffic. So, I think Facebook is one of the most important things that you can do.”

While Sherron does use Twitter, he finds that much of his audience doesn’t.

“I use Twitter, but Twitter – there is literally no comparison [to Facebook]. [Your referrals] will tell you where you need to concentrate. I enjoy Twitter — it’s quick, it’s simple — but most of my users don’t use it. We’re basically a suburb of Charlotte, and Charlotte is extremely big on Twitter. I’m more rural, and I can see it out here – we’re more of a Facebook community than a Twitter community. As you get closer in to Charlotte, the Twitter community picks up [in a huge way]. It definitely depends on your community and the geographic area you’re in.”

BUT THE BEST PART ABOUT BEING A HYPERLOCAL BLOGGER?

In the end, the biggest benefit Sherron has seen from the blogging has been through the community he has built via the blog and the doors that this community-building has opened for him:

“I think when you start a local, community site, you’re going to have more doors open to you and more new connections to people in your community than you would have ever realized. I have more access to community players, big shots, your local city government, the police force, the fire department. If you start a community site and you are fair in your reporting and people realize that they can trust you, they will open their doors to you. I have community players on my speed dial and I’ll just call them and say, ‘This is Steve, I need to come over and interview you,’ — and it has created a totally new network for me. They will look at you as a hyperlocal blogger, but they consider you the media. I get the same attention as a TV reporter or a local news reporter. When I show up with my video camera, I get the same interviews.”

P.S.: If you’d like to be featured in our ‘Bloggers We Love’ series (or you’d like to nominate your favorite local blogger(s) for inclusion), we’d love to hear from you! Simply send an email to esther[at]outside[dot]in.

Marketing and Branding in an Era of New Media (slideshare.net)
The Coming Social Advertising Revolution (markmaunder.com)
News Websites Discuss Life Without Google (blogs.wsj.com)
Q&A: Aggregation and the Future of Local News (blogs.wsj.com)