Posts Tagged "blog"

3
Jun 10

Bloggers We Love: Natasha ‘Tasha’ Ball (Part 1 of 2)

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

BLOGGER: Natasha ‘Tasha’ Ball

FEATURED BLOG(S): Tasha Does Tulsa

TWITTER: @TashaDoesTulsa (Tasha Does Twitter)

FACEBOOK: Tasha Does Facebook

FLICKR: Tasha Does Tulsa on Flickr

TASHA DOES TULSA

Natasha Ball thinks Tulsa, OK is, well, kind of a big deal, to use the parlance of our times.

Actually, more accurately, Natasha Ball – or, simply Tasha, as her readers know her – thinks Tulsa, OK is the GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD!

Tasha in Downtown Tulsa, OK

While that may sound pretty audacious to some of us big city dwellers, after reading Tasha Does Tulsa and having a wonderful telephone conversation with Tasha last week, I can honestly say that I have a newfound desire to visit Tulsa, and I’m confident that when I do, I will have an awesome time (and an amazing tour guide!).

TASHA LOVES TULSA

Seriously, though– I don’t think I’ve spoken to many people who are as enthusiastic and genuine in their love for their town or city as Tasha Ball. As a Tulsa native, her love for the city is contagious, exciting, and completely authentic:

“I’ve lived in Tulsa my whole life, except for when I went away to school and a few months here and there that don’t really count. My family has been here since before Oklahoma was a state, before Tulsa was a city.  It’s this huge thing in my life: there is nowhere else.  I have this huge sense of place.  It’s my whole life.”

Ball says she got her first job fresh out of college, right after she moved back to Tulsa and fell in love with the city all over again. She simply walked into the local news office of the Tulsa Business Journal, handed her resume to the editor and said something to the effect of “hire me, please!”

The editor liked her approach so much that he hired her on the spot (get this: she still freelances for the publication today). One of her beats at the paper was tourism, but because the Tulsa Business Journal is a B2B publication, Ball felt she wasn’t getting to proselytize her love for Tulsa in the way that she wanted:

“There’s something about downtown Tulsa right now that’s just magical. There’s a big time revitalization that’s been underway for a while, and there are always new things going on. It’s really easy if you work downtown every day to get on fire about everything that’s happening and to get really excited about it, which is what happened to me.  I would go home and hear my grandmother talk about how she used to ride the trolley to downtown Tulsa to do her Christmas shopping in the snow – I could see the historic aspects of it coming into play and I wanted to tell EVERYBODY about it, but the paper wasn’t really the right platform.”

TASHA BLOGS TULSA

The right platform, it turns out, would be a blog – which is how Tasha Does Tulsa was born:

“I’d just heard this refrain throughout my whole teenage life: ‘Tulsa is a boring, Mid-western city — Tulsa is Fly-over country — anywhere-but-here,’ – and that always kind of teed me off. I never understood why everyone wanted to leave. I wanted to challenge that refrain. I say: if you say Tulsa is boring then you’re probably not looking very closely at what the city has to offer. A couple of coworkers and I were at a bar downtown one night, trying to think of ways I could talk to people about this passion I have for Tulsa and I thought, wow, this would be funny, I’ll start a blog – let’s call it ‘Tasha Does Tulsa,’ – and then everyone agreed and encouraged me to do it.”

She started slowly, but when she got pregnant with her first child, Ball found the time to get serious about blogging. Today she spends approximately 20 hours per week on blog-related activities.

TASHA KNOWS TULSA

When she’s not blogging, Ball is a full-time mom as well as a freelance writer. She writes regularly for both the Tulsa Business Journal (as their food and entertainment writer), as well as for Oklahoma Magazine (FACT: she landed that gig after meeting the magazine’s publisher at a social media panel where she was speaking on behalf of her blog).

Clearly, Ball’s love for Tulsa is not an unrequited one – not only is she an award-winning blogger and regular freelance writer, but she’s also a weekly staple on KRMG talk radio each Friday morning. Keeping busy is just one of the by-products of being a successful blogger and freelancer, Ball says, adding that meeting interesting Oklahomans and Tulsans is one of the highlights of hyperlocal blogging:

“The people I have met because of blogging—that part has been absolutely incredible. I love getting to know people who are passionate about our city. Since it has improved – I hate to say ‘improved,’ because Tulsa has always been a really cool, weird little place anyway— people want to make it their own by starting new projects and putting their stamp on the city. I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people like that.”

For instance, Ball recently helped to found the Tulsa Blogger Meet-Up, which is in its fourth month. She says they usually invite a speaker, and then she and the rest of Tulsa’s top bloggers meet at an independently-owned Tulsa restaurant to drink beer and talk blogging:

“When you write a local blog, it tends to get you out of the house a lot. Naturally, I normally like to sit at home on my butt, but blogging makes me practice what I preach: getting out and about in Tulsa. I’ve discovered all kinds of really neat, on-the-inside-track things. Things my parents and grandparents didn’t know about – and I get to share it with people. Then someone writes to me and says: ‘I saw something on your blog and I went and tried it – your memories are with me.’ People are taking time to do the things I suggest: that’s pretty huge, and that’s what keeps me blogging. There’s no higher compliment than that for me as a blogger.”

Just another day in the life of a fabulously cosmopolitan, unabashedly Midwestern, enthusiastically hyperlocal Blogger We Love.

Check back next week to read Tasha’s Top Tips for Bloggers!

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

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27
May 10

Bloggers We Love: Lee Frank and Rachel Anderson

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

BLOGGERS: Lee Frank (Managing Editor) & Rachel Anderson (Senior Correspondent)

FEATURED BLOG(S): NachosNY

TWITTER:

@NachosNY

@LeeMFrank

FACEBOOK: NachosNY on Facebook

FLICKR: NachosNY on Flickr

12 Steps To Building a Better Blog

(or a Delicious Plate of Nachos)

Rachel, Esther and Lee at Outside.in

This week we sat down with roommates Lee Frank and Rachel Anderson of the hyperlocal blog NachosNY. We took the liberty of using the knowledge and experience they shared with us to create a 12-step program for building a better blog as if you were building a plate of delicious nachos. Buen provecho!


1. CHIPS : CONTENT

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

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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

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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.

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9
Sep 09

National Media Companies Chase Local

Posted by camilla in General / Industry Notes & Commentary — View Comments

There’s been a flurry of major news surrounding hyperlocal lately: AOL acquiring Patch and Going.com, MSNBC snatching up EveryBlock, and just this week, we hear that The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times will soon be launching local editions in the San Francisco market. ESPN recently launched a Chicago-focused site and will soon launch in two other sports-centric cities: Boston and Dallas. Similarly, Fox Sports is planning to go after the Detroit and Houston sports fans. All very interesting news. All with the same theme: big national (actually, global) media companies going after the local market. Before you know it, every major national media company will be pursuing a local strategy.

So, why are these big corporations chasing after local? What makes them think they can enter this new space when their focus has historically been on a much broader national level? Well, the temptations are compelling, and a smart local approach actually may make sense for some of these companies at this point in time. Some factors they’re probably considering:

  1. increasing local online ad dollars
  2. changing local landscape with new entrants and incumbents, where the once-dominant local papers are facing serious financial problems
  3. demand for more hyperlocal content and news that the local publishers are not covering like they used to due to resource constraints
  4. “keeping up with the Joneses” factor: everybody else is doing it, maybe I should get in on the action too

The combination of these factors (and probably several others) add up to a big opportunity. After all, local content brings the potential of new users, improved visitor loyalty, and additional local / regional ad revenues.

But as many folks know, the online local game is a tough nut to crack.  The notion of local is personal and subjective, sources of relevant content are numerous and growing, and local ad sales presents its own set of challenges with SMBs still struggling to make the online transition. The best player poised to win this game is still the local publisher! They have the inside knowledge, the connection to the community, and the long-standing relationships with the local businesses. As long as the local publishers are willing to adapt to a new model of news and committed to innovating and working with the right set of partners, they have a leg up on their national or global competitors.

So, local publishers: Don’t panic that the big boys are out to eat your lunch. Think of this as a wake-up call that you are in a highly desirable sector full of new opportunities. And the time is now: Big corporations move slowly, so the smaller guys should be more nimble to make and implement changes. We hope many of the local publishers see this as the ideal time to reinvent yourselves and re-claim your local territory. And outside.in is here to help.

20
Nov 08

Outside.in StoryMaps Help Guide

Posted by mark in General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

So, you’ve registered for GeoToolkit and you’ve generated the code to add a StoryMap to your blog. What do you do with that code? (If you don’t have your code yet, go to GeoToolkit, register your site, and get your code!) Here are the instructions for pasting the code into the sidebar of the most common blog platforms. If you don’t see your platform below or want to put your StoryMap in another part of your site but aren’t sure how, email us for instructions.

Blogger (for example any site with “blogspot” in the URL)

  1. Click the Layout tab
  2. Click Add a Gadget (if you don’t see ‘Add a Gadget,’ click on the Page Elements link at the top of the page.)
  3. Scroll down to the HTML/JavaScript gadget and click it.
  4. Give your StoryMap a title, paste the code in the ‘Content’ box, and click the Save button on the bottom right.
  5. View your blog and admire your new StoryMap!

WordPress
(Currently only non-hosted WordPress accounts are supported. WordPress.com StoryMaps are coming soon!)

Option A (The Plugin)–Go to The outside.in StoryMap WordPress Plugin and follow the instructions there.

Option B (Manual Code Paste)

  1. Click “Appearance” in the left column, then click “Editor” in the section that opens beneath Appearance
  2. Click “Sidebar” under the “Theme Files” header in the right column.
  3. This part is a little tricky—you need to figure out where you want your map to show up compared to other sidebar elements. This will usually be right after a </li> tag for another sidebar item.
  4. Once you’ve found the correct spot, type type <li id=”My StoryMap”>, paste your StoryMap code, then type </li>.
  5. Depending on your template, you may want to add a header above your StoryMap in <h2> or <h3> tags.
  6. *Note* The above instructions may differ depending on your template. Send us an email with specific questions.

Typepad
Make sure you have the option to customize your theme. Typically, it’s only available to subscribers at the Plus level and above.

Follow these instructions to add the StoryMap to your Typepad theme.

Tumblr
(We recommend you use the small map size to start and then customize it, if you need to.)

  1. Click on Customize in the top right corner
  2. Click on Info in the top left corner
  3. Paste the code into the Description field.
  4. Click on Save Changes in the top right corner.
  5. Admire your map and go to GeoToolkit to change the size if you need to.

12
Nov 08

Dept of Blogiology 101: Phoenix

Posted by Nina in General / News — View Comments

Next up for our Blogiology class is Phoenix, AZ.  Attendance in this class has been going through the roof, so you’ve certainly been reading each week as we explore top neighborhoods, blogs, and bloggers in cities around the U.S. In previous posts we’ve covered Durham, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Portland, Philadelphia, Buffalo, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Boston.

So, what’s been going on in Phoenix this week?  Bloggers there are talking about a young murderer standing trial, bank robber goes on a spree, new eyes in the sky watch for speeders, Ritz Carlton may wrangle its way into the neighborhood, and death at the hands of a drunk driver. Want more local Phoenix knowledge? Read on.

Bloggiest Phoenix Neighborhoods:

Top Phoenix Blogs:

  1. Downtown Phoenix Journal – downtown Phoenix news, events, and real estate news.
  2. Phx 411 – your source for city news, sports, attractions and dining.
  3. Blog for Arizona – outspoken political blog covering the democratic perspective on city and state issues.
  4. Bright Side of the Sun – the most blinged out blog dedicated to the Phoenix Suns basketball team. Up- to-the-minute tweets, a map of all upcoming games, and a user comment section make this a #1 destination for Suns fans.

Up and Coming Blogs in Phoenix (in no particular order)

  • PHX Rail Food – in anticipation of the soon-to-be opened Phoenix light rail system, this blogger has been assembling restaurant reviews of places along its route.
  • East Valley Living – this blog lives up to the true definition of citizen journalism by providing attention to really local news in the East Valley region of Phoenix that mainstream media often ignores.
  • The Soop – a gorgeous site dedicated to trendy fashion, music, and art in Phoenix.
  • Arizona Coffee – look no further for the best brew in town. 
  • Bookmans – this site serves as home to the ever popular Bookmans store, which hosts community meetings, classes, music events and of course also sells lots and lots of books!

Most Talked About Stories:

Submit your blog to be included in Outside.in’s Phoenix listings.

Have your own Phoenix Top 5 or want the Professor of Blogiology to come to your town? Raise your hand and we’ll call on you, or you can leave a note in the comments section.

Methodology: Our rankings track local buzz by analyzing a mix of variables including: total number of posts, location of posts, links from other sites in the community, and feedback from Outside.in members. Bloggiest Neighborhoods/Top Blogs, past 30 days; Most Talked About Stories, past 7 days.

15
Aug 08

The outside.in Guide to Great Local Blogging, Part II: Linking

Posted by josh in General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

Hyperlocal blogging is about connections both real and virtual. Several weeks ago Chrysanthe wrote a post with advice on how to be a great local blogger . Tip #2 on her list was:

Connect with your neighbors and other local bloggers. Share ideas with other bloggers and leave comments on their site. If someone else has the scoop, link to them. If you write a post inspired by another blogger, give them a shout out and thanks. People tend to link back, and the more links you receive, the more credible you’ll be as a source. Talk about local places and issues in our discussion boards. Remember, you are part of a larger community — the hyperlocal blogging community — so make friends out there! “

Links are a currency in blogging. If someone is linking to a story of yours it is probably because you are either breaking a story, telling them something they don’t know, or expressing yourself in a way they find interesting. They are the way information flows. Links not only tie you into your hyperlocal blogging community but help drive traffic through distribution, increase your search rankings, and give you reputation.

I thought I would spend a minute explaining how My Connections stats in GeoToolkit can help develop this currency. We show you which of your stories are linked, who is doing the linking, and who you link to (these are from posts, not linkrolls). Someone remarked to me that you can get referrer information from Google Analytics and other programs. True, but we’re going beyond traffic numbers.

GeoToolkit shows you the local ecosystem in which you blog. If people are linking to your stories — you’re ahead of the game. If other bloggers aren’t, or aren’t linking as much you’d like, you can take a look at who you are linking to in a time-based view for up to the past 6 months. You might find some interesting patterns that you can use to form connections; you could let a site know how much you dig their stuff, or if inform them that you are driving traffic and get some links back, or even reach out offline and grab some coffee. The more solid these connections are, the more you will be part of the hyperlocal mix.

28
Jul 08

The outside.in Guide to Great Local Blogging

Posted by chrysanthe in General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

As you know, we are champions of all things local at outside.in and we prize the hyperlocal bloggers and publishers we link to from our site.

We get asked a lot of “how to” questions, so we thought we’d share a summary of our top user tips to help you get the most out of outside.in. Here goes:

1. Go where big media doesn’t. Nothing is too local. People in your neighborhood care about parking issues, little league games, annoying construction, new restaurants — everything happening right nearby. Be as specific as possible when talking about places. Give them accurate names so they are more easily detected by our system and added to the right pages (i.e. “Madison Square Garden” vs. “the Garden”). More about this in #5 below.

2. Connect with your neighbors and other local bloggers. Share ideas with other bloggers and leave comments on their site. If someone else has the scoop, link to them. If you write a post inspired by another blogger, give them a shout out and thanks. People tend to link back, and the more links you receive, the more credible you’ll be as a source. Talk about local places and issues in our discussion boards. Remember, you are part of a larger community — the hyperlocal blogging community — so make friends out there!

3. Post early and often, or at least regularly. Readers like consistency. Give them content to come back for regularly. Come up with a schedule you can stick to, whether it be 5 posts a day or 5 posts a month (but of course, the more the better!). Come up with regular features (like restaurant reviews on Thursdays, or fun facts about your neighborhood on Fridays) so your readers have something to look forward to. You can always schedule posts (on your blogging software’s timestamp) to be published at a later time if you plan to be away from your computer.

4. Be timely. Break stories. You can cover news way before local media sources pick up on stories. In this wave of citizen journalism, larger newspapers and TV stations often look to local bloggers as sources. The sooner you post a story, the more likely you are to get a surge in traffic when word spreads. If you tend to break stories or write about local issues when they are fresh, you’ll be seen as more of an expert and other local blogs and news outlets will start linking to you. Which leads us to…

5. Tag your posts. Use relevant subject, place and (most importantly!) location tags so that your content is easily searchable and identifiable. Subject tagging will allow your posts to show up on outside.in topic pages (like http://outside.in/Brooklyn_NY/tags/events). When you write about local issues, places or people, tag with the most specific geographic information (address is best, but use a zip code or neighborhood name if your post is about a more general area). Remember, tag with the location information that your post is about (not where you are located). For example, hyperlink to the place page like this: White House OR add outside.in “where tags” like this: [where:1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.]. Please refer here to see our supported forms of geotagging content.

6. Use your stats to your advantage. Discover your Stats page in your GeoToolkit, where you can view your neighborhood rankings, see which posts generate the most links, and compare yourself to other bloggers in your area. Knowing where you rank and what gets you links can help you produce better content that will get the most page views.

Keep up the great blogging, and remember, outside.in is a great way to share your content with a wider audience, and to discover what’s around you. Not being picked up by outside.in yet? Submit your blog via GeoToolkit here.

Have your own list of tips? Send ‘em our way. Best tip will receive a limited edition outside.in t-shirt.

2
Dec 06

Waiting for us to come to your area? Try RSS!

Posted by Cory in General / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

Even though outside.in is available in the entire US, if your neighborhood is outside one of the 51 cities that we’re tracking, chances are we may not have made it to your area yet. If that’s the case, or if your neighborhood is in outside.in but we haven’t found much for you yet, consider subcribing to the RSS feed for your neighborhood or zipcode. Just go to http://outside.in/ (like http://outside.in/11215) and click the RSS icon at the top of the posts column.

This is a great way to stay up to date with your neighborhood and to ensure you don’t miss anything when we come to your area. If you have Gmail, you can even see outside.in posts when you check your email. (Of course, all this applies equally to anyone living in one of the over 3000 neighborhoods that we are already tracking.)

If you’re itching to see us come to your area and you have something to share, you can always help us along by contributing a blog or story.

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