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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