Local Newspapers vs. Patch.com

Following my meeting at The Westerly Sun with Publisher Tim Ryan and Managing Editor David Tranchida (yes that’s my pops!), I’m left thinking about the future of local newspapers and I need to figure out how can a local newspaper, with a circulation around 12,000, utilize social media as an additional revenue stream??

Leverage your brand and your location

Local news organizations are the trusted source of town news and events. For this reason I believe there will always be a market for organized local news reporting and local news organizations. Local newspapers like The Westerly Sun have an advantage. First, they already have an established trust among their circulation, so there is a familiarity and a relationship that has developed locally over the years. Recognizing this, local papers need to leverage their current credibility and brand awareness online. By demonstrating their local knowledge and expertise through acts of sharing the information within their local community. I’m referring to answering the question, “What should I do tonight?” “Where should we eat?” etc. A local newspaper can certainly answer those questions. More importantly locals who just so happen to be reporters for the newspaper can address those questions as well.

As I mentioned, The Westerly Sun already has an established fan base with a circulation of nearly 12,000. It’s time to engage your local readers. Who is your circulation demographic? How many of the 12,000 in circulation are visiting your website and reading your Epaper daily? What is the average age of someone who reads the print edition vs. the Epaper? Find the answers to those questions and start thinking about what medium(s) you might use to engage your consumer. Where are they spending their time and why? What pages of the Epaper get visited most often? How many pages and how many minutes does a person spend reading the Epaper?

Once those questions have been answered The Westerly Sun will be able to figure out its next short-term and long-term moves.

The conversations I’ve had concerning The Sun and social media always return to posting information on a blog or social network with a story brief or summary and link to the full story on the newspapers website. While this may be a temporary solution, it’s not going to work over the long-term. You’ll attract a few new readers maybe, but then the question becomes – what do we do with the print edition and do we charge for the Epaper?

Understand that newspapers generate the majority of their revenue through selling ads on their website. This revenue pays the bills and keeps people employed. However, the traditional newsroom model is fading fast. A new website project funded by AOL called Patch is the new local newspaper. Individual reporters who live within a town in your state will be paid to provide local news coverage specifically about your town. Now, who do you trust more, a local newspaper such as The Westerly Sun who has a history of credibility or the a reporter updating his “Patch”?

The Patch model combines blogging and news and it’s manageable because the “Patch” is specific to one or two small towns. How does The Westerly Sun compete with Patch?

In your opinion, which model offers more trustworthy content?  Would you rather visit Patch.com for your local news or do you have more confidence in paying to read an Epaper published by The Westerly Sun?

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How do I link my Social Media accounts?

Tired of opening three browsers to post the same update to your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts? Here’s a FREE and simple solution: TweetDeck. TweetDeck is very easy to use. First, I recommend downloading TweetDeck Desktop. Now you can start TweetDeck from your Start menu, dock, or desktop. TweetDeck is compatible with PCs and Mac’s.

My two favorite features (feel free to share yours in the comment section below) are the automatic URL shortener and the scheduled update feature. While the URL shortener allows you to be quick and efficient, scheduled updates help you implement your updates according to plan. I’m currently managing four different company accounts and scheduled updates makes my life so much easier!

You can schedule the following day, days, week, or month of updates!
With TweetDeck open click the little icon that looks like a clock on the right side of the update box to schedule the time and date you want the update to be posted to the account of your choice.

Not only is TweetDeck a must have tool for small businesses to efficiently manage their social media efforts, but its also wonderful for personal uses too.

You can follow trending topics worldwide or in the US and you can also add additional columns to follow along with #hashtags relevant to you or your industry.

TweetDeck is the best FREE attention dashboard out there. However, you don’t have the analytics package that you pay for with HootSuite. I recommend TweetDeck for small and local businesses who are just entering this world of new media. If you’re the only person responsible for managing social media at your organization TweetDeck will be your new best friend.

Social Media and The Westerly Sun

Last week during the election madness I was called in to help out the local newspaper here in the greater Westerly/Pawcatuck area, The Westerly Sun.

I was brought in (at the last minute of course) to help broadcast poll results and election stories using The Westerly Sun’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.

This was a simple fix – I installed the social dashboard TweetDeck. However, the larger problem is that social media has yet to be adopted and used by the majority let alone a ‘large’ minority of employees. One employee, Nancy Burns, is responsible for updating The Sun’s Fan Page and Twitter account. With results pouring in at all levels this can become overwhelming – especially without an attention dashboard such as TweetDeck or Hootsuite.

So, I introduced Nancy to Tweetdeck. The results were immediate. In under 5mins I helped walk her through TweetDeck, explaining the various icons and tools available – she loves the automatic URL shortener.

The question I continue to receive from Managing Editor David Tranchida (yes, he’s my father) is how can The Sun use social media to increase profits? Newspapers depend largely upon businesses to generate advertising revenue. Businesses pay to advertise on the newspaper’s website. The goal: increase traffic to The Westerly Sun website.

Here’s the quick solution: post a link including story teaser to the company Fan Page and Twitter account broadcasting the local news to your followers and fans. By clicking on the link it will bring people to your website and increase the amount of traffic to your website ultimately making it more attractive for businesses to use as an advertising platform.

However, I believe there is more that can be done – especially by local news organizations. A local newspaper is the eyes and ears of the town. In this particular case the majority of The Westerly Sun staff have lived and worked in southern RI or Southeastern CT. These reporters and journalists are local experts and can provide local knowledge to the masses. Now, given the revolution of communication during the past two decades anyone who resides in a town can call themselves an area expert. That is the power of new media. This combination can be used to build a robust community.

The Sun has plenty of content to distribute. So the question now is what topic of content to distribute and how frequently should it be broadcasted?

The Plymouth State University Facebook Fan Page: What’s next?

As a follow up to yesterday’s post regarding Plymouth State University and it’s lack of any Social Strategy here are a few ideas which they might add to a social media marketing strategy – if PSU makes the commitment.

My first order of business would be address the lack of a ‘Welcome’ tab. Westfield State University does a great job using FBML (Facebook’s Markup Language) to create custom landing pages. In addition to their ‘Welcome’ tab the Westfield State University Facebook Fan Page includes a custom tab for current students, staff & faculty, an alumni tab that provides access to all alumni services including donations, events, and career services. The final tab is the advising & registration tab. The best part the WSU Fan Page, besides the clean presentation and easy accessibility, is that it acts as a hub for the universities social media efforts. The customized tabs save students, faculty, staff, and alumni time because they can all access information relevant to their needs.

This is a good starting point for Plymouth State to follow. However, establishing customized tabs is one step in the results oriented direction. More importantly you should always remember to respond to wall posts and comments people make. Ignoring a person’s comment or wall post is like sitting next to someone and letting them talk and you simply contribute nothing. Do you think other people are going to want to speak with you if you don’t respond back? A conversation requires two parties to communicate with each other.

Also, when posting status updates think and gather the consensus of  a group or team before updating your pages status with a post that might be irrelevant to the majority of your followers. Again, develop a strategy and plan an “update calender” for so you can post relevant updates to fans. Remember, you want to ENGAGE people and learn how they feel about your brand and/or organization. Let the people who experience your service or product daily (students) help solve problems by contributing ideas.

Plymouth State University has been provided with a wonderful opportunity to listen and learn from it’s students. Yes, there is the possibility  that students will write a wall post riddled  with expletives or share an inappropriate link – so what!?! Advise the public that acts similar to the ones I just mentioned are not tolerated and will be removed. Once again, this brings us back to having a social strategy. It is vital that you communicate the purpose of having a Facebook Fan Page.

What type of content should people contribute?

What problem(s) could our Facebook fans help us solve?

What is the mission and/or vision of PSU and how can we use social media to help us achieve it???

Social Media @ Plymouth State University

While browsing Facebook I found myself checking up on my a recent post in which I tagged my alma mater Plymouth State University. Looking at the PSU Facebook Fan Page it is clear Plymouth State does not have any social media strategy. I would like to know the purpose of having a fan page that you dedicate time updating daily, but don’t respond to comments or suggestions posted on its wall. So, Plymouth State has 3,390 fans at the time of this post, what purpose – how is Plymouth State University (PSU) benefitting from this fan page at all? It’s not.

Before Plymouth continues with their social media efforts the University needs to understand that social media requires use and cooperation of social media sites and platforms internally across the institution. Simply designating one person to monitor all of your social media efforts is ridiculous (unless you’re a small business).

This is an opportunity for PSU to connect with Alumni and current students, including parents. Using their Facebook Fan Page PSU needs to start by replying to comments people make on the page’s wall. This is critical to building a community because it helps you to establish trust and will naturally (over time) lead to more traffic and more ‘likes’ and ultimately down the road increased admissions and overall enrollment! However, before I get ahead of myself remember this takes time.

Plymouth State University is not the only NPO, business, or government that needs guidance. Failing to have a strategy leads to no results. Designing a strategy is specific to your mission or vision. If your organization is serious about optimizing its social presence it must consider, accept, and understand the following:

1) Social media won’t lead to overnight sales success. Success will take time and will come in increased buzz, referrals, traffic, and yes, sales.

2) Social media can’t be totally outsourced. You have to be involved to make this a success.

3) Social media’s not completely free. It’ll take time and/or money to achieve sustained growth.

Still having second thoughts? Click on any of the following social media businesses or industry experts and they will educate you using a similar message. Brian Solis, Dan Zarrella,  After all, the above “3 warnings” of social media I found on Likeable Local the new branch of Likeable Media which focuses on helping small businesses enter the realm of social media the correct and profitable way.

Local Businesses & Social Media: Where do YOU begin?

Managing social media campaigns are unique to each business and not every business out there needs to dedicate the time and money (it’s not free contrary to popular belief), but the truth is the majority will benefit from the increased transparency between business and consumer. If you’re no longer scared to travel to the social media universe be prepared to first, dedicate the time. The first step before you even create a Facebook Fan page (not another personal profile) is to scan the blogs, forums, communities, and groups that already exist. Remind me and I’ll provide you a list of tools to make this easier, but the first tool I used is Google Reader. First you have to find your audience and the majority of the time they’re not all in the same community so give yourself a good few weeks to search, read, and listen. Think about what the people are talking about and how it pertains to your brand, product, or service. Are people speaking positively or negatively about you? Finally, think about how you would respond – if you were to respond. Please, don’t do that just yet. Whenever there is negativity about you in the social media sphere take a deep breath and don’t comment just yet. It’s just like responding to a negative or critical email you received from your boss or supervisor – write down how you feel in a word document and read it over in a few hours before you send it. Now, with social media time is critical so you don’t have the luxury to whine about people bashing your brand – suck it up. If what they are saying is true you might ask for their advice or how they recommend fixing the problem. Do so in a very polite and professional manner. When communicating with your consumers you don’t want to lie or avoid the truth – they will find out. Answer their questions and respond to their statements – always remember to be empathetic and professional. If they’re dead wrong and simply making up false statements about you or your brand then reply (professionally) by addressing the accusation.
As I mentioned social media requires you first to commit (there is no turning back, just like The Matrix). To start create a list of keywords that represent your market and brand. Type them into a Google search and see read the front two or three pages. Now type those keywords into the search box in each of the following social platforms: Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. If you’re familiar with location based networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla monitor these too.

(1) Listen
(2) Monitor
(3) Analyze
(4) Engage
(5) Measure
If your business already has a social media presence let us know why you committed and where you started, the factors you considered, and if you had or developed a social strategy in the comments below.