There’s a lot of talk going on about the future of the media, and how real estate businesses essentially have to become nanopublishers if they want to really make an impact with their online marketing. I’m not a Realtor, but I do see the value in Hyper-local online marketing… and it’s not just for real estate.
I see the beginning of the wave. The ease of modern publishing on WordPress combined with the the ability to bootstrap marketing efforts using social media is too exciting to pass up. Curbed.com just got a 1.5 million investment to expand it’s concept to Chicago. I don’t think investors Brad Inman or Nick Denton are shooting blind. With big news in ’06 and ’07 regarding online media and newspapers migrating focus online in droves, big opportunity exists.
This is why I decided to quit watching and try my hand. I plan to take the morsels of knowledge I have gathered from countless articles read in 2007 and attempt to put it to good use by building a hyper-local blog for my city… and build local traffic that would be invaluable for a real estate professional or any local business for that matter.
What is my motive? The hope that my site will become popular, serving with and along side other media sites in my area to bring relevant information to people. How I use it from there is going to be the fun part. Right now, I’m focused on people. In the words of Derek Zoolander: “but what people?”. And my answer is: “I don’t know, local people!”.
So what defines a hyper-local blog? What does a local blog for a typical suburb, in a typical city, do for people? What information is useful? What are they looking for? Is this audience already online? If so, where do they hang out? How local should I go? What is the scope of the category content? How will I promote it online? Offline? Where do I start? Is it possible for one person to handle it or will I need help? What does the future hold?
These are some of the many questions I will attempt to answer as I chronicle my journey into the local terrain. I need help from geniuses. Stay tuned… I will roll out the concept in coming posts.
