Sarah Hartley

Pic: Nial Kennedy on Flickr

Involving the local community in your publishing is not just something that’s nice to have, it’s essential if your site is to survive and will will help keep your content relevant.

Many people find it a daunting prospect and it’s probably the number one issue raised during workshops on community publishing – how can people be persuaded to join in?

There’s no getting round the fact that it is hard work – and takes a lot of listening skills – which is why I asked some of those who have proven success in this area to share their advice with you below.

In addition I would add that it is important to be clear about what you are expecting from the users. For example, if you’re looking for pictures of an event, spell out what sort of pictures you’d like to see – and what won’t be acceptable.

There’s nothing worse for a user to enthusiastically provide content which doesn’t get published and then for them to have no idea why it was deemed fit to use. They won’t be so helpful a second time!

So my top tip would be to spend time ensuring the call to action is clear as well as letting people know what will happen – are only ‘the best’ submissions going to be used or will allcomers get mentioned? What’s the criteria for publication? Any restrictions? What about copyright? Payment? Why should a user send you anything? What’s in it for them?

Be upfront about the process and it will help build trust between your users and the publication but most of all – be encouraging, not all those who want to take part will have had any experience and it could be a big step for them to put a piece of work up for public scrutiny and your expert opinion.

Here’s those other top tips from people with know-how in how to get started:

Stuart Golden, managing director of the One&Other magazine and website in York:

Our motto has always been: Share your idea; Involve others; Celebrate often. Beyond that, the most valuable advice I could offer would be to never position yourself as a blogger as that limits your potential in the market.

Without doubt, the thing we’ve found most difficult is finding digital partners that share our vision and ambition, rather than viewing us as just another pay cheque. Thankfully, we found the right people in the end!

Emma Bearman of the influential The CultureVulture blog in the north of England:

Starting out?
Just Do it, set up a blog, audioboo, twitter etc, ask for help
Use it as your license to indulge your inquisitive curious mind
If you can’t be the source, be the resource. By which I mean if you aren’t brilliant at writing/editing etc then shine a light on others, curate, connect, be generous
Be in and part of the conversation
Make connections with the local university journalism course heads and tutors that really get it
Be guided by your moral compass
Love what you do. No point if it ceases to interest or delight you. Don’t let your blog be a monkey on your back
Be open, kind and compassionate. (those are my own mantra)
See the bigger picture
Take time to check your facts, don’t be a kneejerker
Try to leave your ego at the door

Hannah Waldram who started out with a hyperlocal in Birmingham and now works for The Guardian’s community team:

If you’re a one man band don’t try and do everything – spend time thinking about what you want your community blog to do and only create content which you can justify is in line with the spirit and goals of your endeavours

Sean Brady who publishes the Formby First blog and noticeboard offers:

Integrate a n0tice board into your site or blog.
Publish details of specifically local events.
Develop a Twitter account for ‘instant’  streams of short stories, comments,  relevant local links.
Include a Twitter widget in your site. Grow your followers.
Use twitter searches to find local stories, retweet them.
My analytics shows a clear relationship between tweets and page views.

And finally, John Baron of the South Leeds Life blog:

My tip would be to engage in the real world, be seen on your patch, run public meetings and discussions. Show you’re a real person, not just a twitter avatar.

Any other tips to share? Please do feel free to pass on your experiences via the comments below.

This is a tricky area and I don’t claim to have all the answers but I have seen a variety of different approaches on dealing with ‘competing’ local services. Even the idea of ‘competition’ in the hyperlocal space can be problematic as many publishers don’t feel they are competing with other existing services but instead come from a starting point of providing something new, missing or complimentary to what was previously on offer.

In the case of the fledgling hyperlocal I’m initiating, that’s certainly my standpoint and I hadn’t expected to be considering this issue so early in the process however, the reaction from a local commercially run website pointed up something different so it’s become something that needed to be addressed.

In fact that’s possibly the first thing to note, even if you’re not running the hyperlocal as a commercial enterprise, it may be considered as competition by those who do seek to make money from local publishing, one of the reasons why there’s sometimes friction between local newspapers and community websites and blogs. Established operators may feel they ‘own’ the local space.

The thinking which underlies that approach often doesn’t take into account the very different way people consume news and information online and via mobile but it is a view still present in some quarters and so may reveal itself as an issue quite early in the life of your hyperlocal.

So what’s the best strategy? Here’s five different approaches to consider:

1. Publish a manifesto
Lay out your stall online. What the site is doing, what it stands for, why you’re doing it etc. This can be around the editorial tone and content but also be extended to any commercial dealings. Greater transparency with everything from traffic figures to ad revenues can help explain the role you see the site fulfilling.This one from the US site The Rapidian is an effective and concise example.

2. Contact possible competitors
Basically the same as the above but on a one-to-one basis.
Introduce yourself and explain what you’re doing, why you’re doing it etc. I’d love to be able to relay experience of this in action but sadly, so far at least, this approach has been without success for several projects I’ve initiated. If you’ve different experience, please do feel free to add to this post via the comments below.

3. Find areas to collaborate
Maybe you have great photography but the other site has the resources to do in-depth reporting – together you could create great slideshows. Or maybe you could provide a feed of information which, properly attributed, could be used in the local community sections?
Taking some time to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each proposition could lead to a fruitful collaboration whether on an ongoing basis or a one-off project.
A good example of this in action can be seen in the work Trinity Mirror has done in Birmingham which laid the groundwork for hyperlocal content sharing. (Disclosure: I am connected with, Talk About Local, the company involved in the initiative).

4. Give link love
If you genuinely don’t compete, then this will be a simple but effective step you can take that gives your users the benefit of all the content available locally while taking some of the sting out of any fraught relationships. Linking to stories being carried elsewhere builds your repository of information and can help users understand the difference between your offering and that of your competitor. If the content isn’t suitable on a day-to-day basis, consider a fixed link in the blog roll, ad space or similar to point up the existence of other provision.

5. Go it alone
Not much of a strategy but this maybe what you end up with so be prepared. It maybe you discover there’s no appetite for collaboration and your ‘competitors’ would rather behave as if you didn’t exist. If that happens then – keep calm and carry on as the much overused expression goes – your users are actually unlikely to care one way or the other and you’ve undoubtedly enough to be getting on with.

* Do you have experience in this area which could help people starting out? Please feel free to add to this post via the comments below.

Having already made some decisions on the type of local site you’re setting up, the first major decision to take is which platform to use. The right platform for you will depend on the activity you intend and considerations such as whether advertising is part of the mix and who will be involved in the creation/management of the content.

For the hyperlocal site that I’m getting started (www.richmond.n0tice.com), the decision was in effect made for me – I’m using n0tice.com because it’s a platform that I’m also working on to develop for independent publishers and so using it for this can help inform that process.

The most commonly used platform for this type of publishing would probably be WordPress.com – for sites which don’t require advertising options – and the self-hosted version WordPress.org for those that do.

But there are plenty of other options depending on your needs. I’ve started this spreadsheet of some of those I’ve come across with details of their particular properties.

Blog platform comparison

Please do feel free to add any others by editing the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkidpwJVgP8cdDN4WkQ2OWUxdUIxcVg5Y2VZTXduQnc.

This the first in a series of blog posts where I shall document the hyperlocal initiative www.richmond.n0tice.com as a step-by-step process that is intended to be helpful to anyone setting about a similar project – shared experiences and tips most welome.

‘Why?’ really does have to be the very first question for anyone setting up a hyperlocal website or blog. The reasons for getting involved in any community publishing venture vary widely and I’ve come across many over the years – maybe there’s a specific issue that needs addressing locally, perhaps there’s a lack of news provision generally in the area or poor local information? maybe it’s a business opportunity you’ve spotted in these freelance and DIY days?

All valid reasons and ones that it’s important to understand and be able to articulate before setting about any enterprise which could become a passion, a profitable enterprise or a lot of fun on one hand but, if it all goes wrong, a depressing timesink or costly mistake.

I’ve come up with the five questions below to think through the ‘why’ before getting started. There’s no correct answers, it’s as much about the process of answering the questions to help establish the way your hyperlocal proceeds and provide a framework or bare bones of the project.

Producing this basic list can be a vital piece of documentation to return to in the future as things develop and can help stop you getting blown off course.

My answers in connection with my own new venture are in brief below.

Five questions to consider before starting any hyperlocal project

1. Is there a need? This could be a general need ie. nowhere to find what’s going on or a specific need eg. The dog fouling in this town is appalling or why does no-one ever stand for council election?

2.  What is the site to be for? Events? news? conversation? photography? It can be all of the above, or a combination, but it’s important to think through the primary aim as there will substantial differences in the decisions taken down the line between, for instance, a site set up to express a sense of place and one investigating local issues or a forum for conversations.

3. What existing provision is there? Relates to point 2 – is there already activity locally and in which aspects? Identify who else covers the patch in terms of blogs and twitter as well as mainstream media in print, broadcast or online. There’s no point in re-inventing the wheel so if there’s some good content out there, understand where to find it.

4. Do you seek to receive any income from it? Again, some of the decisions coming up will be dependent on this answer. Even which platform to use for publishing, as well as business structures and status.

5. What does success look like? Yes, a cheesy management line in some instances, but this will help form the guiding principles for your site and is a vital conversation to have if a group of people is involved. A lot of potential later friction can be avoided by thought and detailing at this pre-launch stage.

My answers in brief

1. The need I identify in the town is primarily around the transparency of local decision-making with a secondary one of finding out what’s on. There are already some sources of information (identified in point 3) but nothing specifically aimed at people using digital tools and platforms who are empowered to participate online or via mobiles. I have noticed very few members of the public turning out for meetings on important local issues and local elections are poorly attended. On a parliamentary basis, the constituency must be one of the safest Tory seats in the country, currently held by foreign secretary William Hague.
2. The site is for sharing. That’s a simple aspiration but one I know from experience it will be hard to achieve. The last thing I want to prompt is a top down service – this is to be a set of tools to enable people to share the local information important to them. As an engaged local person myself, I’m also keen to participate where I can but, it is not MY site!
3. As far as mainstream news provision goes, the town is one of those places that’s on the edge of everyone’s patch – a factor I’ve noticed in quite a lot of other hyperlocals. In print,  two regional dailies , The Northern Echo and The Yorkshire Post both have the town in their sights – occasionally. Reductions in staff, budgets, offices etc. have inevitably taken their toll as their readerships have fallen to 38,479* And 37,833* Respectively. Richmondshire  has a population in excess of 47,000 and each of those publications includes several large and very newsworthy cities in their patches. The free newspaper, The Yorkshire Advertiser has a distribution of 23,716* but again, has much larger places within its patch and so provides a limited number of stories relating specifically about the town. The excellent weekly paper, The Darlington and Stockton Times fights a good fight and publication is still eagerly awaited by many in the town but even that only serves : 21,829* (down 5.2%) across a large geographical patch. Broadcast-wise, the town falls into the BBC Tees are which has its heart on the industrial towns and cities of Teesside and the forces radio provides a good community serice for those based at nearby Catterick Garrison. TV is again, on the edge of everywhere with residents likely to choose to receive Tyne Tees or Yorkshire regions depending on work or family background. There is another online service, RichmondOnline which provides a good what’s on service in addition to producing a local business directory. (* Newspaper figures from latest ABCs.)
4. No. I intend this to be a project for the benefit of the local community and will be doing this as part of my other activities in the hyperlocal publishing sphere so I don’t need it to provide me with an income.
5. Success would ultimately look like something that can exist and thrive without me. Although I am very keen to participate in the life of the town (and love doing the sort of local reporting I’ve been involved in for 20+ years now), if the site isn’t valuable enough for people to also want to engage in and contribute, then it won’t have succeeded in the terms I measure it.

Last updated: Jan 17

One of the great things about working with Talk About Local is meeting so many enthusiastic, knowledgeable and passionate people who run hyperlocal websites and blogs.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll share some of those stories on the TAL blog and I’ll link to them here as well.

The first one I published today looks at the work of Annette Albert in the W14 postcode area of London. She reports from and campaigns for that area tirelessly but doesn’t consider what she does to be journalism.

2. Creating a village in Caldmore – how the Caldmore Village Festival team re-invented an area of Walsall.

3. Trumpeting the success of The Crickdale Bugle - some of the daily dilemmas faced by a one-man band publisher in Wiltshire.

4. Creating a living archive in Wolverton – the challenges for volunteers in sorting, understanding, digitising and archiving donated community material.

5. Shining a light on the democratic process in Kington – how a dispute over Christmas lights ended up shaping the make-up of a council.

I’m ending the year on something of a landmark for this blog – this is my 1000^th post!

I’m hoping wordpress will be baking me a cake or some such reward for my efforts here over the past four years. If you’ve been with me on the journey – thank you

Looking back over the past 12 months, the most viewed posts reflects a lot of what I’ve been up to – hyperlocal thoughts, train journeys and football. Yes football!! It was something of a surprise that the most popular single posting in 2011 was the Sheffield Wednesday supporters’ newspaper spoof which is still getting accessed from the forums. I shouldn’t have been surprised really, every web editor knows that football will spike even the most sluggish traffic.

Other interesting things to note – dear old Twitter was the biggest referrer this year (although only slightly ahead of search engines) with search terms to that Terry Henfleet, my name and train wi-fi topping the list.

Here’s the top ten most viewed posts of the year

Home page

Newspaper gets spoofed by Terry Henfleet. Again!

10 Characteristics of hyperlocal

East Coast to stop free wifi

Journalist as gatekeeper: Is that all there is?

Q and A with Jim Brady about TBD.com, hyperlocal and what’s next

Media ‘ignorant about the north’

About

Fairydust, forensics and funding: Hyperlocal success at #TAL11

Sailing boats

See you in 2012!

What's on the horizon? Image CC Flickr user Dominics Pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicspics/786059029/

The evolution of the UK’s hyperlocal landscape has been interesting to observe, document and participate in over the past few years – but what’s to come? Is now the moment for hyperlocal, that perfect storm?
This time of year is long-established as acceptable for gazing into the crystal ball (despite the risk of certain ridicule in  12 months time when predictions remain way off target!), so here’s my few tentative thoughts.

Where we are
The last year has certainly been an active one for all shapes and sizes of hyperlocal publishing, that ecosystem of news, information and community provision has probably never been more dispersed since the days of the public sphere of the 18th century before that itself was disrupted by the arrival of the mainstream media barons. Some independent sites have become so well established and experienced now they are the mainstream for their communities while it seems not a month goes by without another venture starting – some news based, some campaigning others becoming the local glue by connecting local conversations.
The OpenlyLocal register of hyperlocal sites and blogs is showing many hundreds and put that together with the fact there’s 1,600 local newspapers operating websites across the UK (although it should be noted not many have taken on the challenge of that truly grassroots hyperlocal opportunity) it could be seen as all is rosy out here in local land. But we are all very aware that is not quite as the raw numbers might suggest – while the independent sector is growing, there’s the well-documented continuing retractions in local newspapers from the big media groups – 31 weeklies in the last year according to the latest figures compiled by Roy Greenslade.

What’s in store
Prediction one: A even greater dispersal of local news and information with more activity starting up but more of it looking into niche areas. While website/blogs which have aspects of traditional publishing (ie. news, sport, features etc.) might become fewer, the levels of hyperlocal activity across all and many platforms will undoubtedly become greater. Less about the destination and more about the journey.

Prediction two: Location, location, location. Given that most hyperlocal activity has a geographical focus, this might sound obvious but, taking in the point above, connecting with people across many and/or all platforms requires content to have geo-locative information like never before and the technologies to achieve that are now easily/cheaply available. As the tech giants and social media platforms offer ever more focused tools to drill into localities, the opportunities for hyperlocals to join up the dots in their communities grows and grows. Seems quite a few American hyperlocal pioneers agree on this point – just look at how often the ge0 issue is mentioned in Street Fight’s round up of their views.

Prediction three: A business model will emerge! Ok, this is a bit of indulgent New Year optimism over experience but …..there are some sensible moves afoot which are addressing the hyperlocal conundrum – how to offer sufficient scale to advertisers while keeping sufficient granularity for readers. Looking to the States, this model of hyperlocals huddling together to create scale while retaining their independence is interesting – could Liverpool or Lyme Regis, Bolton or Brighton be the UK’s Chicago? Maybe advertising’s not the whole answer for sustainability – a move away from traditional profit based company structures to a charitable or co-operative model is already being discussed in areas as different as Edinburgh, Port Talbot and London. It has to be accepted that not all hyperlocals are remotely interested in developing a business from their community endeavours, but in 2012, many of those that do, now have the confidence and experience to move this agenda on.

Wishing you a Happy Hyperlocal New Year!

The end of the year is always a good opportunity for a bit of a sort out in the blog, social media department so I have a bit of a ‘to do’ list to get through in readiness for a fresh start for 2012.

First up – cut down on the number of twitter accounts to manage. So, I shall stop tweeting @localsarah and instead continue on @foodiesarah. Maintaining a division of twitter activity between things of hyperlocal, community interest and items about journalism became something of a false division in the end.

I’d like to invite all the followers @localsarah to come along on the journey to @foodiesarah as there will be a lot of hyperlocal related activity going on in the New Year as I take on my new responsibilities at Talk About Local.

To start things off I’ve created this list of hyperlocal blogs and websites - if you belong on here, please tweet me.

I’m talking about the challenges for the future of UK hyperlocal media over in Prague tomorrow at an event which looks like a fascinating mix of journalism from around the world.

Alongside my tales of dog poo, democracy and the hunt for digital revenues (in which readers of this blog are well-versed) there are nine other ‘visual essays’ looking at diverse aspects of journalism.

I intend to blog here from the other talks as much as possible so check back if these topics interest you:

•  Exposing the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan. Speaker: Chris Woods
•  New forms of journalism in Asia. Speaker: Kunda Dixit
•  New business models for digital entrepeneurs. Speaker: James Breiner
•  Hypermedia for a hyperconnected world. Speaker: Leo Prieto
•  Screen-scraping Latin American media. Speaker: Mariano Blejman
•  Citizens vs. Governments in Latin America: the impact of social networks in the political landscape. Speaker: Luis Manuel Botello
•  The future of intelligence, whistleblowing and journalism. Speaker: Annie Machon
•  Omnipresent news, the content factory approach. Speaker: David Brewer

Link to the conference site here.

* I’ll round-up from the day on this blog but will also post updates during the day at www.n0tice.com,(the social/local/mobile noticeboard project I’m working on) so if you’re one of the beta users, search for Prague. If you’d like to be one of the beta users – sign up for an invite!

Yesterday I was fortunate to attend the Local Government Camp in Birmingham – an unconference for people working in councils across the UK. It was a thoughtful and idea-provoking event which covered issues which I shall be taking a closer look at for The Guardian’s Local Government Network in the near future.

But there were also a few stories which came out of the day which had more of a journalism/media/hyperlocal bent which I’ll share here;

* Interesting to discover that The Met has just held it’s first webchat on a hyperlocal website. Talk About Local’s William Perrin told the session on hyperlocal publishing how he’d been approached to host the chat via his own website www.kingscrossenvironment.com.
On the site he explains:

“My site based in a once crime-ridden area is firmly pro police (two of our contributors have been on the Safer Neighbourhood Panel) and our commenters are of the non rabid variety. So for the police it was very much a carefully managed innovation risk.”

Conversations included discussion about the enforcement of 20mph zones, support for rough sleepers and youth provision.
Fostering a close working relationship between police forces and bloggers/independent publishers is something that I’ve seen in other towns and cities across the country not least in Manchester where @AmandaComms is often leading the agenda so it’s good to see the capital’s law enforcers also giving some validity to the importance of the hyperlocal/local/community sites. If your local Force is doing something similar, please feel free to share details via the comments below.

* Filming in council meetings. Following hot on the heels of the case of the blogger arrested for filming in the council chamber, Philip John of LichfieldLive hosted a debate on the for and against of such activity and has produced this interesting visualisation.
The subject of council newspapers also arose and it was interesting to hear viewpoints from the other side of the fence. From what I heard, the idea us journos have that the main benefit of these has more to do with propaganda and attempting to control the message than finance seems to hold true……you can listen to the discussion on John Popham’s video here.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a8oqA0qY54&w=560&h=349]  At the risk of opening up a hornet’s nest of a debate here, I am still left wondering if the time is right for a wider discussion about the issue of value-for-money advertising spending by councils and the cost-effectiveness of how that spending on important public information, for example public notices, is distributed in light of all the new tools and technologies available?

Away from #localgovcamp
For those that subscribe to it, it will be apparent that I have ceased publishing on The MancunianWay blog. I’ve left it a few months before taking the final deletion step to see whether it was the right thing to do and will be switching it off fully in a week or so. There’s two reasons for this decision – 1. now I’m a regular writer for The Northerner blog, the sort of stuff I used to post about Manchester and the city’s digital community (and now about MediaCityUK) will hopefully reach more people interested in those topics posted via The Guardian blog and 2. I’ve imported all the archive material into this blog so it’s easily retrievable here via the tag cloud.

And on that subject….I shall be blogging (for The Northerner) from The Impact of Media City conference tomorrow, the hashtag is #mediacityuk and the full agenda can be found here.