Can really small towns plug into social media?
Links from my KYA presentation at the bottom of this post.
The stumper I got from my session at the Kentucky Press Association‘s annual conference came from Sarah Craig, general manager of the Todd County Standard in Elkton, Ky. I love getting questions, but I couldn’t answer this one on the spot: How can a really, really small community — and its weekly newspaper — benefit from the social media boom?
Sarah said Todd County has a population of around 10,000, with negligible broadband access (except when some folks are at work). Most of the access from home is via dial-up.
I pledged to give it some thought and write about it here. The four-hour drive from Louisville to St. Louis gave me plenty of time to think. Hopefully, I can get some help on the answer from anyone who reads this.
I give Sarah credit for being forward thinking. It would be tempting to write-off social media. If there’s not that much Internet penetration, why worry about it? Surely she has plenty of other issues to deal with. But, she says, “what do we do to get ready for it” when the capacity is there? I applaud her.
Here’s a few links to happened to run across while writing this:
4 part series on Social Media from a Small Town
Louretta: An open-source, socially networked, small-town newspaper CMS
Social Media Starter Moves for Small Town Small Businesses
Here’s a few of my ideas; I really hope others will have better ones.
Elkton, Ky. (map links to full Google map)
Build on what’s already there. The Todd County Standard web site is in disrepair right now (I believe Sarah is having some personnel issues there). But their blog (hosted on Blogger) is a great start. That could, effectively, be the web site for the time being, with a bit more info in the sidebars. And people must be finding and reading it…because it has comments.
Speaking of the comments, build on that, too. Be sure to respond to those readers’ comments — and run some of them in the paper. A comment on a blog post about the Todd County jail says: “Where are the state of Kentucky and DOC/Department of Corrections inspections reports ? (post them in the newspaper and on your tc-standard newspaper web site).” Indeed! Responding to that kind of comment — and crediting readers will encourage more similar interaction. Do a ton of reverse publishing.
Is anyone else blogging near the community? Link to them. Run a feedroll of their headlines on the web site. That’s just nothing but good for them, because it’s someone else linking to them, helping their Google search and driving traffic their way.
Don’t get hung up on the technology; it’s mostly about the content. Look for content readers are producing — however they’re doing it (on actual bulletin boards around town?) — and see if you can share it with others.
Consider looking at Google Friend Connect. That would likely tie in nicely with the Blogger blog page. People could sign up for membership; provide a bonus for doing so.
End-run the Internet broadband issue. Encourage people to share news and information with cell phones. Could you create a special Flickr pool (like this Washington Post inauguration day pool?) for your community and invite readers to send photos from their cell phones? Print a primer on how to sign up for Twitter and send text messages by phone — then use a Twitter widget to add feeds to your site.
Run primers on how to get involved at the newspaper offices. Do show-and-tell. Offer cookies.
Again, I’m hopeful for help with this topic and grateful for the hospitality the Kentucky Press Association showed me while I was there.
* * *
Finally, here’s the other links from the presentation:
Here’s a link to download the plain old Powerpoint. Here’s a link to the document on Google Docs. Here’s “social bookmarking in plain English” by the Commoncraft Show, on YouTube.
Finally, here’s links to some of the other things I mentioned:
Digg.com
Reddit.com
Google News (where you can create RSS feeds of searches)
Google Blog Search (same thing)
Chicago Tribune’s “Colonel Tribune” page.
My blog post on Colonel Tribune.
Related Posts:
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Kurt's Tweets- Realizing how woefully out of touch I have been with this part of the county. (@ Saint Louis Bread Company) http://4sq.com/5z5Bfh
- Just had my first Gmail phone call -- with my parents -- and the quality was fantastic. Wow. http://tcrn.ch/a8GndI
- Another day, another interview. Fingers crossed. (@ Saint Louis Bread Co) http://4sq.com/avGImL
- Helping my son learn the first 20 elements on the periodic table. Disturbed by how many more elements there are since I studied this stuff.
- Giving blood. (@ St. Martin's Episcopal Church) http://4sq.com/aiWuEk
View Comments on Can really small towns plug into social media?
Kurt, great post … but check out all the activity from users on The Batavian … started a nearly 10 months ago, more than 1,000 registered users, not print-product support.
Yes, I would say social media works in small towns.
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