Dan Pacheco

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Local Social Networking

• Dan Pacheco
• Sr. Manager of Digital Products
• The Bakersfield Californian
• dpacheco_at_bakersfield.com
• dan_at_futureforecast.com

Suburban Newspapers of America Conference May 13,
2008 Las Vegas, NV
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Agenda

• What is Social Networking, and why should you
  care about it?
• Case study Local Social Networking in
  Bakersfield
• New Tools of the Trade

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• 1
• Social Networking

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What Is Social Networking?

• Part of the broader megatrend of
  consumer-generated content.
• Centered around the idea of persona, as expressed
  through online profiles.
• Who I am
• My photo(s)
• My interests
• My content and contributions
• My friends
• Serves as a hub for content
• Blog postings
• Article submissions
• Photos videos
• Online status (what Im doing right now)

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Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
Source Wikimedia Commons. See http//en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
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A few of the biggies
MySpace
Bebo
40 million members, popular in the UK. Recently
acquired by AOL
Over 100 million members 700 million est. annual
revenue

• Facebook

Ning
69 million members 150 million est. annual
revenue
Do-it-yourself social network tool that hosts
260,000 networks run by others.
LinkedIn
Twitter
21 million members Focused on career networking
A growing mobile status sharing service. 1.3
million unique visitors (Comscore)
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Dont be alarmed by technospeak!

• People connecting with others based on shared
  interests is nothing new.
• Remember AOL profiles? Hugely popular in their
  time.
• Message boards have had profiles from the
  beginning.
• Forget about the buzz words. This is about
  meeting basic human needs.
• Social creatures are compelled to connect and
  share.
• New tools just make it easier.
• MySpace popularized the idea of linking profiles
  through friend connections.
• Facebook, based on your real identity, started
  with college students and is now open to
  everyone.
• Now social networking tools are fragmenting, with
  everyone from John McCain and Barack Obama, to
  socially-conscious non-profits (see Care2.com)
  offering niche networks.

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Why social networking?

• Media business models are based on advertising
  around a few common topics, but thats not how
  people organize themselves anymore.
• There is no One America anymore, or Two, or
  Three, or Eight. In fact, there are hundreds of
  Americas, hundreds of new niches made up of
  people drawn together by common interests. --
  Mark J. Penn, Trendspotting
• Our media ad model is not suited to this world
• Today we sell a few verticals that are an inch
  wide and a mile deep.
• We need to sell o thousands of niches,
  demographics and interests.

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Or put another way

• How you probably still think about media

• Dad newspaper
• Kids TV
• Mom Off the radar

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The actual media landscape

• People graze through the day from different
  sources. And they increasingly put content back
  into it.

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Less Time
More Choice
Fragmented market
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How to maintain grow audience?

• Our challenge offer a little bit of everything
  for everyone, but in many places.
• One brand on one platform wont cut it.
• Leverage peoples desire to get involved
• Not necessary to hire a reporter for every
  beat.
• Niche audiences love to report on themselves.
• Think of your staff as the uber community
  contributors
• Empower your community to contribute stories,
  blogs, photos and videos -- then throw your staff
  into the mix. Trust me they will stand out in
  the areas where it counts.

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• 2
• Local Social Networking
• In Bakersfield, CA

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About Bakersfield

• At the base of the Central Valley of California
• 90 minutes north of Los Angeles, 6 hours south of
  San Francisco.
• 330,000 people and growing.
• Industries Agriculture, oil, and bedroom
  community for people who work in Los Angeles and
  coastal towns.

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About The Bakersfield Californian

• Locally focused newspaper
• Independently owned for 140 years
• Not part of a large media chain
• The only paper of its size in Bakersfield (70,000
  daily circ).
• Publisher takes long view
• Thinks ahead by 5-10 years.
• Award-winning products
• Innovative in both print and Web.

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Bakersfield Internet Usage

• Internet usage increasing, but is not yet
  ubiquitous
• 56 have used Internet in last 30 days.
• 45 have broadband (25 DSL, 20 cable modem).
• 12 still use dial-up Internet.
• Ave. time spent online hovers around 1-4 hours /
  week

Source Scarborough Research 2007. Kern County
and Bakersfield
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And yet, our newspaper Web site is a hotbed of
local social networking activity. Just look
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Locals do want to network

• 10 local Web sites with a full range of social
  media tools that drive over 4 million pvs / month
• User profiles
• Citizen contributed stories
• Free blogs for everyone
• Social networking and user-contributed content
  drives most of the growth online
• 26,000 profiles
• 39,000 friend connections
• More than 1,000 blogs
• 20 of activity comes from community content

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How people use our networks
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Interests help like minds connect
Find other fans of ska, running, tattoos in a few
clicks.
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Friends grow the audience
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Blogs bring in content, news, fun
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Band radio attracts music fans

• On Bakotopia, bands upload music to their user
  profiles, where it streams.
• We approve new tunes, then keep our hands off.
• Best stuff shows up on home page, in Bakotunes
  Podcast.
• In 2007, we started selling a CD compilation for
  5. (Yes thats right -- we made money on free
  music).

Listen to Bakotopia Radio
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The people are the content

• Golden Empire Paranormal Research Society
• Can evict your ghost, and sell you a futon on the
  side!
• CubicleDweller
• Just another corporate slave that gave up her
  dreams to finance a mortgage. One day I will
  break these chains and emerge triumphant.
• Twinkie
• I used to be super model until a freak accident
  caused me to shrink in size and gain weight. Then
  as luck would have it, I turned a pale yellow.

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Lots of Activity, but

• Niche sites are popular with consumers, but not
  so much with local advertisers (yet -- remember
  this all very new).
• Only 12-14 of local businesses advertise online
  -- and that includes those that use the social
  networking tools themselves.
• That means you have to be extra creative. Here
  are some examples and ideas for local media.

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Online-Local Print Hybrids

• Bakotopia.com
• Web site started in 2005.
• Print edition launched early May 2007.
  Distributed at 100 locations.
• No story finishes in print. You must go online to
  read it all.
• People know that their ticket to getting into
  print is contributing online.
• Local advertisers who use the site are more
  likely to buy ads in print than on the site
  theyre using!

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The Northwest Voice

• First citizen journalism initiative by a U.S.
  newspaper
• Spring 2004
• People write articles that are printed home
  delivered.
• Kids accomplishments, recipes, local issues.
• While content comes from Web, most revenue is
  still from the printed publications.
• Triggered a wave of similar initiatives across
  U.S.

http//www.northwestvoice.com/http//www.swvoice.
com/
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Local Business Directory

• Bakersfields Inside Guide creates a profile for
  every local business in town, and lets consumers
  rate and review based on their experiences.
• Consumers can also become a friend of the local
  business, opening up the possibility of direct
  marketing to VIP customers.
• It is much easier to sell advertising on local
  business profiles than on personal profiles.
• Lawrence.coms Marketplace product is projected
  to bring in 1 million this year, mostly from
  enhanced profiles.

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Continually adding new features

• Personal inbox and Friend status update feature
  lets you keep up with what your friends are doing.

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And lets not forget the impact on day-to-day
journalism
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Bakosphere Newsroom revolution

• Newsroom reorganized to be web first for
  everything.
• News department heads, now team leaders with
  groups of reporters, post reporters stories to
  the Web in blogs as they come in.
• Reporters converse with readers as they blog. The
  readers help direct focus of the stories.
• Night copy editors focus on polishing headlines
  and other fine-tuning, rather than raw story
  posting.

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Newsroom revolution
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Newsroom revolution
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Newsroom revolution
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Newsroom revolution
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• 3
• New Tools of the Trade

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Were too small to do all that

• To do this well, you need to apply people and
  money. However
• There are ways to get your feet wet starting now
• Open-source tools. Bakotopia started out as a
  10,000 on the cheap experiment using fee app
  called Noahs Classifieds
• Drupal A free community framework with a
  thriving, growing development community
• Ning.com
• And more and more free services pop up every day

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Ning.com

• Ning.com Create a social network for anything

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Ning.com

• Started by the creator of Netscape, the first
  commerical Web browser.
• Includes user profiles, blogs, video, music and
  more every day.
• Start out for free. Pay to add your domain name
  (e.g. soccerclubs.newspaper.com), and for more
  space and traffic.

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Mogulus for Video

• Live video broadcasting -- free!

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Ground Report

• New York-based broadcast about international
  issues. Uses Mogulus and embeds video on page.

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Magnify.net
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Magnify.net

• Free video aggregator.
• Pulls from YouTube, Google video and others based
  on keywords.
• You can apply your design (and ads!) to the site.
• Embed video player on your own site in minutes.

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• 4
• Summary

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Whats this really all about?

• Its not really about technology.
• There will always be a hot new tool or
  application.
• Its only a true need or interest that motivates
  the use of technology.
• Its about tapping into peoples desires to
  express themselves and tell their own stories in
  their own words.
• The same thing that made YouTube a phenomenon is
  fueling local user-generated content.
• That means it can happen in your community, too.
  As local publishers, you know the needs and
  interests of your community a lot better than a
  Silicon Valley startup

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Homework

• Set up a Ning site.
• Set up your profile on Facebook, MySpace,
  LinkedIn or another.
• Use social networking sites to promote your
  publications to new people.
• Keep up with your kids! -)

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Questions?

• Dan Pacheco
• dpacheco_at_bakersfield.com or dan_at_futureforecast.com
  
• Mary Lou Fulton
• Mfulton_at_bakersfield.com