Who’s afraid of community content?

Mandy Jenkins, @mjenkins

Phoenix Newstrain, March 23-24, 2012

How Newsrooms Can Tap Into The Best Of What’s Around

What is community content?

How is it different from UGC?

Not everyone gets a trophy

Community partners can :

• Provide high quality content in niche or underserved areas of your coverage• Bring in a new audience to your site• Lend their brands to yours

Examples to Draw From

The Cincinnati.Com Model

• Sought bloggers to supplement underserved lifestyle content and popular sports content• Recruited existing local bloggers with known

brands• Converted offline brands into onsite bloggers• Advertising on the blogs• Bloggers were paid

http://cincinnati.com/living

The TBD Model• Recruited existing local and

hyperlocal blogs to supplement a small staff output• All topic areas considered, so long as

it was local• Shared advertising with bloggers*• Bloggers were unpaid

The TBD Model

Cincinnati’s Success

• Increased content in Lifestyle area• Increased incoming traffic to

Cincinnati.com• Added traffic from network affiliates

increased overall pageviews• Built goodwill within the blogging

community

TBD’s Success

• Increased local content• Sent traffic to a new website• Built awareness & trust for new brand• Built goodwill within the blogging

community

Evaluate your needs

•What audiences do I want to reach that I’m not currently reaching?•What kind of content do we need to

better attract and retain readers?

Finding Community Content Partners

Step 1: Do a local blog audit

• Document every local content source you can find• Name, link, social networks, content

type, etc.• Helpful for source building, too

Start with those you know

• The #1 space to find local blogs is the blog rolls of other local blogs• Follow the links down the rabbit hole

Ask your staff – and readers

Check blog networks

• blockbyblock.us/• outdoorbloggernetwork.com• blogher.com/network• sbnation.com• fansided.com• Google for other, more local networks

Create new blogs

More than blogs

• Community group, church and school publications• Neighborhood listservs and newsletters• Competing publications• Content outside your area

Where will the content live?

Option 1: Host on your site

Option 2: Host offsite

Blog Preview Via RSS

Option 3: Direct linkouts

Option 4: Aggregation

Who reaches out & manages this content?

• Online staff?• Engagement/social media editor?• Section editor?• A mix?

Blogger Agreements

Questions to Consider

•Who owns copyright?

Questions to Consider

•Who owns copyright?•Will content be featured in print?

Questions to Consider

•Who owns copyright?•Will content be featured in print?•Will bloggers be edited by staff?

Questions to Consider

•Who owns copyright?•Will content be featured in print?•Will bloggers be edited by staff?• Required number or length of posts?

Paying Bloggers

•Monthly or by post?• Tied to pageviews?• Access to traffic reports?• Ad revenue share or no?

Blog Badges

Advertising

Added Relationships

•Marketing, co-linking agreements• Co-hosted events and meetups• TV/media appearances

Questions?

Mandy JenkinsTwitter: @mjenkins

Slides available at slideshare.net/mandyjenkins

More resources at zombiejournalism.com