How Facebook Turns ‘Likes’ Into Dollars Right Down to the Local Level
Local news publishers typically know many of their community restaurateurs on a first-name basis, and are regular diners at the establishments. But they can’t offer the precise targeting capability of Facebook, whose services are, in most cases, fully automated — greatly lowering their cost.
Borrell Sizes Up What’s Behind Local Ad Media Choices
We know from the numbers that local advertisers are increasingly choosing social media to place their messages. But they’re also turning out to be cautious businesspeople who like to maintain a balance in their placements among multiple media, according to a new study from Borrell Associates.
Hyperlocal Pioneer Howard Owens Sees New Mobile App as Key to Scaling Beyond His ‘Batavian’
Eight and a half years after launching his hyperlocal news site The Batavian, in upstate New York, Howard Owens is looking at growing his base company, Album Corp., beyond Batavia to multiple locations. His plan for expansion is driven by a homemade mobile app that he’s experimenting with for the site.
Local Media Consortium Not About to Retreat From Its Google and Facebook Ties
Questions are being raised about whether news publishers should keep expanding their relationships with Google and Facebook, and even whether they should pull out altogether. But you don’t hear that talk from the Local Media Consortium, which represents more than 70 newspaper, broadcasting and other local media companies.
JustPremium CEO Details Industry Campaign Against Ads That Users Hate
Among the most hated by both desktop and mobile users are pop-ups, auto-play videos with sound and large sticky ads. The Coalition for Better Ads, which includes many members of the ad industry, trade associations and a few news publishers, is developing new standards to give users a better experience when they encounter an ad message.
Can the New Scroll Subscription Service Help Embattled Local Publishers?
Tony Haile, until recently the longtime CEO of the highly regarded online-analytics site Chartbeat, is planning to launch a new subscription site that doesn’t try to convert readers from free to paid. He calls it Scroll, and it has $3 million in seed money from formidable publishers including the New York Times, News Corp and Axel Springer.
Facebook on Local News Partnerships: ‘We’re Just Getting Started’
The “Facebook Journalism Project” was launched recently to meet the “needs” of a news industry concerned about all the free editorial content being made available to the giant distribution platform. In this Q & A, Josh Mabry, manager of Facebook’s local news partnerships, details what FB is doing and plans to do for community news.
‘Media-Nxt’: How Local News Can Finally Enter Its Digital 21st Century
The newly published report “Media-Nxt” wants to help the local news industry not only to know what it should do, but also actually start doing it. Its main authors are the students of Sean Branagan. In this Q & A, he explains why new technology is so hard for the local news industry to adopt – but why it should and must take the leap.
Case Study: How an Unusual, Soft-Sell Sponsored Post Turned Readers Into Customers
“I tried to think about everything I hated about sponsored posts and do the opposite,” says Aaron Seyedian, the founder of Well Paid Maids. “As a reader, I find that sponsored posts on blogs are often lengthy, impersonal and overly centered on sales. I set out to write a post that would be succinct and personal.”
Hearst’s Barrett on Talks With Facebook: Progress, but More Needs to Happen
The president of Hearst Newspapers Digital Media, details what he sees as the current promise of Facebook’s nascent effort to promote subscriptions for local news publishers, and assesses the state of other major, yet-to-be-resolved issues for the publishers as they weigh their future on and with the tech giant.
Nashville Publisher’s Goal From Facebook Journalism Project: More Revenue
After considerable agitation from news publishers, Facebook launched a Journalism Project earlier this year “to better support publishers’ needs.” A six-month update said the Journalism Project has met with 2,500 publishers around the world to get their stories (and, no doubt, grievances) first hand and offer help with an array of Facebook products.
