Are Community Networks the Final Frontier for Local Publishers?

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What if local publishers changed their strategy to focus exclusively on engaging and connecting their community at large? It still requires the great content that they create daily, but also a powerful and relevant search experience for users, more calls to action, and a more native and engaging mobile experience.

How Community News Can Win Respect — And Bring in Revenue

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“You can’t always focus on monetization,” says 30A’s Mike Ragsdale. “You have to focus on what’s good for the community and for your audience. In my experience, if you do that, the money will eventually follow. Put others first, and they’ll inevitably support you.”

8 More Community Sites Climb to Michele’s List Revenue Pinnacle in 2016

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Overall, 78% of the 96 sites in the closely watched survey of independent news sites reported revenue increases in 2015, with 13% saying they doubled revenue and close to a third reporting gains of 50%.

Why Local News Sponsorships Are More Relevant than Ever

Lee Enterprises and Okanjo Team Up to Match Ads to News ‘Sentiment’

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Up until now, most digital ad targeting has focused on marrying the right ad with the individual user. But that kind of targeting can be hit or miss. This new partnership will try and connect the right kind of ad messages to the right editorial content across Lee’s 20 million monthly visitors.

Pasadena Now: 20 Articles Daily and 75 Advertisers — But Big Challenges As Well

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“We built an online community newspaper the old-fashioned way — with daily deadlines, plenty of shoe leather and a grueling schedule of personally attending dozens of community events every month,” publisher James Macpherson says about his 12-year-old local news site.

Borrell on Local Dailies and Their Tiny Digital Ad Share: They Need a New Story

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Local digital ad revenue will grow from $48 billion in 2015 to $66 billion in 2016, Borrell Associates projects in its new benchmarking report covering 10,395 sites in all media. That’s an eye-popping increase of 37.5%. But newspapers will see only a 6% to 7% revenue increase,

Understanding the Context of Local Advertising’s Supply and Demand

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The current election cycle, if nothing else, has demonstrated the importance of context in the supply and demand of local media. In this type of market, the early bird gets the worm. Consumer brands are learning this lesson the hard way and getting shut out of local opportunities that otherwise might have been available.

#SFSNYC Recap: 5 Key Takeaways from This Year’s Summit

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The annual Street Fight Summit assembled more than 350 marketers, solutions providers, technologists, and media executives to discuss pressing issues and developments in the connected local economy. Here are five key takeaways from the day’s keynotes, panel discussions, and fireside chats.

On 2nd Birthday, Fast-Growing ‘Indie’ San Angelo Live Clicks Its Spurs

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Joe Hyde, founder and publisher of San Angelo Live, is seeing his independent community news site in West Texas hit $60,000 in monthly ad revenue. And on its second anniversary, the site continues to attract more unique visitors than the site of its 131-year-old “legacy” competitor.

Study: Local Advertisers Are Leaving Behind $14 Billion in Co-op Marketing Every Year

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According to the report from Netsertive and Borrell Associates, 38 percent of local businesses cited “too much paperwork” as the greatest barrier to co-op marketing, and another 38 percent cited “too many rules.”

McClatchy Says It’s a ‘Digital’ Company, but More Work Still Remains

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There is no doubt that McClatchy is putting an enormous amount of energy and talent into digital — but will it be enough when print is shrinking so rapidly? Street fight spoke to the company’s VP of products, marketing and promotion, Christian Hendricks, about where McClatchy is in its digital evolution

After 2 Spinoffs, Journal Media Group Looks to Strengthen Digital Offerings

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The new Journal Media Group includes the 17 dailies that used to be part of E. W. Scripps and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which used to be owned by Journal Communications. We asked the company’s president, Tim Stautberg, about what JMG will be doing to succeed in both print and digital…

Street Fight Daily: Apple’s New Software, Facebook Hands Out Beacons

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With New Software, Apple Looks to Bring Together Local Search and Commerce (Street Fight)… Facebook Is Handing Out Free Beacons to Retailers (Recode)… Google Capital-Backed Thumbtack Hit With Manual Action For Unnatural Links (Search Engine Land)…

Street Fight Daily: Facebook’s Local News Play, Uber’s Latest Lawsuit

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Publishing For Local News Outlets Could Arrive ‘in The Coming Months’ (Columbia Journalism Review)… Lawsuit Claims Uber Co-founders Stole Idea for Ride-Sharing App (Fortune)… Zuckerberg To SMBs: Facebook Pages Are Still The Best Way To Reach Consumers (Fortune)…

Street Fight Daily: Wal-Mart Ditches Google, Legacy Media Still Owns News

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Google, Wal-Mart Part Ways Over Local Shopping Ads (Wall Street Journal)… New Pew Report: In Cities Big And Small, Readers Still Rely On Traditional Media For Local News (Nieman Lab)… Vistar, Instantly Partner For OOH Measurement (MediaPost)…

Street Fight Daily: Bing’s New Ordering Service, Google Revives Wallet

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyBing Now Lets You Order Food And Book Hotels Directly From Search Results (The Next Web)… To Revive Wallet, Google Tries to Wrangle Unruly Partners (Wall Street Journal)… Uber Valued At $41 Billion As Revenue Growth Powers Expanded Funding Round (MarketWatch)…

Foursquare

Street Fight Daily: Foursquare Ads Tap Twitter, Airbnb Courts Cities

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyFoursquare’s New Ads Tap Twitter And Require $100K Commitment (AdWeek)… Airbnb Cozies up to Cities (Fortune)… Charting the Years-Long Decline of Local News Reporting (Washington Post)…

Street Fight Daily: Square Makes Loans, Why Microsoft Invested in Foursquare

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technologyWith Square Capital, Square Begins Offering Controversial Merchant Cash Advances (Recode)… It’s Now Obvious Why Microsoft Invested Millions In Foursquare (Business Insider)… Uber Says it Doesn’t Discriminate by Neighborhood in Chicago (GigaOm)…

The Patch Saga, and Its Implications for Local Media

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Aol’s decision to unload its struggling hyperlocal network earlier this week may not have been unexpected, but the distressed property’s fire sale does carry with it some broader questions, even as many local media companies have recently started to see signs of reinvestment…

New Borrell SMB Report: ‘The Deer Have the Guns’

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The 903 small business owners surveyed in a new study from Borrell Associates said they expected to spend only 12% of their digital advertising budgets in 2013 on banner advertising, sponsorships, and classifieds. Meanwhile they expected to spend more than half of their marketing budgets on owned channels, investing heavily in managing their website (35%), running email marketing campaigns (13%), and social media (14)%.