Social Media for Local Business

Dave Peck at New Media Chatter, chips in with an advisory, 6 Ways Social Media Can Help A Local Business. The basics: a blog, a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account. But more importantly, taking on the role of “an expert” in your field. This concept and variations will stand as a fundamental precept for effective use of social media in local. My comment on Dave’s post:

“The secret for any local merchant is that they are already part of one or maybe many more social networks. In the old days, those were called “market segments;” but that phrase must be BANNED forevermore; it is far too static for the dynamism inherent in any social network that can now be animated by social media.”

Plus: if you attach your Twitter address to your napkins, brochures, shopping bags, store signs, ads on the sides of buses, you get more directly inside the flow of viral networking among people likely to have an interest in your stuff.

Local Social Vertical Model for News (PPT)

This deck summarizes thoughts about applying social media-enabled services in local markets in a way that can provide the revenue base to sustain journalism.    Not a panacea, but embodies the unique attributes of the medium, which in my view drives its potential.

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Ideas more than welcome.

Alternative Health and The Net: Parallels in Growth

Now having plunged into complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) at the local level, I find interesting parallels between the state of CAM today and that of online services in the pre-Netscape days of the Internet in the early 1990’s. These comparisons feel a little sketchy, but the more I think about them, the more telling they appear. (CAM, also referred to as integrative medicine, includes therapies like Chinese and Indian (Ayurvedic) medicines, acupuncture reiki, reflexology, bio-feedback and others that are the focal point of our LifePages business.)

As the net has reshaped the assumptions central to the information and communications industries, this far more amorphous collection of healing therapies and modalities has the potential to have a similar effect on healthcare. In some places it already has.

Consider these similarities:

1. An experienced consumer base, hungry for “more and better” and willing to pay for it:

Blending Local Verticals

Peter Krasilovsky in his Local Onliner notes a fundamental shift in local focus within the Gannett newspaper chain, reported by Wired magazine:

“The original prototype, CincyMOMs, from The Cincinatti Enquirer, brought in $386,000 in its first six months and gets 40,000 page views a day. Half of the CincyMOMS advertisers are new to the paper….Wired also notes that Gannett’s 110 papers are being reorganized by interest group. Instead of being seen as single, top-down metro paper, The Enquirer is now envisioned as 270 niche publications, including its suburban papers, neighborhoods WebSites and regional magazines.

“Reorganized by interest group…270 niches”? I can only say: Bingo. Good for Gannett. Now lets see if the corresponding blended revenue streams can fund a robust news operation.

Peter’s complete article is here.

Local vertical health care

MetroHealth Media, Inc.

Current assignment involves carving out a piece of the local consumer health care market by converting a print directory called LifePages that serves the DC metro region.

LifePages serves a sub-set of the local consumer health care vertical: complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), holistic and natural health therapies and practices.  These are now more consistently referred to as integrative health and medicine, a serious component of the rapidly growing prevention and wellness sector, as people step aside from mainstream medicine to test supplements, massage, meditation and other therapies. Acupuncture is perhaps the best known “non-traditional” (unless you live in Asia) treatment to evolve into acceptance. Meditation, herbal remedies and “energy” work are on the same path.

Since the time and dollars spent in pursuit and practice are almost entirely local, it fits the local/vertical formula I’ve focused on the last couple of years.

Local Social Verticals: A Personal Impetus

In 2002 my daughter Libby tore an ACL playing summer league basketball.  After wrestling the poor kid to the car and thence to the emergency room, I proceeded to research the injury, the local docs, the rehab, the prognosis. In this process I thought: “I’m not the only one doing this.” Parents have not had a resource that informs their experience hauling kids from games and parks to schools and fields and gyms. “We need one,” says I.  I assembled a proto site site with the able assistance of Jonathan Lundardi and Dave Leichtman.  It is on the list.