Hyper local and niche communities give newspapers a potent and targeted consumer pool for attracting local businesses, goods and services.

Less than a generation ago, the newspaper was the consumer's single daily information lifeline to the world. Served up fresh each morning, it was the only information feed available to consumers until the next morning's edition appeared in the driveway or was picked up from a newsstand.

This monopoly ended decades ago, first with the introduction of radio, followed by television, then cable and, in the last 10 years or so, the internet.

Figure 1: Newspaper readership by generation -- percentage of respondents who read a paper

Source: Pew Research Center Biennial News Consumption Survey

Much has been written about the decline and even impending extinction of the newspaper industry. Detractors of the medium like to point to the decline in readership, especially among those in their 20s and 30s as Figure 1 illustrates.

In the industry's defense, newspaper organizations proactively responded to the first internet wave by making adjustments in their product offering to counteract this new information source.

Today, most daily and weekly newspapers offer a website, but the majority of these are mere online versions of the print product. These core products – the print and online editions – serve a wide variety of consumer needs, as Figure 2 outlines. 
 

Figure 2: Consumers' Information Needs

Source: Newspaper Next Project by American Press Institute, 2006

Offering consumers a static online experience was sufficient in the earlier half of this decade. Now, however, consumers' fundamental media consumption patterns and expectations are changing with the proliferation of community bulletin sites such as Craigslist, content aggregators such as CNN, Google and Yahoo, and Web 2.0 sites featuring social media tools that allow consumers to review, rate and contribute content.

Newspapers, regardless of circulation size, are responding accordingly with online audience development strategies that leverage hyper local content, community publishing tools and niche "communities of passion."  However, those looking to "own" their readers through these strategies could be disappointed.

A recent McKinsey study found that respondents visited up to 16 news brands each week. These news brands spanned across the five media platforms (radio, television, newspapers, magazines and online). By understanding the underlying attitudes of their audience segments, newspapers can refine and optimize their online offering to ensure that it is one of the 16 or so news brands that consumers interact with each week.

Each of the top 10 media and publishing groups with newspaper divisions has at least one newspaper web property that is either planning or has deployed social media. For example, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Journal Times in Wisconsin, and the Kentucky New Era are three newspapers with Web 2.0 audience development strategies.

A part of Cox Newspapers, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is metropolitan Atlanta's daily newspaper. It uses Web 2.0 technologies from ThePort Network to increase traffic and stickiness on its website.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To compete with major portals such as Google and Yahoo!, its myajc.com community has offered members a news aggregation feature since 2005. This news reader lets each member create a personal electronic newspaper by subscribing to news and information feeds from the ajc.com site and any third-party content provider.

Earlier this year, the newspaper added social networking features that allow members with like interests and views to search, connect and "friend" each other. In an effort to reach out to non-news readers and take advantage of the huge and ardent "American Idol" fan base, a staff-authored "American Idol" blog was introduced in conjunction with the launch of the social networking tools.
Since its inception in late January 2007, the blog has attracted almost 10,000 members who actively comment on entries. In fact, it is not unusual for an entry to elicit 100 or more comments. The success of the staff-authored "American Idol" blog in creating a community of passionate Idol fans has spurred the newspaper toward integrating social media tools such as article-level commenting, ratings and recommendations to existing web pages.

The daily newspaper for Racine County in southeastern Wisconsin, The Journal Times, recently went live with its social media deployment that offers community building tools like social networking and photo sharing, as well as community publishing tools such as blogging, commenting, rating and reviews.

The Journal Times in Wisconsin
The Journal Times community takes advantage of the newspaper's unique ability to deliver highly relevant local content by featuring niche communities or "neighborhoods" organized around six geographic areas. Eight topical blogs authored by existing editorial staff address interests ranging from the local college and pro sports teams to consumer segments like busy parents.

These blogs provide non-news readers, who may not otherwise visit the site, with reasons to participate and interact with the newspaper's online property and brand. Issue-oriented public blogs, to which readers can post entries, round up the reader participation options.

There are a number of differences in the deployment strategies of The Journal Times and that of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. However, most distinct is the seamlessness with which The Journal Times elected to integrate community features to its existing website. Readers can navigate to any of the six neighborhoods and to the community page via the existing website's main navigation. The embedding of interactive features -- such as article-level commenting, photo and video rating for content -- on the existing website drives reader engagement and page views. Launched in July, The Journal Times community is registering members at a rapid pace.

The Kentucky New Era
Kentucky New Era, the longest-standing newspaper in Hopkinsville, Ky., is using its social media deployment to attract consumer segments that it previously wasn't able to effectively reach. This deployment includes article-level commenting on its existing web page content, along with a full-fledged virtual community. As part of a planned partnership with a high school writing group, the newspaper will publish editorial content written by the students in the print and online product, with an eye toward enticing teens to join the virtual community and comment on their peers' editorial efforts.

The newspaper industry is undergoing a transformation, and the landscape of offerings could be dramatically different five years from now. However, in the interim, the formation of hyper local and niche communities, under the auspices of newspaper brands, gives newspapers a new type of asset – a potent and targeted consumer pool – for attracting local businesses that offer goods and services in this market.

Jacqui Chew is a social media strategist at ThePort Network, Inc. Read full bio.