Journey into new media: The launch of Oakland Local

There’s been a lot made of the rapidly changing media landscape, particularly as it relates to the newspaper business. Often hesitant to move online and unsure of the exact strategy for online success and profit, the large news chains have seen their advertising dry up over the last couple of years and their readers migrate to smaller, more nimble news outlets that operate solely on the internet.

Last week we threw our hat into this ring of new media entrepreneurs with the hopes of better serving the Oakland public, promoting a broader community dialog and moving closer to establishing tangible next steps for the media and a sustainable journalism model.

This past Monday we launched Oakland Local, a new hyperlocal news site thats an innovative blend of traditional journalism, multimedia, user generated content and citizen journalism.

While we worked hard to be innovative, being inclusive was just as important. The site features reporting on crucial but often overlooked issues in and around Oakland along with a full stock of forums, blogs, community updates and directories featuring 320 Oakland nonprofits and 180 active Oakland bloggers.

The team core team is made up of myself, media maven and editorial genius Susan Mernit, and Amy Gahran a well known and highly respected mobile reporting, environmental and tech know it all.

There’s often a lot of discussion on the hard results of social media and online community building and I think that in our first week we’ve provided a pretty impressive case study. We have been “priming the pump” online for about a month before launch, sending out semi regular updates on Twitter, spreading the word through PR and Media and in general being very strategic about our online marketing.

So far we’ve been successful in turning buzz into readers and while we’re not doing New York Times numbers (yet) I think the results are pretty impressive and speak for themselves.

Here’s an updated assessment of our 1st week’s stats, from Susan Mernit’s end of the week update:

We had 4,432 visits from 2,958 unique users.
The average time spent on the site was 3.93 minutes; average pages viewed per visit, 3.2.

Where did our traffic come from?
46% came right from the web; 12% came from Facebook and another 12% from Twitter. 7% came from Google, 4% each from Stumbleupon and SF Gate, 2% from the NYTimes and from Berkelyside.

Our Facebook page went from 3 fans to 512 fans in a week, we signed up 50 new members, and we gained roughly 200 new followers on Twitter.

Out on the Net–what folks said
There were dozens of blog posts about the launch, most from media bloggers and folks outside of Oakland proper, though Zennie62 gave us a welcome shout out. Among the blogs and media sites that posted were the following, whom we wlil dub Friends of OL:

• Ext 337, Marnie Webb: – “Congrats to the Oakland Local team for this launch. It’s wonderful to see new models for sharing local news emerge.”
• Economy Beat: (Great post about OL’s blog directory)
• Berkleyside
• Zennie Abraham
• CBS5 Eye on Blogs,Brittney Gilbert
• The greater good blog
• Silicon Moon
• SocialBrite
• Kelsey Group blog
• NAA Blog: Alt.Civic-Minded: Oakland Local Gives Voice to Social Activists
• Amy Ward Sample

Go to the site and have a look around, register and participate in the discussion. While we still have a ways to go with building a readership and sustaining an online community, our 1st week stats prove that it is possible to run a successful online marketing campaign and start seeing your results almost immediately.

Contact me if you’d like to know more about Oakland Local or need a consultant for your own online marketing efforts.