Like most adults who remember watching “The Wonder Years” when it was on TV, I’m still doing everything I can not to get too involved with technology, even though I can use my cell phone to play games or search the internet.
Even so, the facts of the media business today are such that unless you jump into the technology pool with both feet, you’re going to be left behind.
Therefore, it’s awesome to be able to work with young people like general manager Nikki Bennett, assistant editor Matt Wiley, marketing & graphic arts assistant Chelsie Rosatone and office assistant Jill Reilly every day, so the New Tampa & Wesley Chapel Neighborhood News can keep adding new and interactive ways to communicate with people seeking information about our distribution areas.
So, while I’m still the kind of guy who prefers to hold an actual publication in his hands, I’m happy and proud that my Neighborhood News “peeps” know the difference between Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram and we’re all sort of learning together how best to use these and other social media apps to provide our print readers with more and better ways to keep up with what’s happening in their neighborhoods — and beyond.
Although the fallout from daily newspapers cannibalizing their print publications with their own daily online content seems to have stabilized somewhat, niche publications like ours are still the ones benefiting the most from being able to supplement what we do in print with new online content still primarily focused on our distribution areas.
Our website (WCNeighborhoodNews.com) and Facebook page (Facebook.com/NeighborhoodNews) stats keep trending upward, thanks to young Mr. Wiley making sure that when news that affects our area does hit (whether we had a story first or not), our social media-savvy regular readers know they don’t have to wait until that next issue hits their mailboxes to find out if any other major news about our area has broken since our most recent issue.
For example, we were the first news media outlet to announce that the Tampa Premium Outlets Job Fair is going to be held on August 27 , and that was just one of several days the past month that both our Facebook page and our website saw a spike of activity 5-10 times above our usual number of “hits” per day.
One thing is for certain: You can rest assured that everything you read on our website/FB page will provide you with timely news and information that will adhere to the strict standards for journalistic excellence you’ve come to know in our print publications — and we’ll always provide more than just pictures.
Survey Says…
We recently completed our first online-only Reader Survey & Contest, in an effort to see if we could stimulate more response from people who already have been utilizing our website and social media.
Several hundred people participated in the Survey & Contest and the results were pretty impressive to us, considering we’re really still in the infancy of what we plan to do in the future, in print and, especially, online.
Perhaps the most impressive stat was that nearly 80 percent (79.2, to be exact) of those who responded to the survey said that they read the Neighborhood News when they receive it in the mail and 8.3 percent said they would read it if they lived in our distribution areas. We also were excited that while 69 percent of respondents had visited our website before, 29.2 percent said they were visiting for the first time.
We also were somewhat surprised (but thrilled) that 77 percent of the respondents were female (22 percent were male; fewer than 1 percent did not respond to that question) and more than 56 percent of the respondents were either in the 25-34 or the 35-44 age group.
And, perhaps the most telling statistic of all is that 60.5 percent of the respondents had either a Doctoral (2.5 percent), Bachelor’s (37 percent) or Master’s (21 percent) degree and another 24.3 percent had either an Associate’s (9.2 percent) degree or “Some College” (15.1).
We invite readers and advertisers alike to compare those numbers with any other local media source. We also invite you to “Like” our Facebook page and check our website every day for our exclusive updates,as well as to enter our next online-only contest.
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