Ben Burns, editor and publisher of GrossePointeToday.com, was hopeful when he developed a relationship with “The Little Blue Book”, an advertising publication in town. The company sells space on GroseePointeToday.com — and did sell $850 worth of advertising in January.
But, Burns adds: “We did have a little difficulty convincing them that we wouldn’t simply do a story for each advertiser they sold an ad to, but I think we have that straightened out.” The next step, if advertising continues to grow, would be to hire a part-time advertising sales person, Burns says.
In the meantime, the site continues to grow. Metrics show 11,558 unique users for January and February, with most users coming from search engines and an average of 2.74 pages viewed per visit.
On the editorial side, GrossePointeToday.com covered a community event, “Pointers of the Year” with video and print within 24 hours — while the local weekly took two weeks to put up “a series of grip and grin pix” on the event.
Community awareness is also on the rise. Burns is exploring the possibility of hosting pages for five localities that are cutting their budgets, but there is a “significant older minority that do much more than e-mail on computers,” he reports. So convincing them to find information online may be a challenge.
Another challenge involves the half-dozen students writing for the paper. They are quite willing, but not yet particularly able, reports Burns. Despite teaching by managing editor Nancy Derringer they still require substantial editing. However, others from the community are assisting with additional copyediting and supplying photos.
Burns is planning presentations to various civic and social clubs to get the word out. They have also ordered baseball caps, T-shirts and ballpoint pens for community events. And other would-be hyperlocal sites in Michigan have reached out for advise on how to get up and going.
In the meantime, Burns awaits word from the IRS on his application for 501(c)3 designation.
