Here’s some end of week fun for you. Some hyperlocal websites have developed really huge twitter followings. Sometimes these aren’t huge outright but in comparison to the size of the local audience or local trad. media outlet are quite remarkable. People love comparing sizes, often men I find strangely. Tom Rodgers from the lovely Salford got in touch on twitter:
My site @SalfordOnline has just passed 8,000 followers – @TalkAboutLocal how does this compare with other one-man indies? #news
— Tom Rodgers (@TomRodgers4) October 16, 2015
Let’s be clear we all abhor list based journalism, but Tom’s question prompted me to start to put a list together in a google doc that anyone can edit. If you fancy adding your site’s twitter handle, followers and some measure of the local audience then dive in at this link.
There are some quite big numbers in there – looking at you @Edinreporter and @se1 and @parwichblog seems to have over a quarter of the village as followers. Over in West Hampstead, a part of London that’s picked up a lot since I lived there, their twitter audience on @WHampstead is a number equivalent to 35% of the population.
Yes, I know this is nine parts nonsense but so are all media audience figures if you poke hard enough. We are mainly interested in UK hyperlocal SME sites – not big media groups please but if you are a non UK hyperlocal, feel free. Open google docs can go a bit mad so bear with me if it goes wrong….[UPDATE – checking back in a few minutes after posting I see Simon from OntheWight has already rearranged the sheet to add in Facebook, so heaven knows where it will end up]
William Perrin
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