Regional newspapers, such as the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the US state of Ohio, are using social media platforms to increase their appeal. The Plain Dealer website (cleveland.com) includes a section to “Get News Your Way,” with tabs to click to get news on a mobile device, follow them on Twitter, like them on Facebook, as well as a “Your Photos” and “Your Videos” section for readers’ images and video clips related to Cleveland. In addition to hosting blogs by the newspapers’ reporters, the site also invites readers to “become a cleveland.com blogger” by contributing and getting published. Blog news, tips and advice are included on the site.
According to Lisa Griffis, assistant design director/business for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, these efforts are proving successful. “Advance websites, our parent company, grew faster than any other online news organization last year,” Griffis said.
“Cleveland.com has around 1.2 million views per day with 250,000 people visiting the site and 5 page hits per visitor…We have one person at cleveland.com whose job entails monitoring our traffic on social media sites. We also have one person who spends a great deal of time monitoring the comment boards,” she said. “Cleveland.com is the most visited site in the Cleveland area.”
I say not a bad reinvention in progress! What do you think?
Newspapers & Social Media 
The “Should have used a disposable address” link is really funny.
About your article, though, I agree. I clicked over to the Cleveland Plain Dealer and found their site lively and interesting, even though I don’t live there. It’s not just an imitation “paper” paper, but takes advantage of features available only online.
One of the things that adds to its appeal, in my view, is the fact that it’s easy for a reader to give immediate feedback. In contrast, both of the websites of the major papers where I live (The Edmonton Journal and the Edmonton Sun) are simply online editions of their news stand versions, and few of their stories allow reader feedback. As a result, I find myself visiting less and less (and even canceled my home delivery of the Journal) and, instead, I visit online sites, like the CBC site, that allow reader feedback and discussion of the stories.
I keep getting calls from the Journal wanting me to renew my subscription, but I’ve moved on.
Thanks for your insightful comments! I’m wondering if you’ve tried giving The Edmonton Journal and the Edmonton Sun feedback (perhaps through social media!) to help them improve their websites. I would be curious to know if they are receptive. It seems that papers are receptive, get on board and travel into the future, or get left behind…
No doubt, innovative and essential changes here, for smaller and larger pubs as well. Like Martin Nisenholtz, who heads up digital initiatives at The New York Time said a while back (to paraphrase here, don’t have actual quote) – We can’t worry about whether the Times will exist in print anymore. It’s whether the Times CONTENT (emphasis added!) will persist and remain relevant, whether on mobile, social media, websites, in fragmented distribution, etc.
So true…