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With Super Bowl 2012 right around the corner, the Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass., has a great idea to involve readers and football fans: ask them to blog from the big game. The Ledger combines reader engagement, a community blog and social media.
WHAT THEY DID: The Ledger asks people going to the game in Indianapolis to be a Super-Fan Blogger. Here's what the Ledger is looking for:
If you’re traveling to Indianapolis for the game, we want to hear from you – and so do other readers. What’s the mood, food, the fun? Who have you met? What have you seen? And what’s latest buzz from the center of the football world? We’ll post pictures, reports and video on our special Superbowl website and our Facebook page.
The Ledger includes a quick form for readers to fill out, and asks them to friend them on Facebook (I love the social media connection, too).
TAKEAWAYS: We often think of blogs as long-term commitments, but if you have something special going on in town, you can create a blog that won't necessarily live forever. It's a great way to familiarize your readers with blogging, and you might find some regular bloggers out of it, too. A blog is a great way to organize submitted content because it's easy to scroll through to see the thoughts, photos and video of community members. We don't all have teams in the Super Bowl this year (sigh), but you can think of other uses for this type of blog. For example, if you have a big anniversary celebration coming up in your town, you can ask people to submit memories and photos of the town and organize it online in a blog.
Jean Hodges served as a reporter and editor for more than 20 years and led groundbreaking projects that won national acclaim before coming to GateHouse to launch the company's news service. She worked most recently at the Chicago Sun-Times' Daily Southtown, covering the south side and south suburbs of Chicago. Before that she worked at the Killen (Texas) Daily Herald, the Clovis (N.M.) News Journal and the Ely Standard in Cambridgeshire, England. She now works with GateHouse news organizations on content strategies, Web initiatives, plus she leads training programs such as webinars and LEDE, GateHouse's leadership program.
