What Is Local To You?
Location Location Location?
In my twenty-five years of marketing and media, I have heard one phrase uttered more often than any other: Be Local.
It was how you differentiated yourself from national outlets.
Market and demographic were used to describe the audience, listener or reader. It wasn't about home or humans.
Local referred to the geographic location of a business and its customers.
I have realized that my view of "local" has changed. It is has become less about geography. It is more about what is local and important to me.
Buddies For Life
You may have attended university in another city. The relationships you formed during that time remain local to you. You may have moved hundreds of miles away and never visited the campus after graduation day, but all your touch points to that experience are still local to you.
Perhaps you love your car so much you have joined an online community devoted to lovers of that model and you have formed relationships with other owners and perhaps even planned outings and events. That is a community that is local to you.
Know Your Locals
It is crucial you realize this fact if you are running a business. It’s not enough to be in a market without activating the power of the local community. There is a chain of coffee shops here that is competing quite nicely with two major international chains, because they are local to us.
If you own a destination business - such as a hotel or resort, then it’s important to realize that your local community is anyone who wants to visit your destination. So you need to be local to them.
Emotion vs. Location
We need to keep finding ways to allow our growing online relationships a place to flourish that make it feel local to us.
The size of your community is boundless and what is local to you may have become more of an emotional and mental attachment rather than a spot on some map.
What is local to you?
knealemann.at.gmail.com
image credit: skagitriverjournal.com
Local to me is the 81 year old guy who owns the store on the corner near my parents' house. Local to me is the people I got to see at SXSW this year - all of whom I met through social media. Local is my Thursday night hockey league.
Thanks for clarifying all this, great post dude!
Stefano said... October 1, 2009 7:39 AM
Local is what you make it. I love this angle, I hadn't thought of it in these terms.
And I guess local is also reading your post every day. Thanks :-)
Carol said... October 1, 2009 7:40 AM
Local to me is the world. As a writer of speculative fiction in a city that is focused on the literary, I have to look outside of my locality and re-create my "local" world from my online relationships, the use of my website, blog, etc.
My writing group is from Ottawa, Boise (Idaho), and somewhere in the boonies of Wisconsin. My readership extends from India to Puerto Rico. The electronic world to me has been a godsend.
M. D. Benoit said... October 1, 2009 7:45 AM
You're absolutely right, Kneale. As online communities have evolved, geography is placing less of an important role in connecting.
So, while the traditional definition of "local" persists and remains powerful, we have a new aspect to the definition sitting alongside it, defined not by proximity but by shared interests.
Nice thinking.
Dave Fleet said... October 1, 2009 8:33 AM
Local is the communities we belong to, and the beauty of these new tools is that I can stay in one physical location and still be an active participant in many communities. I like being a digital citizen!
Ellen said... October 1, 2009 8:42 AM
Good question!
M.D. Benoit said... October 1, 2009 11:54 AM
Well said.
Donna said... October 1, 2009 11:55 AM
On my must-read list this a.m.
Eden said... October 1, 2009 11:56 AM
Think locally. Read @knealemann http://twurl.nl/liwcr8
Susan Murphy said... October 1, 2009 11:57 AM
So "local" isn't about geography...RT @knealemann New Post: What Is Local To You? http://bit.ly/UHFbW #socialmedia #relationships #community
Andrew said... October 1, 2009 11:57 AM
Great question Kneale!
Ellen Rossano said... October 1, 2009 11:58 AM
Think locally. Read RT: @knealemann http://twurl.nl/liwcr8 (via @SuzeMuse) <- Applies well to the world of food!
Don (FoodPrints) said... October 1, 2009 12:00 PM
@SuzeMuse Between you and @KnealeMann, you are the local thinker. Or @BeckyMccray, even.
Ari Herzog said... October 1, 2009 12:00 PM
RT @SuzeMuse: Think locally. Read @knealemann http://twurl.nl/liwcr8
Chris Neil said... October 1, 2009 12:00 PM
RT @SuzeMuse: Think locally. Read @knealemann http://twurl.nl/liwcr8
Barbara (Dr. Sophi) said... October 1, 2009 12:01 PM
Something "local" must have cold beer and cheap chicken wings. Nothing news related. :-)
Will said... October 1, 2009 12:03 PM
Amen!
Roxanne said... October 1, 2009 12:04 PM
There are lots of things that are local to me. It may be a more literal translation but one of my favourite examples of local is the store, restaurant or coffee shop who is able to create community around her business by making everyone who stops by feel special.
That is the secret advantage local businesses have over larger chains when they know how to do it well.
Cheers,
Eden
Bargainista said... October 1, 2009 7:38 PM
Post a Comment