What I've Been Reading: A hyperlocal media unicorn in Canada and Instagram Reels lessons from Leeds
Plus 'the fly-wheel of community' and lessons in achieving growth
Good afternoon,
So I’m a day late with this - missed my Wednesday deadline for various reasons (good ones: childcare, other projects) but I committed to doing this each week so got to keep going. And two of today’s pieces really focus in on that idea of keeping going and then the growth comes and kicks in.
I was talking to Michael Macleod - of The Edinburgh Minute - the other day and we were discussing this concept of the ‘fly-wheel of community’, we haven’t come up with a better title, but how the first period of doing something is hard trudging and then it’s like you hit a certain point and suddenly it comes. Be that from people sharing it, contributing, and suddenly you hit another level in terms of momentum.
In a world where people are used to instant, then if you want to create something new then keeping going and staying the course is increasingly hard to do. But there’s two inspiring pieces in the round-up today where people have kept going…
Jeff Elgie, Canadian media unicorn - Media Policy - I’ve had the opportunity to speak to Jeff a few times over the years about what they have been doing at Village Media and this Q&A was a dive into their world and how they’ve expanded out. Part of the formula is picking the right places to launch, or partner, but also they have something that is custom-built to mean their editorial and commercial operations work in tandem. And it’s all focused on local.
"It took you ten years to get to 23 markets and now you’re really picking up speed"
This caught my eye as I guess five years back it would have been easy to pull the plug and walk away, but they soldiered on, have hit a profitable footing and are now in a position to expand based on some very hard yards.
We just hit 100K followers on Instagram 🤯 and here’s how it happened… - Matt Millington - Leeds+ is a social video channel across Insta, TikTok and Facebook and Matt is one of the most talented social video people I’ve had the chance to work with over the years when I was at Reach. He gives the inside track on their growth story and how it’s happened, and some really good advice if you’re in the business of creating reels on Insta.
What Matt suggests is it took an enormous amount of effort to hit the 10,000 followers mark (and more than 550 videos) but their following 90,000 followers growth came from 250 or so videos. Build and super-serve a community, and then it comes - as the community themselves help you to grow. I think you also need to give a platform time to suss you out and figure out what you’ve about.
The fly-wheel of community not just on Substack, not just on the Village Media platform but on Instagram too.
There’s also a commonality here across what Michael’s done in Edinburgh, Jeff and team have done in Canada and Matt’s done in Leeds. Consistency. And also having a very clear idea and brief for what you’re doing, and then doing that consistently and not chasing something else.
It’s easy to give up when you’re at 200 followers and it feels like you’re going nowhere and that’s a good chance to take a breath and think about how to adapt things - but also remember those 200 are invested.
So you keep going, and super-serve those people and eventually it will grow as those 200 people help find the next 200 for you (and so on).
I’ve been thinking about this topic recently as we’ve established a little group together to help bring Blog Preston, the hyperlocal site I run in Preston, to TikTok. We could just do TikToks on big topics but it’s important it is Blog Preston on TikTok, so we’ve gone big on a guy who did a 27-hour type flip on the Flag Market for charity and there’s a potholes-related TikTok coming soon too.
I’ve been (pleasantly) surprised at how well these videos have done and how much engagement they are getting - such is the strength of TikTok’s algorithm. It’s very early days, and a big shout to Ellie, Sophie, Steve and Kate who are invested in figuring it all out. Another thing about growth, you can’t do it all, persuade talented people to do stuff with you!
A few parish notices to finish off this week’s newsletter
The Lead, a project I’ve been working on the last few months, went into print this week in Blackpool. I genuinely didn’t think I’d be there helping wrangle a print edition when I left Reach last summer but you just never know what will happen right? We’ve taken the newsletter and packaged it back into a print product, as I describe it - taking the inbox into the living room.
And if you’re interested in what’s happening in UK local journalism then BehindLocalNews has kick-started back into life and alongside Press Gazette, InPublishing and HoldTheFrontPage has some good insights along with first-person pieces from editors and journalists about what they are doing. They are also publishing on Substack.
And finally, it’s Easter holidays here - we are one hour away from our daughter arriving home having broken up from school. So this newsletter is going to take a break (and have a few Easter Eggs) over the next fortnight and will return on Wednesday 17 April.
Have a great Easter, thanks for reading and keep going.
Ed