The Dallas Morning News education blog is on fire
Tawnell Hobbs and Kent Fischer’s Dallas Independent School District blog has seen a huge spike in traffic lately due to their phenomenal coverage of the district’s unexpected budget shortfall.
The blog has seen more than a 100 percent increase in page views to be exact. The two have been covering the districts developing financial crisis in real time, and people have responded by coming back to the blog over and over again, while also leaving hundreds of comments a day. The crisis could lead to more than 1,200 people losing their jobs and will lead to large budget cuts.
It’s big news for anyone working for the school district or who has kids in it. Not only are Fischer and Hobbs covering this story in ways print never would allow, but they have also provided a place for people to have a voice. People are upset and outraged over this situation, and the amount of comments the blog has received have greater increased.
I’ve written before that timing is very important for a blog. Getting out in front of an important story like this and owning it is a great way to build traffic. Fischer and Hobbs are owning this story.
The Web allows beat reporters to cover crises in more immediate ways. Not only are Fischer and Hobbs updating their blog all the time, but they are also utilizing other technologies like live blogging to give readers immediate information and feedback.
Ron Sylvester said last week that Twitter puts print back in the game for court reporting. Beat blogging and other social networking tools can allow reporters to cover stories in ways that print would have never made possible. Fischer and Hobbs still file stories for print, but they can also give people the kind of immediate information that print never could.
Good beat blogging is more than just immediacy; It’s also about interaction. Live blogging can help give people that interaction during live events. So can two-way communication in comments sections and on Twitter.
Another part of Fischer and Hobbs’ strong coverage is their daily feature, the Dallas ISD Daily Dish. Every day they link out to what the media, blogs and others are saying about the district.
Rather than (wrongly) thinking that linking out will lead people away from their blog, Fischer and Hobbs understand that they can create a stronger community and product by being the place to come to for the best content anywhere about the Dallas Indepedent School District.
Interview with the Sac Bee’s Jon Ortiz about timing and starting a beat blog
Timing has been good to Jon Ortiz.
The Sacramento Bee had originally planned to launch his blog about California state workers later, but realized that it would be wise to capitalize on the state budget impasse between Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature. That fateful decision instantly made The State Worker one of the most popular blogs for the Sac Bee.
Schwarzenegger laid off some state workers, reduced the pay of others and instituted a hiring freeze, which he hopes will force the legislature to provide him with an acceptable budget. State workers do not like being used as bargaining chips, Ortiz said.
Ortiz has been all over one of the biggest stories in years for California state workers.
Ortiz has several issues to figure out with the blog, however. He writes a weekly column, and is still sorting out how to best utilize his new blog with his popular column. Ortiz believes his blog will allow him to cover his beat better by allowing him to report on more stories and in new ways.
Ortiz says the blog is the first step. He hopes to incorporate more Web technology in the future for his beat. For him, it is about learning what the Web can do to help his beat.
While California does have a lot of state workers, 125,000, Ortiz has found more than just state workers find his blog interesting. He hopes his blog can help educate the public about what state workers do and help dispel some wife’s tales about state workers.
He says he spends about half his time on the blog and the other half on working for print. Like many other beat bloggers, Ortiz is spending more time working now than before. Maybe in the future this will change, but it can be hard to convince editors to cut down on the amount of print copy produced.
The State Worker is still in its infancy, and will have to change dramatically once the state budget impasse is over. Ortiz is hoping to make his blog into a community for state workers.
“Ultimately, I’d like to see the blog become the clearing house for state workers’ issues and debate,” Ortiz said. “I’d like for it to elevate the discussion amongst state workers about their jobs and the public they serve.”
Ortiz also discusses how blogging has changed his column, how the blog will allow him more direct access to his readers and how the blog will allow him to find new sources.
Timing can impact traffic to a blog
Content isn’t everything.
Timing is important too. Jon Ortiz and The Sacramento Bee recently launched a new beat blog ahead of schedule, The State Worker, because Governor Schwarzenegger announced he would fire some state works and reduce the pay of the rest unless he was handed a new state budget.
The Bee realized they had to launch The State Worker immediately, instead of on their original timetable. This was one of the biggest issues for California state workers in years, and the Bee wanted to get ahead of it:
Our well-crafted plan was to debut this blog and an accompanying print column next week. Events dictate otherwise, and we’re opening up the blog today.
In its first week, The State Work became one of the most popular blogs for the Bee, attracting tens of thousands of page views a day. Ortiz attributes the timing of the blog’s launch as one of the major reasons why his new beat blog is so popular less than a month into its existence.
Launching a blog for the presidential election, for instance, would make a lot more sense to do so in the run up to the primaries, instead of right after the presidential election is over. Capitalizing on events in the world is a way to generate traffic to a blog and establish relevance. The Bee picked a great time to launch a blog for state workers.
Ortiz wants his new beat blog to be a place for California state workers to come to and learn about issues impacting their jobs. He also wants his blog to be the place to have conversations about those issues.
There are also best and worst times to launch content during the day:
Luciani’s conclusion: between 1pm and 3pm PST (after lunch) or between
5pm and 7pm PST (after work) are the best times and Thursday is the
best day. The worst time to post? Between 3 and 5 PM PST on the
weekends – nobody cares.
These recommendations are for national sites, but they also are applicable per time zone as well. If the majority of your users are in the Eastern Time Zone, launch content between 1 pm and 3 pm Eastern and between 5 pm and 7 pm Eastern. Monday-Thursday are the best days to launch content, and Friday evening is a very poor time to launch content.
There are always exceptions. however. A college football blog should update on Saturdays. A blog for a major league baseball team could update any day during the season. But a blog like The State Worker should follow these guidelines to insure maximum traffic and visibility for posts.
The issue is simple. Late at night, early in the morning, etc are not a prime surfing times for many people. If content is launched then, it will sit for hours before traffic begins to pick up again. By then a lot of new content will get launched, pushing that content down in RSS readers and off of homepages.
Obviously, anytime there is breaking news, that content should go up ASAP. But for general content, timing can often be just as important as content. Good site analytics (Google Analytics is a good, free solution) can help content producers understand the best times to launch content.
