Localism.com: It’s Not Just For Surfers

by Brian Brady

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

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I remember when ActiveRain.com released its Localism.com portal.  SoCal surfin’ REALTOR dude, Rory Siems commented that he thought “Localism” was a term surfers used for defending their beach from “kooks“.  While Localism is not a surfing site, the principle of “protecting your turf” is alive and well for local real estate professionals.

Bloodhound colleague Michele DeRepegny vented her frustrations with the new site:

But this morning I’m feeling a little nauseous after the much anticipated revamp of Localism, The redesign is neutral and simple, with a few twists in navigation still needed.   I would have rather paid for an “outside blog” than purchased “communities“.  Maybe buying the way to the top as a community sponsor will actually reduce some of the crud posting just for points, but right now I’m having very mixed feelings about continuing to drink the Kool Aid.  Maybe I just need sleep.

I was privy to a pre-release tour so I know why they whitewashed the design.  The concept is that Localism isn’t just about real estate anymore.  It’s designed as a national host for thousands of hyper-local communities.  Membership is free and available to anybody in the community, including non-real estate related businesses.  The white washing was done to draw the readers to the user-generated content rather than an appealing design.  Community sponsorship is available to any business and quality content providers are rewarded with featured status on the pages.

Navigation is cumbersome but the site is in its infancy.  The designers are trying to create a sense of “stickiness” where the users are drawn to deep local content, be it pictures, video, or text.  They have some glitches but they should work it out.

The main feature of the site is that content will be edited for quality.  Active Rain hired editors to determine what user-generated content will be quality and what should be buried in the bowels of the server.  The intended result?  A sticky site about “your town”, for “your neighbors”, sponsored by “your Rotarians (local businesses).

Greg Swann feels it might be a SEO play:

What does it portend for you? For one thing, dumbstunt SEO plays like Localism are doomed. But more importantly: Now and forever, content is king. A highly-passionate, well-written, deeply-informative weblog is going to kick the ass of any site trying to get by on money and high-gloss lipstick.

I think that the Active Rain executives understand EXACTLY what Greg is saying about Google Search.  As I see it, SEO might be a by-product of the thousands of little community sites the platform hosts.  They believe that quality content will keep viewers coming back, making search results irrelevant.

The Localism portal isn’t unique.  American Towns attempts a similar project and The San Diego Union-Tribune just released SDBackyard.com.  Forget search engines, this is about building a “town bulletin board” where the citizens can share ideas and display their civic pride by “tacking their opinions on the bulletin board”.  A monumental project, indeed.

Will it work?

ActiveRain is on the right track; hyper-local is the rage among social media experts.  When the local fish wrap recognizes that news seekers are going online, you’d have to think some more powerful media will try to figure out how to win the digital ballgame.  The obvious challenge to Active Rain is similar to the one when they launched their real estate professional portal; a lack of resources, namely money and time.  While little Active Rain will try to make the big jump to a national site, designed on attracting 100 million viewers, they are playing in a space where behemoths like Rupert Murdoch dominate.

Should you play on Localism.com?

With so many sites popping up it becomes a full-time job to build and monitor a profile on every one.  My thought are in line with Small Business Search Marketing’s Matt Mc Gee:

That’s essentially what these sites are — an attempt to bring local thought leaders into the newspaper’s online tent to trade content for exposure.

Is it worth it for the small business owner?

If I’m a San Diego small business owner, I’d hop on this opportunity in a heartbeat. Sites like SDbackyard.com offer a solid opportunity to meet and network with potential customers in your local area. Ditto with the Houston Chronicle site. As more newspapers join the local/social network scene, I think small business owners should take a good look at the opportunity and decide if the time investment is worth it.

If you have a presence on Active Rain, the lion’s share of your content has most likely been imported to Localism, so you have a head start on the newcomers.  Consider that as you determine which hyper-local platform to dominate.

One concern I have is the attitude Active Rain has towards the content.  Jon Washburn is vehement about the white-washing of contributions:

Question: Should I be reposting all of my old content?

Answer: Yes, under two circumstances: 1) If you had some excellent and timeless posts older than six months, and 2) If you have a bunch of ugly or self-serving marketing material on the bottom of your posts and are open to removing it.

That statement is pretty scary.  One of Localism’s serial contributors is Laurie Manny.  Her lead conversion results improved when she added “self-serving” links and buttons to the bottom of her Localism contributions.  Jeff Dowler does the same.  My Localism posts all have contact information with a link to an online loan application.

Localism is being whitewashed to provide a less commercial experience for consumers and that is good…for Active Rain.  Democratizing the posts, however, is heavily weighthed against the original content providers who choose to promote their practices with “self-serving marketing material”.  Newer, more community compliant contributions then will be featured and the compliant contributors will gain “top neighbor” status, all on the backs of the “self serving” individuals who built the network’s platform.  This attitude make me question whether the quid pro quo is fairly balanced.

My prediction?

The Localism portal will succeed as much as Active Rain has.  Although Active Rain fell short to Zillow.com and Trulia.com in the real estate space, it carved out a unique niche as the destination for the digital real estate professional.  Localism should catch on and SOME niche of users will materialize.  I doubt even the executives know who that might be at this early stage.

The biggest challenge for Localism will be to get the Active Rainers to play ball.  Well written, hyper-local content is limited to a select group of Active Rain contributors.  The majority of the hyper-local content on Active Rain is poorly written and edited.  Grammatical mistakes and misspellings are the rule rather than the exception on Localism.  The talented content providers may simply dig in and refuse to contribute if their “self-serving” marketing information is removed.  While the Localism offering will be “scrubbed” of promotional material, the poorly written content may repulse the consumer.

Active Rain is early to the party which is better than showing up late.  My guess is that someone bigger comes along and gobbles them up.  This time, they should be adequately prepared for a shark attack.