Ethnic media publishers are the original niche media pioneers

The past ten years have seen a revolution in the news media. The ease of publishing to a wide audience via the Internet has reduced the barrier to entry into the news industry to zero. That's unleashed thousands of new publications to compete with highly popular mainstream media organizations. But they haven't all tried to be just another daily newspaper. Many of the more successful of these start-ups have found their audience by providing content that the big metro dailies and TV stations have not provided, to people who have felt ignored by the mainstream media.

Just as ethnic media has done for generations.

In this respect, ethnic media are the original niche media pioneers. Ethnic media publishers have much to teach online entrepreneurs about forging ties within an under-served community, about building audience loyalty and about finding success against large, established mainstream media organizations.

Of course, most ethnic media publishers have done so in the "old" media of print, radio and television. And, the money to be made in the news media is found the the details, not in the theory. To make ethnic media work profitably online, ethnic media publishers will need to learn, and apply, some lessons now well-established by the niche media pioneers of the online medium.

But, please, do not forget that ethnic media comes to this revolution with an enormous head start over their so-called "mainstream" counterparts. Many large news chains are still trying to be all things to all people online, ever pursuing the lowest common denominator to build the largest possible audience, while actually turning away audience members with their superficiality. Smart ethnic publishers do not fall into this trap. They focus on the needs of their niche community, and try to provide the best, most detailed and useful information to them. Never forget that should be any niche website's ultimate business goal. The key, after all, to building relationships with advertisers lies in your ability to offer them access to a substantial and engaged audience.

How do you do this online? You embrace the interactivity of the Internet. Now, when I talk about interactivity, I am not simply speaking of multimedia, the blending of text, audio and video online. Nor am I talking about non-linear narratives, where readers have the opportunity to click through different paths on a website, like a "Choose Your Adventure" book like my kids often read.

No, to me, interactivity is about the interaction between publisher and audience: The ability of your readers to contribute public content to your website, in real time. You do not need a large capital expense to do this. A wide variety of free, industry-tested, open source software tools are available to support interactive online publishing. And your audience is ready and willing to participate. Internet users have been talking on discussion boards, editing wikis, and writing in blogs for years. They are sharing links through social bookmarking services like Digg and sharing their lives on networks such as MySpace and Facebook.

This phenomenon is not limited by ethnicity. People of all backgrounds are participating online. In fact, if you do not manage an online community serving your ethnic community, someone else will. And, probably, already is.

So ethnic media has established relationships within a community, a community that is ready and willing to engage online and access to low-cost tools that can make this happen. All that's needed is the leadership to pull all three together.

The quickest and easiest way for you to assert this leadership is to blog. Assign an editor to blog daily. Write about what's coming up in the paper, or on the newscast. Write about reactions you are getting to a story. Write about events in the community that wouldn't otherwise make it into the paper or on the newscast. Just make sure that you are blogging several times a day, to encourage and reward repeat visits to your site. For weekly ethnic papers, this is an excellent way to get into daily publication, without the enormous expense of substantially expanding or overtaxing the newsroom.

Then, extend a hand to the community, and ask them to contribute to the site. Turn on the comments. Start a discussion board. But don't just leave it to the community to run the board. Provide leadership. Ask questions, treating your readers like sources, or guests on a talk show. Use your established journalism skills to start a productive conversation, and to keep it going. Don't make it an open mic night or ask people to blather their opinions, but instead ask sharp questions for which your audience is likely to have a personal experience that they can relate in their answers. Ask parents what is happening in their kids' schools. Ask small business owners in your community how they are faring with permitting and other local officials.

Soon, if you have done well your job as online interviewers and discussion leaders, your readers will become protective of the forum you've established. People can find plenty of places online to vent, speculate and insult one another in flame wars. But informative, respectful communities are precious things, and participants take great pride in them. They will help you protect them, and will help you promote them, with grassroots, word-of-mouth marketing. For nothing more than the cost of applying your journalism skills in a community with which you've already established yourself, you can have an aggressively marketed website attracting the attention of a growing and engaged audience.

And *that* is what advertisers are looking for. [After my talk, representatives of New America Media spoke about a new online advertising network that NAM is developing for its members. If you are a publisher targeting a ethnic audience and would be interested in participating in NAM's ad network, you can contact the organization through the NAM website.]

The Internet offers enormous market potential for niche publishers, who can target a viable community and serve them well while keeping costs low. Ethnic media publishers have proven their ability to do this in other media; there's no good reason why they should stand aside while competitors do the same for their communities online.

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