#localwebis

Social media marketing that is actually... social...

This account is fictional. The local web is not affiliated with Trailercakes.  The local web isn’t available yet, these are just examples of what could happen.

Trailercakes is a bakery in Dallas that serves up delicious cup cakes each day.  Heather who runs the place engages in all forms of local marketing platforms like Yelp, Facebook, Google Adwords, and Instagram.  It’s a lot to manage, especially for some one whos core competency is baking awesome cupcakes.

Recently, instead of trying to make sense of her various analytics dashboards, she decides to make a presence on the local web.  

She startups up /trailercakes by simply going to localweb.is/trailercakes and posts a few pictures of her baked goods.  Then she posts pictures of her daily specials every day to /trailercakes.  She puts a sign in her store that customers can interact with her on the /trailercakes ‘slash’ and some do, asking questions or posting their own selfies with her delicious cupcakes.

What does this all mean?  Well, by being active in /trailercakes and responding to customers it causes her ‘slash’ /trailercakes to rise to the top of the front page of the local web.  It doesn’t mean she has a worldwide audience, or even a city wide audience, but it does mean that those who are browsing the local web within a 10 minute walk can see this activity and wonder whats going on.

Fortunately, the people who can see this activity are also the most likely to be her customers and regulars.  Yelp is great for figuring out good places when you first move someplace or when you have a specific need, like searching for a bakery.  But the local web offers a bit more serendipity.  You may live near Trailercakes but not even know its there, until it’s ‘slash’ starts surfacing while browsing the local web.  You may choose to ‘hold’ the slash for a few weeks, just seeing what goes on there, and when you are ready, going into the store at that point makes you already feel like a regular.

For Heather it works out great because what matters on the local web is activity and simply be being social with her customers and fans, she is promoting her business.  There is no need to optimize local SEO keywords for the odd person googling “cupcakes Dallas”.  There is no need to pay Facebook to reach the people who have already ‘liked’ your establishment.  The local web just amplifying Trailercakes already warm and inviting presence.  The local web was built for local businesses.

We are building the local web and sharing a new way to use it each day

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We, the people, of this bus stop...

Ah the many things to do while waiting for the bus.  There is 1, using your phone. 2, using your phone. 3, staring blankly out into space, and 4, using your phone.

Waiting at the bus stop is a daily activity that millions of Americans partake in every day.  Often, in silence, on their phones.  Even if there is other people waiting with you, its a pretty anti-social affair.  

But it doesn’t have to be.  Using the local web, you can communicate with your fellow bus stop brothers and sisters.  When you get to a bus stop just pop on localweb.is/bus.stop and set your filter to 100 meters.  You will see messages people have posted, to that very bus stop and its dwellers.  It could act as a digital bulletin board, or just a place to drop some bus stop wisdom, or bus stop jokes.

You probably know about /bus.stop because some one put up a local web sticker with the localweb.is/bus.stop URL on it.  That’s really all it takes to visit or create a slash.  Each bust stop is different, and savvy bus riders follow the /bus.stop slash on their mobile location group, which means that as they are riding the bus, from stop to stop, they can briefly see all the /bus.stop messages people have left, before the bus starts to drive away to the next stop.  

Yeah, the content at various /bus.stop slashes isn’t Tolstoy, but it isn’t “The 13 Best ClickBait BuzzFeeds of 2016 You Can’t Miss” either.  It’s local content, written by locals.  It’s content from your fellow bus riders.  It’s just one of the many stories that are told in your city using the local web.

Pro tip: The Number 55 Admiral bus line in Providence has a rider that writes a poem each day, and drops a single line at each /bus.stop.  In order to read it, you have to be going inbound and following on a mobile location group.  If you are riding the bust outbound, the poem is backwards. but still cool.

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Whoop whoop that’s the sound of the police

If you hear someone shout “popo” and you are engaged in illegal activities, then you know what to do: stop the activity and casually walk/run away because the police are nearby.  But those are the old days.  Today everyone has a phone so shouting “popo” deserves a more advanced solution.

If you spot the police rolling by, or you spot undercover checking I.D.s at a bar, or you know a party has been broken up, just leave a post on localweb.is/u/popo for your friends, campus buddies, or other evildoers to find.  That way, they can save themselves the trouble of dealing with the police.

The /u/ means that it is an unlisted slash, so it won’t appear on the homepage of localweb.is.  Ideally, this means the police don’t know about it’s use, but you can never be sure.  Maybe the police are using their own unlisted slash to fight crime themselves.  Either way, following /u/popo is a good way of keeping your criminal record to a minimum.

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Ok, no one wants it, now what?

So you couldn’t unload your stuff at /free.to.pickup.  Apparently those vintage and stained chairs just are not anyones style any more.  Well... you just can’t leave it on the curb, it needs to be removed.

Renting a dumpster will cost a few hundred bucks at least, and there is no way all that stuff will fit in the back of your Subaru.  It’s time to post to localweb.is/free.to.pickup.  Just take a photo of the lot and post what you are offering, maybe $50.  Anyone with pickup truck could take that stuff to the dump and probably profit $20 or so for 20 minutes of work.  Not bad.

Or maybe someone will just want to take on your “problem” for 50 bucks and keep the stuff in their garage.  Who knows, who cares.  You are willing to pay $50 to have this stuff moved off your curb.

All of the slashes like /free, /free.to.pickup, and /pay.to.pickup are not categories that were created by the folks at local web HQ.  They were created by patrons themselves, and spread by patrons themselves.  By allowing patrons to use the local web the way they want to, it creates the most efficient avenue to getting stuff done, sold, or just moved.  If there is no /pay.to.pickup in your area, just make it by simply going to the URL and posting.  Someone will see it.

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Set it (on the lawn) and forget it.

So maybe you are not giving away hugs and you really do need to just get rid of this stack of cooking books.  Well just take a photo, and drop a post on localweb.is/free.to.pickup and there is a good chance someone will come by to get it.  The posts you see there aren’t just from your state or city, they are from within 3km and might be right next door.

If you are having a yardsale and it’s getting late in the day. Start snapping pics of some items and post them to /free.to.pickup to drive some attention to your yard sale.  It’s a clever way to promote some “loss leaders” for the tail end of your yard sale.

Sure you can post an add to craigslist as well, but there might be more people looking at /free.to.pickup and chances are they are closer, which means your stuff has more value.  The free stuff on Craigslist isn’t such a great deal if you have to drive 15 minutes to get it.  Some patrons even have alerts on their phone when stuff is posted to /free.to.pickup within walking distance of them.

Of course if there is no takers, then you might have better luck at /pay.to.pickup.

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If you love something, let it go...

What started as a simple way to get rid of free stuff you had accumulating has turned into something much more.  Sure you can put that old desk and winter coats on /free and someone might pick it up, but these days /free has evolved into a different purpose.  

People started putting “free hugs” on /free, then “free conversations”, and “free friendships”.  Some people are naturally giving, and when they run out of hard good to give away, they give away part of themselves.

The people of /free are just looking to make their small corner of the world a better place by offering up their time and emotional energy.  There aren’t many places online where you can get a “free coffee conversation” because out current platforms are not really set up to do that.  The “free” section of Craigslist is mostly mattresses and other piles of semi-garbage.  Dating apps and other “connect to those around you” type apps come will all sorts of expectations.  

The local web is created and defined by the people who use it.  And patrons are using /free to share a part of themselves that is hard to commoditize.  Where else will your find your neighbors offering free garden planning, free art lessons, or free painted portraits (in exchange for being a model).  When you have a platform that is as open and flexible as human nature, you end up with a product that is closer to the human heart.

We are building the local web and sharing a new way to use it each day

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The tree is trimmed, time to share

For some people, the Christmas tree trimming is an annual family event.  To others its an expression of their decorating skill.  If you have a good looking tree going on, while not share it?  You earned it.

Just snap a photo and post to localweb.is/christmas-tree where you can see what your neighbors are up to with their tree.  It’s not really a competition.. ok.. it’s a little bit of a competition, but it’s all in merry fun.

If you haven’t bought your tree yet and see your neighbor has posted a great specimen of a blue spruce and you want to know where he go it, just ask!  Do you love your neighbors ornaments, drop a compliment. /christmas-trees is a celebration of this one aspect of Christmas and because all the posts are from people in your area, it’s an opportunity to get to know them a bit as well and spread some holiday cheer.

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Social media?  Try local media.

Sarah Johnson is an influence food blooger in Providence, Rhode Island.  Whenever a new restaurant opens up, her reviews on her blog, “Munch,” can be an important part of that opening success or failure.

While she get’s a lot of traffic to her blog, her other social media accounts just aren’t moving the needle.  She often instagrams her meals but on that platform she is competeing with hundreds, perhaps thousands of other food bloggers across the world.  Providence is her domain, and she is a big fish in a small pond there.  These global platforms are like the ocean and it can be hard to get some attention.

She posts her food thoughts on twitter as well, but readers really aren’t on twitter.  Or at least not often enough to catch her tweets.  Her readers are localized to Providence.  That is where she has the most influence.  So instead of social media, she has turned to local media to get the word out.

While she posts full reviews of new restaurants to her blog, she gives short thoughts on most meals at localweb.is/munch.  She has followers there too and since she knows all her followers are in the area, she can get a lot of interaction. /munch or “slash munch” as its called in Providence can be useful tool to fill seats at any restaurant.  When Maria raves about the eggs benedict at the Seaplane Diner (not on the menu, you have to ask for them), it creates a lot of activity in the slash.  This causes /munch to rise to the top of localweb.is, which is like the front page of the local web.  When /munch is near the top, people in the area take notice. The next day, the Seaplane Diner has to print new menus since everyone is asking for the eggs benedict.  This is the power of local media vs social media, where most hashtags just get lost in the wind and noise.

Local media is just a natural extension of the local web.  Global platforms force global competition, when most of the time, what matters most is what you can walk to.  What you can actually experience.

We are building the local web and sharing a new way to use it each day

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