Community Newspapers – Hear Them Roar

Editor & Publisher, MediaWeek and Suburban Newspapers of America collaborated on the third annual Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas this past week – May 13-15. Tuesday May 13 was devoted to issues relevant to suburban and community newspapers. 100 newspaper executives walked away from that day and three breakout sessions on May 14  with many new resources, tips and tools to grow their online products.

Speakers and topics included media consultant Amy Rabinovitz, Jeff Rapson of Search Initiatives, and Jeremy Thompson of R&R Partners (the ad agency responsible for the ‘What Happens Here, Stays Here’ campaign for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. ) This terrific threesome talked about search, and how newspapers can use local search, SEO and SEM to increase traffic, revenue and brand awareness, not only for themselves but for their advertisers as well.

Peter Zollman, founding principal of the AIM Group, delivered a powerful and helpful message to community newspapers about what they could, should or even must do to improve their Web sites. And a heated discussion on citizen journalism and the perils and opportunities of user-generated content for  newspapers took place between Dale Peskin, founder of IFOCOS and John Humenik, publisher of the Arizona Star in Tucson.

For more details on the experts and all the news, advice and tools they delivered to community newspapers, keep an eye on the site of Suburban Newspapers of America, www.suburban-news.org.