Patch Audience Highly Engaged in Discussions
I was about to write how the comments on Pottstown Patch are evident of how alive and dynamic the site is.
But I receieved a notification today and thought this would be another way to prove my point. This came through a short time ago:
Congratulations - you are one of Patch’s Top 100 Bloggers (from our over 22,000 bloggers Patchwide)! We just wanted to take the time to thank you for your contributions.
We couldn’t resist this opportunity to acknowledge your hard work and how much we appreciate your efforts. Thank you for everything you do -- it's Local Voices like yours that truly make Patch special. We hope you'll keep doing what you're doing - we love it, and clearly your community does, too. Here’s a page with all your blog posts -- http://patch.com/bvdcy Congrats again!
Quite honestly, I don't know how that is scored or what that even means. But I just wanted to take the time to say thank you all who have engaged in local discussions. An example comes from my article titled Pottstown Crime Rate Among Highest in PA which resulted in 334 comments as of tonight. When have you ever seen other local papers with the comment ranking that Patch has?
The original article which I published on Threatcore was a lot of work and I want to thank Anna for the technical edits, checking my math and making some great recommendations. The story was a hot success and the original article had over 80,000 page loads. I always said good content brings success.
Keep the discussions going. Be active, write what you see, take photos. Pull out the phone and record something when you see it. We're all journalists - something social media and Patch enables.
Is it quite evident that Patch brings a highly engaging audience - and of course none of this would have happened without Teresa McMinn, the pioneer of Pottstown Patch.
Lots more to come in the coming months...
Julia Zion
10:16 am on Sunday, July 1, 2012
I totally agree, Tom. I only started posting here, but unlike the Mercury which just tells the news, this site gives people the opportunity to tell stories that would never before have gotten out to the general public. A story such as the subject of my first blog, the death of Cynthia Atkinson, would have ended at, "Homeless woman dies in park. No cause of death is known as of yet." Now, we have a chance to post an op-ed piece about what that says about our community as a whole and not have it buried in the op-ed section of a print newspaper that not too many people read. Heck, my two blogs have been front page of this site and I am grateful for that opportunity to get the word out about the advocacy I am starting and the issues of which I am passionate. Patch.com is an amazing tool of the digital age. I think this connects people to their communities in ways that newspapers never did. I'm really proud to be a part.
David Powell
5:53 pm on Monday, July 2, 2012
Both of you do really nice work on your blogs, and we're pleased to be able to give them featured placement on Pottstown Patch (and sometimes on the neighboring Patch sites in Limerick and Perkiomen Valley, too).