How to start a local media brand and make a full-time income 💵💵 - Mark Matthews (#292)

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Mark Matthews, creator of 42 Freeway, shares his journey of building a successful local news and events website. Despite lacking a background in SEO or media, Mark found success by providing engaging stories that resonate with his audience. He discusses strategies for finding local business stories, the power of social media in driving traffic, and the challenges of scaling his business. Mark also explores the importance of personal branding and the potential for monetization through sponsored content. His story highlights the value of creating a strong online presence and connecting with the local community.

00:00 Introduction to the Local Media Mogul
00:39 The Power of Local Stories: A Case Study
00:59 Behind the Scenes: Running a Local Media Brand
01:49 The Unexpected Journey to Success
02:23 The Impact of Social Media on Local News
02:42 The Art of Storytelling in Local News
03:58 The Secret Sauce: Early Identification of New Developments
04:31 The Role of Community Engagement in Local News
04:39 The Challenges and Strategies of Getting Insider Information
05:55 The Power of SEO and Social Media in Local News
06:04 Becoming a Local Celebrity: The Perks and Challenges
06:53 The Role of Technology in Local News Reporting
07:41 The Competitive Landscape of Local News
19:41 The Journey to Full-Time Local News Reporting
24:23 The Challenge of Content Creation
25:19 Exploring the Mediavine Platform
26:25 The Power of Email Newsletters
27:16 The Impact of Social Media on Traffic
27:43 The Importance of Being Multichannel
27:49 The Risks of Relying Solely on SEO
30:39 The Role of Personal Branding
32:24 The Challenge of Scaling and Outsourcing
37:52 The Strategy for Monetizing Content
40:44 The Dilemma of Promoting Events
48:04 The Potential of Direct Ads
50:04 The Future of 42 Freeway

#SEO #mediavine #localmedia

Transcript

0:00

This guy has no background whatsoever in SEO, building websites, or a local media company. I mean, do any of us really? Yet now he's making a full time income from it. He's got a Facebook fan page with only about 30, 000 followers. Yet some of his posts get shared hundreds of times. One of his posts was seen by more than a million people and made him more than a thousand bucks. One post. He's becoming a bit of a local celebrity in town. He shares some tips with me on how he finds his local business stories, and we brainstorm a bit about how he's planning to grow his business going forward. Enjoy.

Mark: 0:40

​I did a story about Atlantic City, this water park that they've opened. And like 1. 2 million people saw that on Facebook, it's an hour drive from Atlantic City. I was down there for an hour taking drone photos. I made a couple thousand dollars off that post because so many people read that thing.

0:55

Um, Uh, Um, Uh, Um, Uh, Um.

Brooks: 0:59

Alright, Mark, Matthews, we're recording, man. You run a brand, 42 Freeway. I found you, uh, we're both in the Mediavine ad network, right? Both you and I run, Ads on on both of our brands our media brands, I think what you and I are doing is. Kind of the future like what you're doing excites me. Let me jump to your facebook page. This is actually one of the reasons I remember why I was like, this is crazy What is this guy doing? This is nuts. You're you're postman. I I have not seen this like so Okay, i'm just gonna scroll through uh 39 shares

Mark: 1:32

this last one go ahead experiment But when you get into some of the other ones, yeah, it gets kind of crazy the reaction that I get

Brooks: 1:38

53 shares. 111 shares. 51 shares. But, like, what's crazy though, is that is That's like, consistent, man. How, how in the world is this happening? What's going on? How did you get into this? You studied this in college, right?

Mark: 1:53

No! I, I don't have any background at all in this. That's the craziest thing. I have like three different careers in my life and I'm really not trained for any of them and I've found levels of success with them, so, uh. And by the way, you're showing those Facebook things. They're all great stories, but like, yeah, some of them get... I did a story about Atlantic City, this water park that they've opened. Yes. And like 1. 2 million people saw that on Facebook, which considering, you know, I have 36, 000 followers on my page to then hit 1. 2 million. It does get kind of crazy. Um, and you know, it's also interesting that like, there's so many people will say, Oh, Facebook's dead. You don't even need Facebook. I've had this discussion with business owners when they open up a business and they're like, Oh, my kids say no one uses Facebook. I'm like, dude, no, you've got to get on Facebook. But anyway, yeah, I don't have a background in this. Specific to the site. Well, let me just if I could just go on brooks. Um, yeah, give me your background Yeah, well, so the general for folks watching at home The general theme is I write about new things coming to the area, you know a big part of it It's just commercial construction but then also things you're going to get into your car and drive about and and I sort of frame it in You know, if you're sitting at the bar with your buddies or you're having Thanksgiving dinner and just like my stories, I think are like things you talk to other people. Hey, did you hear Wegmans is coming? Hey, did you hear about that new restaurant that's coming to Mount Laurel? Um, and I think it grabs people and I try to stick with stories that have that broader appeal, but it's kind of grown and you know, when I started this, I think a lot of people that are in the sort of the web business. Targeted as a money making facet. I am so different I literally was just a guy who heard like 10 years ago heard about some things going on in my community And I started going to some council meetings And I sat in and listened and I started writing them up And what I realized very quickly was if your taxes are going up two percent or you're getting a new fire truck People didn't really care. But if you told him a new taco bell was coming. Oh my god, everybody would get excited

Brooks: 3:48

Why is that? Is it like I've noticed that in my community too.

Mark: 3:52

People are looking for new things, you know, whether it's just a discussion point or to actually go there and, and, you know, try them out. And then also a lot of my thing, you know, I found a, a skill in identifying new things coming very, very early. So that's another thing I'll do. Like people are in their community. They don't even know that that empty lot is targeted to be a dollar general. You know, it's not all about restaurants. So I'm the guy that figures that out early on and gets it online. And then even then that's sort of like, you want to share that with your friends and your community. It's not all happy posts at the, at the 42 freeway site. Sometimes people are like that because they're like, you're tearing down our trees to put up a dollar general. But it still gets that sort of reaction. And that's where the Facebook piece comes into it for me, where, you know, people start tagging their friends. They start sharing it to their page, whether it's good or bad.

Brooks: 4:37

Yeah. That's actually one of my questions. How do you get in the know, of what is coming and like what's happening? Because even, even my brand that's really in the know, that's a, that's a pretty difficult. That's a pretty difficult piece to kind of have that, uh, to have those tips or that knowledge. Like, how does that work for you

Mark: 4:53

one aspect of this is, and I don't know if every state does this, I'm going to say maybe 20 percent of my articles come from a online database that all of the newspapers are connected to. They do it for the good of the public. So if you're building something in New Jersey, you probably have to get approval from the planning board or the zoning board. The planning board is going to say, all right, you're building a Raising Cane's Chicken Finger restaurant. You know, how big is the parking lot? Does it meet our zoning for, you know, the number of parking spaces and a nice thing they've done in New Jersey for just open government is, oh, I'm sorry. And when you do these meetings, the town and the developer have to publicize that in the newspapers. It's law. It has to be done so many days in advance. Um, it's funny because the laws haven't even really been updated for the Internet era. But what's nice is all those newspapers. funnel all those legal notices into one central database that I have access to. So that's one aspect. I literally will just start my morning with my Coffee and I'll just type in, like pick my counties, type in 42, not 40, sorry. Type in planning board, zoning board and see what's happening. Um, you know, definitely right now I can see that the projects are slowing up, but that's literally maybe like 20% of my stories or less. I've got a reputation now. I've got, you know, I've, I'm as much. This may sound like an ego thing, but I'm becoming like a little local celebrity in my, in my area. I put my face in my videos. Um, I'm doing some tick tok and literally, it's probably like 80 percent of the time. If I just go out in public to the mall or to a restaurant, someone's like, Hey, you're the 42 freeway guy. So what happens is people see some things in their community. And they message me and sometimes it's like, they just expect me to have the answer. Hey Mark, do you know what's going on with the old shop, right? Grocery store? I saw people in there, but at least that gives me a, what's the saying? If where there's smoke, there's fire, you know? Yeah,

Brooks: 6:38

that's like a lead for you

Mark: 6:39

and I'll track that down. Um, I also, um, what

Brooks: 6:44

do you do, would you, would you just, would you just like drive over there to the, to the store where there's people like, is that your process? You would just be like, all right, let me go check this out.

Mark: 6:53

I drive over, well I do a lot of research independently at home on my computer. Yeah. But yeah, pretty much every single story I drive over to. Because I want to, here's the thing, we're all busy, we all have a direct path to go to our jobs, if you have a day job. I have some flexibility, so I want to bring my readers. to that location. Um, it's a challenge I have with my competitors because a lot of my competitors will maybe look at the same story and they'll immediately just put it online. Like they'll go to google street maps, get an image of the building and say, oh, this is going to be a new mexican restaurant. But me, I'm taking some extra time. I'm driving there. I'm trying to get ahold of the owner. to talk to them. I want to get inside and, you know, when, when I think one of the things you just previewed for me was a new bar that reopened. They've been closed for three years. So it takes time for me to, you know, to coordinate that and get in there because I want to show my readers what it's like to actually go to that place.

Brooks: 7:41

In your area, who are your competitors, traditional media outlets that like have existed or is it other newer brands that are, that are more independent like you?

Mark: 7:52

Both. So, um. Okay. The local sort of Gannett, Gannett's a big newspaper corporation. So they have like three papers

Brooks: 7:59

here I think they own I think they own our I think they again, it sounds familiar Like I recognize that so I think they actually own our local media company as well I think I

Mark: 8:08

think they own like 100 papers. They own the USA Today And, you know, just part of one of their many things they cover, they are absolutely um, going after the same stories, you know, the new restaurant coming in, the road project. So I have that, you know, and I've talked to a lot of those people, even like the larger Philadelphia Inquirer, which is like the major paper, and it's funny because like, When they call and it says carrier post or email inquire They'll get a lot more reaction than I do as the 42 free as much as I think people know and love my site I don't get the same response. But anyway, so i'm competing with them there's also a lot of other sites like mine That are doing similar things, more typically just in the food restaurant category. That seems to be a big thing. Um, Are they independent?

Brooks: 8:51

Are those sites independent? Or are they like, uh, more, more, more regional sites? Or are they kind of localized to your area?

Mark: 8:58

Yeah, so most of them are local to the area. There is one site, and I'll just say it's the WhatNow brand. Uh, the gentleman started in atlanta pretty much doing what i'm doing, but I think targeted again more towards the restaurant aspect I've heard of it trying to yeah, he now has like what now philly what now chicago, you know, just different areas. Um, But I you know They're doing a wonderful job, but I don't think they have this is the challenge like when I think about my own expansion I don't think they have a person in each of the towns. So they're using other means, you know They're getting their hits, but they're not getting say in my area, they're not getting the number of stories that I will get. So, um, and then, you know what? Honestly, I say this to the business owners over time. One of my biggest competition is just the regular customer with their phone and a Facebook account and a food group in the neighborhood. 25 year old with a Tiktok account. You know, if sometimes a new restaurant's opening, like Mark, we love what you're doing, but we're not ready to put it on your site because we don't want to blow the place up in the first week. Um, and I'd be, I'm, I'm respectful to that. But then what happens is. Every other customer is going in there and they're taking their own photos and they're putting it on the on the groups and You know, it just it doesn't stop my coverage and but it does take a little bit out of it, you know Yeah

Brooks: 10:10

Do you think you'll adjust your strategy where maybe you do it in like multiple parts? Like you kind of do in earlier like hey, I I want to get this out there and say hey part two Part two is coming soon. Like is that is that something you could do? Do you think it's

Mark: 11:01

a great point? So in two different categories if it's a development brand new building I'm, definitely there very early on and i'm going back I track everything in the database So I like if I show up in cherry hill, new jersey I know the 40 things that i've written about and i'll go check them out, you know, the original planning meeting Um, you know when they start six months later, they start turning dirt over at the site. That's actually another story because People become skeptical if it takes too long before, you know, something happens. So that's a story. Wait

Brooks: 11:27

a minute, wait a minute, uh, dive into that a little bit for me. So you track, because I feel like I could take some useful tips from this. You track everything, like every project that you're kind of writing about. Like when it starts, like how do you, like what does your process look like for that?

Mark: 11:41

I, so I have a, a scratch pad that I just use in like iPhone notes. It's like if I'm out on the road and I see something, I'll make a note, but then I'll every other day or so I have, you know, my, so my prior job was a computer software development manager and we use this process called Kanban, which was actually created by Toyota decades ago. And then, you know, the, the general concept was you're much more better if you and the team focus on one or two things than trying to solve a hundred. There's sort of this stage status, you know, like here's things I'm researching. I'm going to visit here. So I created my own sort of columns and it's a workflow. Um, and I have this like backlog. So every time I move something through and I write about it, I don't close it, you know, say if it's, if it's coming, you know, still come, I'll move it into a different backlog and, you know, it's all tagged by. So as I said, if I, you know, I'm now covering all of Southern New Jersey, so if I pop down to say Atlantic City, I can actually just bring up a quick query and see everything that I've written about, and I'll just check it out.

Brooks: 12:43

So nice. What's your, what's your tool of choice for that? I use Trello. Trello.

Mark: 12:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I use. I use Trello, yeah. Yep. That's what I, that's what I use. I've used my whole, um, funny fact about Trello a few days ago. Maybe it was yesterday or the day before. Trello was down. The website was down. and I've prepared myself, like basically my entire business, every, every project I do, my entire life's in Trello. And I was like, you know, like, uh, if it went down and I lost all the information, I would just have to start from scratch and create a, I'm actually at peace with that. I'm literally telling myself that, Hey, if that ever happened. but yeah, that happened the other day. It did make my heart, uh, skip a, skip a beat and then, uh, and then I was like, eh, that's okay. You know, what's the worst, what's the worst mean? They're part of a much, a much larger Yeah. Corporation. So they, they may have their hiccups look even, Facebook and Twitter go down for a little bit of times, but Exactly. I trust that they're coming back.

Brooks: 13:33

Exactly. It's, uh, I think it's at Atla, Atlassian, I think. I think Atlasian, yes. Atlassian they bought Trello and so I used Trello before they got bought or whatever. I've asked a few people that use Trello. I don't pay for it and I'm I do everything that I need Do you pay for Trello or is it the free version?

Mark: 13:50

I do pay for the very basic features just because I wanted to create my own custom fields And I forget the exact specific, so what was happening is I was, I could put a town in for a project or, you know, store, I could put a town in, but I sort of saw things as regions, you know, if I go to a different county, you know, like I just said, Atlantic City, which I don't actually do a lot down in Atlantic City, but Atlantic City, there's like seven or eight towns in that area, so when I search, I don't want to have to type in Atlantic City, comma, Egg Harbor, comma, I want it to do by regions, and I'm like, well, I need a new field for that, and that's where it tricked into me having to pay for it. It's not that much money, though. It's a small amount.

Brooks: 14:28

No, it's not, and it's not that I'm being, uh, frugal, although I am frugal. It's just, it's just that I haven't come across the features, I guess, because I'm just like, I don't know, I just keep using it, and I feel good with my current process. I just haven't had to pay for it, like, literally in years. So, I, I don't know.

Mark: 14:43

We were also talking about, just to close this thread out, um, About me doing multiple stories. So yes in a pure construction sense. I'm tracking it Um, you know, just as another we have out in the northeast. We have the WaWa convenience stores They're like a cult following they're spreading through florida and elsewhere and they are getting our first one You're getting your first one. I don't know where you at

Brooks: 15:03

i'm in Mobile Alabama. Oh,

Mark: 15:05

wow. I didn't know they made it down there. Yeah, they're fanatical up here and what they're doing is they want to, I think they want to keep competition out. So they're just building them on like every corner. Um, so like I will go back there multiple times with, I'm a drone, I'm a licensed drone, uh, operator now. for commercial and I'll do multiple posts. Now where, where I comes challenging is if say it's a new restaurant popping into a strip mall and I know it's getting ready to open. I want to, my heart is like, I want to wait for the, for the, like the few days before and have the owner come in and give me that preview tour. I think, you know, we'll talk about this in a second, but I'm not making any money on Facebook, although I know they've changed the programs. I need to get people back to my website. So when you see it on Facebook, What's going to make them click and one of the things is like, hey guys click into my article And i'm going to show you what this place is alike was like i've eaten the food Um, and what happens though is that coordination can take time with the owner And sometimes they just don't want me to write about it And so I started thinking all right and in the interim one of these other competitors i've already put it online and i've lost Yeah

Brooks: 16:04

I found the uh, here's the here's that water park post you're talking about. So holy smokes, man this uh I think when I saw this post, it had already matured and it had like a thousand shares. Is it like, is it still getting traction or something?

Mark: 16:18

This is a real interesting story. I don't spend a lot of time in Google Analytics. You know, Google Analytics is great for like trends and identifying. There's a segment where they show you the keywords that people typed in to get to your site. And I don't spend a lot of time because it's news oriented. My site is news. You know, nobody wants to hear about the, you know, your, your hometown, the phillies game two weeks ago. They most recent thing. And then after that it kind of dies. So related I did a story in like October that was coming. It was only half half developed. I had the drone up. And 5 months later, I look at the Google analytics and literally in the top 10. 9 of the top 10 were variations of Atlantic City water park. Showboat waterpark. Now this is 5 months after I did the story. So, whatever reason Google identified that article that I didn't say 6 months before opening as like the number 1 article And I had no idea what are you doing that s I went back down to Atlantic City and uh, I did another uh, I did another story and It just it worked, you know what everybody says you do with keywords and seo It worked and that thing just took off and it's interesting though how it also took off in facebook, you know facebook and Connected but it just it just took off and It's an hour drive from Atlantic City. I was down there for an hour taking drone photos. I made a couple thousand dollars off that post because so many people read that thing. So well worth my time.

Brooks: 17:42

Did the Facebook shares come before the Google ranking? Or do you know? Any idea?

Mark: 17:50

so I had a prior post of this. Uh huh. Okay. And the Google ranking had already climbed. Got it.

Brooks: 17:56

Yeah, for you, uh, really interesting for you, it was a timely article, and like, there probably was no other content, people were searching for it, Google found your article and, and pushed you up, because... What else, what else was there? You know what I mean? Like, and you had a good article about it. So, like, you moved to the top. Um, which is, which is awesome,

Mark: 18:15

man. You know, in that scenario, Atlantic City, you know, the visitors to Atlantic City are driving an hour from Philadelphia and New York. So, they're not down there to see what's going on about this water park. So, when I got the drone up and got the drone photos, like, I think that really connected with people. Like, oh, wow. And, you know, now you're not talking about the, the 100, 000 people, I don't know how many live in Atlantic City. You're talking about the millions. that live in Philly and New York. So it pulled those folks in. You know, I even, I even got an early preview tour of that facility just to kind of give a sense, you asked me, how do I get these stories? The owner of that property is Bart Blatstein. He's kind of well known in the Philadelphia region. He's made some very successful projects and he bought that hotel. And I was, I was, I was going through the normal channels, like with their marketing team, trying to like, Hey, look at this great success I had. Can I come in and see the place? So I saw that a couple of years ago, he was on Twitter. And I literally stood in a parking garage outside. With his water park over my shoulder and I recorded a video to him. It's like, Hey Bart, you don't know me But like i'm crushing on your water park here. Like i'm beating all the major media I'd love to come in and don't you know that he signed up for my mail my email letter under his personal account And sent me an email and just like mark i've added in my executive vice president into this email I'd love to have you come in coordinate with her. Good luck, you know, and i'm like

Brooks: 19:36

That's cool. That's cool. How, um, did, did you tell me how long you've been running the site? I can't remember.

Mark: 19:43

So it started out maybe nine or 10 years ago, but I want to be very clear. It only became a money thing for me in the last three years and it's really taken off. You know for the first eight seven years it was was very much a hobby I would literally go months without even putting anything online. It was just got ahead of me I'll tell you there's there's no silver lining to the whole covid pandemic. But what happened was When I got to work from home for 18 months, I had an hour commute each way to my day job. So when I got to work from home, I saved two hours of my life each day. And I just started putting it into the website and writing more posts. And you know, I was also able to like, I had some flexibility because of something, some construction was going on in the middle of the day. Yeah, I'd absolutely, I'd shoot over and get those photos. I couldn't do that when I was working an hour away. Um, and then around the same time, I was not making any money. I, no, I actually had Google AdSense and I used to joke with my buddies. I was making beer money. and I learned about Mediavine. And so two things happened. One is Mediavine absolutely does pay more. I got accepted. I got accepted because I do have a high number of food and restaurant stories in there. Um, they do pay more. They're smart. They educated me on how to change. My stories went from being like three sentences to being seven paragraphs, which we could talk about that too. Then when I saw the numbers grow, I'm like, oh, this is good. I'm gonna start writing more and more. So I had that extra two hours in my life. So everything three years ago, I, I would've never thought that I would've quit my day job. And I'd be sitting here talking to you on this video. That's, that's, you know, it all happened in there that quickly.

Brooks: 21:13

So did you, so you just quit your day job by choice. You said, Hey, I just want to, I wanna go full-time into this brand. I mean, you seem like you love it, like you're all about it. You obviously started it 10 years ago as a passion project and now it. You know, I guess it affords you the ability to be flexible and run.

Mark: 21:28

Yeah. So we'll just do fast. And so I know you're going to say, Mark, you look like you're a 25 year old man, an older guy. And so I have had some success in my life. In the corporate world. So I had some savings got it. And when I was working the day job and and Writing articles more articles the revenue was going up. It was still yeah, I used to joke It was like uber money if I put the same, you know hours driving an uber It was at the time was equivalent to that and I said to my wife, It's been about 18 months now. I said, look, this is where I'm at doing part time, but it's a real struggle for me because after, after my day job and that big commute, I'd have to find time and I was sacrificing in other parts of my life. I said, trust me on this. I think we can do this. I think I can do this. Um, uh, I'm absolutely not covering my days, make my day job salary, but again, I'm an older man. So I don't, you know, my kids are done college. I do have some retirement going and, and she said, yeah, give it a shot. So I turned it into a full time. It's everything I promised myself and her I've met and beat, but then at the same time, man, I am my own worst critic. I think I could be doing twice as much. Uh, with the site and stories, but I need to just change some of the ways I work. So,

Brooks: 22:35

well, one thing I love, well, hats off to you, man. Like con congratulations for the growth you've had. Exactly. Hey man. Yeah. My guy, my guy. I, one thing I know you don't do much, I think in regards to SEO, uh, writing for you, cause you're writing stories and it's more about social shares and it's driving traffic back to your site. But I think you're expanding or looking to really dig into SEO, which I think will be a total another, uh, explosion for your site. I don't know where you are on that, but, but I remember when we chatted before, it wasn't even on your radar at the time.

Mark: 23:08

Absolutely not. Yeah. And again, there was no, uh, there was no sense to it because truly, once you know that the, you know, the dollar general's coming to your neighborhood, that story's done, it's not like, you know, in the Mediavine, there's a lot of, a lot of folks that are writing, you know, recipe sites, if you have the number one keto recipe site, For the next 10 years, people are going to be searching for, you know, I need a keto recipe for Thanksgiving. And if you've done SEO and, and you've seen it, you know, some of the comp, some of the people in that, that Mediavine private group that we have, they're just amazing with what they know. You know, they're, they're making sure their stories at the top of the Google search results. For me, I'm like, all right, it's news. I didn't bother. The things that I do focus on that I've maybe more so got from Mediavine is just, you know, The longer stories, you know, to make Google, you know, recognize you as an authority. Uh, the shorter paragraphs, you put more, you know, shorter power at one. It's, it's more appealing to the reader that, you know, the reader sees a big giant chunky text. It's intimidating to them. And they're going to move on. Um, but it also allows Mediavine to insert ads, you know, in the content. So those are the basic things. Um, I'll scroll, I'll scroll. Challenges though, because I'm trying to write one or two articles a day. I have just 80 recipes online and I'm tweaking them. I'm, I'm cranking these out. So it's probably my toughest challenge, with this type of site in the Mediavine platform, because it still takes four or five hours to do a story.

Brooks: 24:36

Got it. Got it. What is, uh, when I just scrolled past and I saw that I've seen that before your subscribe box lights up. Is that a part of your theme, your, uh, your, your website theme or what is that?

Mark: 25:18

You're missing out man. So I am running the other thing you get with Mediavine. I don't want to turn this into a complete Mediavine commercial, but I'm running the Trellis WordPress framework. Um, and it is totally optimized for speed. And then also, you know, it's their ads that it's going in. So they've kind of worked it that the ads themselves don't hurt the performance. You know, it's, it's, it's ironic to me that Google AdSense. Is there is, for, you're starting out, you get on Google AdSense and then Google's also the, the site with their, you know, their, their core web vitals, whatever it's called, measuring it and AdSense is just awful on Google's own measurements, but with Mediavine, they figured it out. So I got Mediavine ads on a Mediavine template. So to the question of that popup, that is part of the Mediavine spotlight. grow spotlight. So that's actually a Mediavine feature, um, where you can just click, it just greys out the, to collect email addresses, it greys out the page, you just click away from it, but if you put your email address in there, I get that, I can add it to my mailing list, and you know, then your page never has that greyness to it. I think it's a better implementation than that giant pop up that, you know, you get in front of pages that blocks the,

Brooks: 26:25

Actually is email, is that a big part of, of what you do? Like your like email newsletter portion is, is that a piece of, of

Mark: 26:33

continuing the, uh, the Mediavine commercial I had, I used to run feed burner, which is, it was a Google, Google had purchased them and I didn't push it hard. I had about 800 subscribers and there was, there was no sort of. annoying Incentive for someone to sign up. There was just a little thing on my sidebar And I had 800 people when I switched over to the trellis platform with spotlight and to grow that little that pop up thing you had I went in like 18 months from 800 to 8,000 email addresses and yeah, I sure so then I used mail or light Which is, you know, one of the many email tools, but it's, yeah, I'm just doing simple things. I'm doing an RSS feed once a week. MailerLite connects to my RSS feed, sees what's new and then sends it out to those 8,000 people. Oh, got it. Okay. You know, I, I used to be like very, very dependent on Facebook and now with my, my sort of authority growth, I guess, in Google. And the newsletter, you know, Facebook's gone from like 66 percent of my traffic to maybe 25 percent of my traffic. And it's not that I lost on Facebook, it's just I've been able to grow it and, you know, other ways. And, and that newsletter is one of those ways. You know, not everybody's on Facebook. Nobody wants, a lot of people don't want to deal with all the crazy comments you get on Facebook.

Brooks: 27:42

Exactly. Exactly. But I mean, I think, I think for like, uh, for us, uh, you know, people, brands like us, like you have to be, you have to be multi channel. So what just happened recently? So today's We're recording on the 26th of September. Like, uh, Google just came out with a, uh, helpful content update. And there are a lot of people's websites that got, has, have been decimated. Like literally 50 percent drop in traffic. I've seen some 70 to 80 percent drops in traffic. These are people that are focused solely on SEO though. That's all they're doing. They're not creating a social brand. They're not building an email list. And so that traffic drop. Really hurts if that's your only, your only, you know, strategy. So,

Mark: 28:21

you know, there's some irony in this because, you know, in say, I'm also in Reddit participating in like the blogging groups and things like that. And you'll see very frequently people are like, I don't know. You can't rely on Facebook because you're, you're tied to their algo. You can't rely on this. Yeah. And they're pushing SEO, SEO, SEO. We'll guess just, you just, you described they're just dependent on a different tech giant, you know? And, and it seems like Google's changing the recipe every six months. So I feel like maybe I have a balanced attack here because I do have. 36,000 people on my Facebook page. And by the way, it's 36,000 people, they're like, they're all nerds about this new stuff like I am.

Brooks: 28:56

Who says, which, which is defined by the amount of shares. So we have, uh, our page has like 29,000 or something. We have no consistent shares, like what you do, we have none of that. I recently had an article about like a new gas station that went kind of viral, it reached like half a million people. I haven't done, I haven't done that in a year. On our business page. So like that, like, I'm not joking, man. When, when I reached out to you and said, man, what are you doing? Like, this is amazing. The fact like your, your fans are avid fans and they want to share your articles with, you know, to hit a share button kind of, I mean, it kind of means something special, right? Like if you're on Facebook and you want to share it, that means you don't want to just consume it yourself, you want other people to actually see it and it's like, how do you, how do you create that? I don't know, but you've done it and you've done a really good job.

Mark: 29:43

If I could be very honest, like I'm, I'm active as a person on Facebook for my friends and I can't think of the last time I've shared a story. You know, I'm a big Phillies, I'm a big Philadelphia sports fans, Phillies, Eagles. If someone gives the Phillies a great review, I've never thought, let me share this on my Facebook page. So I try, I'm a big fan, and I really love that my fans do that, and at times I have done some sort of personal, when I, when I left my day job, I did some, like, personal, like, videos, like, you know, uh, The more serious side of 42 Freeway. Just saying, hey, this is what I'm doing, and I appreciate, you know, you guys supporting me, but, Literally, I don't, I think only a very few small percentage of people are doing it. It's just organically the folks that are following my page are doing it. I don't, I also noticed like the other sites that I talk, we talk about the competitors. They'll write the same story as me and get like three likes on it. Yeah. And two shares and my story will have 400 likes and 100 shares.

Brooks: 30:38

Yeah. Well, and you mentioned something about you making some more serious videos like more personal like you being personal with the brand Uh, let like let me actually ask you about that. Do you do that a lot? Um, because like my wife and I are kind of the faces behind our brand. We've kind of gone back and forth like do we want to be like? Yeah, like influencers with a brand or do we want just to be a brand? How have you you know done that and what what have you liked about what you've done or? You know not liked about certain things you've done

Mark: 31:06

I'm having success with it. I think I I want to do more I have some time management. I have to deal with you know, I mentioned that one sort of more personal video I don't do a ton of them, but it's more like i'm augmenting with you know, everything's going tick tock You know, I I joke that everybody under 30 is on tick tock now So if you don't have a even if you can't find a way to make money on tick tock Maybe you need a presence there. So I'll do a little videos at the new restaurant. Um, I've done some of the construction updates. Um, uh, our area, there was this chain of Mexican restaurants called Don Pablo's, which our, our town had the last one and they just tore it down. So I was there with my vid. So it's my face talking to people like, ah, can you believe they tore down the Don Pablo's and, and they're building this chicken restaurant. And it's funny, like people have this emotional connection to this restaurant and the building, like, ah, I can't believe they're tearing it down. But my face is on it and. They, it's more personal, there are people in the major newspaper in South Jersey that have been writing for 30 years and no one knows their name. Yeah. And to me, I'm like a friend, I think telling them a story, a person to connect with a person they want to see be successful. And it just sort of helps. And I think that, you know, in one of the calls that the CEO of Mediavine did, he sort of called that out, like make it more than just, uh, your recipe site, put yourself into it. So.

Brooks: 32:22

Yeah, no, that's good. That's good. Uh, which speaking of do you have does anyone work with you? Or do you completely work alone or do you have any like freelancers contractors employees anything like anything? So

Mark: 32:33

this is this is my goal for the winter time. I am 1 million percent alone. Okay, I am I'm doing all the writing. I'm doing all the researching. I'm getting in my car, driving to 95 percent of the places I write about. So there's just a natural governor. You know, there's always so many hours in the day. And, you know, I, I, I thought when I quit my day job, I'd be able to like do three times as many stories and I haven't reached that. So, uh, um. Yeah, we're a four season area over here and I really enjoy in the philadelphia. I'm in south jersey philadelphia area I really enjoy the summertime. So it's harder to sort of take on new initiatives I want to go to the you know to the outdoor deck bar and you know have a beer go to the philly's game But now the wintertime's coming It's like I said that my wife my goal is to how can I bring other people in to help me out? And and I think the challenge is I do think my my my style of writing And my personality is a part of my success with the site. So I still have to have that there, but have other people help me. So,

Brooks: 33:29

yeah, exactly. Okay, so facebook so you're on tiktok, email email newsletter Yeah, uh, obviously the blog is that the main, the main

Mark: 33:39

The Instagram had been mostly like just in my own casual out like eating at a restaurant or something I would share. But I've had people ask me, why don't I share my stories to Instagram? So I'm adding, but all of those though, my only real revenue stream is still the website. People come to the site. So all of those are just channels to get people back to the website. Now I have some friends doing similar things and Facebook has started this performance bonus program. Yeah, they're getting paid for clicks and shares and likes and I'm crushing it. Facebook has not invited me to the program. I don't know what that recipe is.

Brooks: 34:14

Crazy. Cause they, they invited me and yeah, the way that you're, uh, they invited me. I think it's like a completely experimental. I don't even think it's a permanent thing. I got some notice that actually someone that works with me on my team was like, Hey, look at this. And I was like, okay. So I clicked some buttons and I went through and I think they were like, Hey, Um, They gave no information about, like, what you get paid, how you get paid. They're just kind of like, hey, we're experimenting with this, and so. Right. Yeah, so, um.

Mark: 34:39

They invited me on my personal account, which is like, locked to just my friends. Yeah. Because I do have it set as a content creator, I think. But on my main site now, one of my friends who has a site in a different area very similar to mine Um said what he does differently is he fills in like I only share links to my articles. That's all I do Got it. He fills in dead time with like just photos of the area. He's more in a sort of a touristy area Yeah, so he'll take a picture of the beach or a picture of something and and mix that in So he has more pure content that's Facebook. My content's all like, if you click it, you're going outside of Facebook. And that's the only thing I can think why I have nothing.

Brooks: 35:17

That might, that could be, that could be because that's all your content. That's actually, that's actually a valid point. But, uh, obviously Facebook is allowing that to be. You know a lot of times they kind of stop that in its track because they don't want people to leave facebook obviously But you're still that's why I was so amazed that you're that you're uh, that your posts were still getting shared Dozens 30 100 plus times, right? So, i'm almost

Mark: 35:38

a little uh, Afraid I could very easily start adding in like photo posts and things like hey, this is a nice park that nobody goes Yeah, but i'm i'm almost worried will that mess up? Yeah. Facebook algorithm in a negative way and you Right. It happens in Story.

Brooks: 35:52

Right, Becuase whatever you are doing is like working and you don't necessarily want to adjust it. No, I totally, I totally get you there. Um, do you... Go ahead.

Mark: 36:00

If I could just add, I just wanted to say, um, you, you were touching on though, like, getting other people to help me. And I just want to say that, that is literally, I want to reiterate this, my biggest challenge right now. I had a friend tell me a great line and it's, it's, it's just, it's, I've heard it many times before but it hit home with me. He says, Mark, you've done an amazing job creating an awesome thing that people love. Thank you. What you've done is you've created a job for yourself. You have not created a business. if I don't do something during, you know, on a day, nothing happens at my site. And, you know, so the point is, how can I get other people working for me in a compensation model that's worthwhile to them. Then still leaves enough for me to, to make money. You know, I'm, I'm paying the bills with this website, but it's not like a business where, you know, if you have a construction business, you have a business account with$500,000 in it and you pay yourself 80 grand a year. No, every dollar that, that the site generates is going into my household. So for me to bring someone else on and make it worthwhile, I'm, I'm taking a cut back on my pay and I just have to, you know, that's the thing. That's my goal for this winter time is. Figure out what that balance is that I could say to someone. Look, here's one of my ideas. I'm going to go out there still. I'm going to collect the photos. I'm going to get the sort of general story and I'm just going to bullet it out. Here's the seven bullets, six bullets, and send it to someone and, and maybe, you know, have them write the bulk of the story. that's pretty much the only idea I have on the table. We can talk further about that. That's a good,

Brooks: 37:16

yeah, that's a good idea. We'll, uh, we'll be able to talk a lot more, uh, offline later with, honestly, I have probably like, I have dozens of ideas literally, but like that that won't be the scope of this right now. yeah 100% i'm excited I'm happy for you. And I agree with your friend that like a hundred percent you got to like, and, and honestly getting some hired help may expand you outside of what you're even currently doing, right? Like it may be that you can then now double down, but it not cost you more necessarily. But anyways, do you charge any of the businesses that you cover or are they all At No charge and you're just like if it makes sense for my brand i'll do it Like

Mark: 37:52

it's a hundred percent free. Okay. I don't charge the readers Which that works for me because some of my competitors like the you know, the gannett newspapers. They're on a subscription model. So yeah But I don't even charge the businesses There's one, there's one time someone, uh, paid me money to be clear. They're organizing a beer festival. And I'm like, Mark, what are you doing? Can you do a post on our beer festival? It's not my, it's not my thing. I don't want to promote, but they're saying like, look, it would be great if you could do a video and you can put something on your website and we put ads on your site. And I said, guys, I'll happily do that. I love what you're doing. But that is something what I would charge for. And it's just a couple hundred bucks. And I think people would understand that. But yeah, every new restaurant opening and, you know, just to be clear, those Facebook links, likes, and people go into my website literally can turn into scenarios where the restaurant opens. And they are just overwhelmed. So that business is getting their cash register filled with coverage from me and, and my competitors. I'm not going to take all the, all the, all the credit. There's some South Jersey food scene. And so it has this group with like 70,000 people in it, but we're flooding these businesses and I have charged them absolutely nothing. but my thing is. A lot of the business owners don't know me, especially if you're coming in from, you know, a different area. You know, you're a New York based restaurant. You come in the, if I call them up and say, Hey, I'm the 42 freeway guy. Trust me, we're really big in South Jersey. Pay me 300 to write a story about your business. I think my success rate is going to be very low on that. I think most people aren't going to go with that. So

Brooks: 39:22

got it. Got it. Because that's something that I've always, uh, I'll say always struggle with, like, pay to play versus just creating content and then hopefully it, you know, right. It making financial sense to create that content right down the road somewhere. Whether it's like, whether it's in the form of subscribers, fans online, or actual dollar revenue from, you know, ads. It's, it's a tough, it's, I mean, genuinely, it's a hard thing to like to, to discern.

Mark: 40:07

the, you know, the, the ad model that you and I have has been successful enough that I need to keep fueling that fire. I could see if a, if a website was out there and didn't have the same revenue stream from the ad model, they'd be, all right, we'll pay us and we'll put an article up, but I need to keep throwing wood into that fire. And if I put the roadblock up of pay me, you know, the readers tell me all the time, they messaged me all the time, like, dude, I can't believe you're not charging the businesses because the readers, Get it. They see the influence that my site can have on businesses, but I don't think all the business owners get it. So it's, I'm, I'm, I'm very comfortable with how I'm doing

Brooks: 40:43

it now. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Do you get pitched, uh, for like all the time and, but you don't know if it would actually be a good fit. You know what I mean? It's even right. So how do you handle those?

Mark Matthews - 42 Freeway - combined: 40:54

you're hitting on so my two struggles right now you hit this is my second one The first one is just how do I scale bring other people in scale? The second one is you know, my my original theme was construction And things like I have a video from when I did this nine years ago It's like hey new construction and things that people would get in their car and drive to You know, that's what's going to drop the clicks. Many are interpreting it as I'm just a general new business site and, and they don't realize that I already have 20 stories in the queue that I can't get to. So there are categories of stories that I, you know, I, a woman was really, really tough with me recently. She opened up a financial planning office in a strip mall. I 100 percent know that if I wrote that, it's going to go. No. Yeah. So the Facebook algorithm is very, very real. The Google algorithm is very, very real. You know, the, that last post you just had up on there of that, that tanning, wonderful people there. I almost did that as an experiment because. If people don't immediately, you know, I put it online, don't immediately like it and share and comment. Facebook just says, this is not good content at this period. So I have these really tough, this is my next sort of heartfelt video I think I want to do, but I'm trying to think it through of like, this is why I can't do your story. One is I just have way too many things to write. And two, there's just a, you know, There's also, like, you'll feel a bit of a Pilates studio. It's a square building, a square room, with mirrors and padding. If I spend four hours on that and put that online, it's not going anywhere, you know, with the readers.

Brooks: 42:15

Yeah, yeah. So, it makes me feel better. I'm surprised you haven't been slammed with that a lot more already, uh, with that, being faced with that kind of dilemma because, we've kind of faced that for years. We don't do as much business coverage. We started out as being like an events, um, kind of promoting events, right? Like that are going on in town. Here's what's happening. Here's what's going on. We had like a paid, like a paid version and like an unpaid version. Like, well, well, this is a good event. They don't want to pay. How do we, you know? And so it's like this weird chicken and it's a, it's a weird situation, but for businesses, I totally hear you. Like, it's kind of a tough situation, but if you know, it's not good content for your brand, like it costs you. Literally resources to create the content time, energy, effort, money, resources. And so maybe, maybe that's how you can, um, politely massage or figure out a sponsored piece, right? Where maybe you can tell the company like, Hey, look, this could be a good story. I don't think it's going to work well on our platform, but we do have reach like. I would do it at this cost, you know, if it'd be a piece of sponsored content. I don't know just an idea, but maybe that's where your paid portion comes in if you if you don't feel confident or comfortable about it performing, you know, I I don't know

Mark: 43:21

because i'm not going to get reimbursed from the traffic probably so If i'm right, you know, one of the other thoughts is a simpler one. It's like look All right, if you have a facebook page, i'll share it to my page, but I I still don't Yeah, then I worry about the other thing, you know, the other aspect I get a lot of people, you know Everybody's got doing wonderful things in their community wonderful charities Yeah, maybe think about it with events and they'll message me like can you promote my event and exactly so there's two folds one is I do need to pay the bills with the site. But then secondly, once I do one, I know this is true. Once I do one sort of charity event, I'm going to get inundated. I'm already getting two requests a week for it, which doesn't sound like too much, but the moment I put, you know, the hoagie sale for the fire hall up on my site or on my, even on my Facebook page. Everybody's going to hit me. So I'm like, it's it's I have had to like just say no to it. So you

Brooks: 44:07

will get flooded You absolutely will get flooded. I appreciate you agreeing to that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah a hundred percent and it's not it's not a bad So part of part of what we've done is we literally just promote basically everyone anyone that we think it fits our event calendar They just they submit a form or whatever. Um, we're like cool. Everyone gets two weeks free promotion but if they want to buy like More promotion, they can do that. So that, that's kind of how we've worked that out is it's just like, yes. Um, Hey, because honestly, like events are pretty good content for us. It's kind of like one of the main things we're known for in our city is like an event calendar. People come to us to check out events and stuff like that. Um, what's

Mark: 44:40

interesting about us talking right now. So I absolutely have had in my radar from the beginning to do events. I even have a side thing called 42 freeway destinations where I would just go to. Just interesting places, you know, in the middle of the South Jersey. But what's interesting about our conversation is. You have the events and maybe some destination piece, but not the news stories in the community. I have the community news stories, but not the events. So, literally, I think us sharing ideas and talking it through, we could, you know, we each want to add in what the other guy has.

Brooks: 45:11

Mark, this is why I invited you to a private, uh, an additional private group of people with local media sites. It's literally for that reason because people are coming at this thing from different angles. And I think, um, to create a brand, like a, like a bigger brand, I think we're going to need potentially all these pieces. right. Like. we actually did quarterly print, uh, guides, like event guides before pre pandemic, and that was one of the most profitable things that we did. And we're potentially talking about bringing that back. Um, so many advertisers that didn't want to touch us with like. Digital, even though we had a big, big exposure and, uh, what we do, they're like, Oh yeah, we, yeah, we'd love to buy, we'd love to buy ads and sponsor this print magazine. So it's like, like, we're actually talking about bringing that part back. We have, we have a project called do some good mobile. Which actually still is, it's an annual print publication. It's, uh, coming up on its fifth year. It's an idea that launched out of our local media brand. Now my wife runs it basically full time. She's actually starting a, um, a non profit, like a 501c based around that brand. And so it's like, these ideas can come out of what we're doing. You know what I mean? Like just out of what we're doing in our community.

Mark: 46:18

I would love to hear more about that because what I'm hearing is, you know, you need someone who's functioning as a salesperson. It's a lot of coordination to get those ads, and I'd love to hear more about that. You know, even in my own community in South Jersey, there are small niche magazines, that are 60, 70 pages that have ads in full color. And I'm like, wow, even that small, publication. It's just a huge amount of work and it is I feel like I feel yeah We we each have our following right and it's like, okay, we know what our followers are interested in What else can we add? What's if you want fries with that? What else can we add that our followers and I think all these things we're talking about are our items I want to add it's just I have this sort of like as I was talking before I have this sort of Not time management, but just being the one man shop. It's been tough.

Brooks: 47:01

No, I mean 100 100. Yes Same exact same things i'm facing You know, you have to decide what you're going to expand into or what you're going to do. So part of the reason a few years back, actually, I, I would argue the reason why you and I are getting to know each other and connect today is because, uh, for my personal brand, three years ago, I got, you know, Mediavine and then we had been running our local site for at that time, about eight years, just an email newsletter, social media kind of then started those print guides. I was like, wait a minute. I don't have time to sell and I hate selling locally like I I can't stand it and I don't have time I was like, whoa Why aren't I doing the same thing for a media brand as my personal brand? And so the the media brand actually came on board with media vine. second and I was like Media vine basically is our is our sales team like you and I like they are our sales department for ad sales You know, like we don't, we don't necessarily have to do that, right? Like we don't have to necessarily ask local businesses to advertise. They're getting kind of national advertisements from via Mediavine doing the selling for us. yeah. Okay.

Mark: 48:05

Recently, I didn't understand this when I got approved for Mediavine three years ago. I did recently. And a very crisp email to Mediavine found out that we are allowed to sell direct ads and put them on the site. You just can't, the ads. txt file is very important to, you know, Google, the ad networks. We can't modify that. So I recently installed, well for the second time, because I tried to do direct ads myself, you know, a WordPlus plugin. That has some capabilities to inject ads, you know So I have the the headline the featured image and I I turned the last one off because the beer festival ended But then would have the ad underneath and I thought you know what? I think I have enough following in the area that if I just put a page up and said hey You could have your ad directly on 42 freeway that it would be an easier flow for me like people would actually reach out to me as opposed to me trying to go out and get the sale and if I hit some I hit some if I don't then i'm still doing mediavine

Brooks: 48:57

money, so Exactly. That for sure would be the easiest way to test, right. It's just to put that there. They could click and just fill out a form or whatever. Um, yeah, that actually, I mean, you're giving me that idea. Funny is that I re I reached out to Mediavine recently and also confirmed that probably within the last month. I, I thought you could, but I just wanted to confirm like, Hey, I just want to make sure that we can, Yeah, I guess exactly what you said, uh, you know, they responded and said, yes, you just, you know, can't do can't do whatever

Mark: 49:23

I swear when I signed up it was an absolute no, but I saw some comments in one of the uh, The private groups that we have yeah network and someone mentioned it like wait a minute what so anyway I'm happy for it. Now. I gotta make something happen.

Brooks: 49:34

Well, where if Do you do you want people to find you online? Obviously 42 freeway Is that where you want people if someone's like man, I want to like this guy's cool. I want to link up Wait, where would you want people to to find you? Yeah. Well, so

Mark: 49:45

it's yeah It's 42freeway.Com is the actual website. the facebook page is slash 42 freeway. Really, those are the two entities. The website is the main thing. And then one of the main ways people find my content is on Facebook and share it. and that's my world and I've tried, I've had different sites. I it's just, I've collapsed everything in the 42 freeway. You know, it would be interesting, uh, if you're, in like six or nine months to, if I have some successes, you know, breaking out of my one man show and bringing other folks in, to sort of do a recap video, if the video doesn't happen, that means it wasn't successful.

Brooks: 50:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. No, I've got ideas for you. I think there's some things that I can do to, um, help you, just like, like, push you, because I've, um, I have, I actually, I mean, I have, I have a team, uh, Most of them are actually international that work with me and do different things and have different skill sets. Um, you know, social media and help me do some writing and help me with, and I, I, I have fun doing that. Like it's been fun for me. And so I think, I think I'll be able to like, give you some pointers or feedback there and we can brainstorm there. So, yeah. All right. Stick around, uh, let you and I chat for a little bit and everyone else can watch this next video.