Whenever you're doing any online or mobile media project, it's important to cross-promote it effectively with your print or broadcast offerings. Recently, George Mason University journalism professor Steve Klein lamented how USAToday and The Washington Post apparently fail to do much to promote their online sports offerings in their printed sports sections.
Use ALL relevant media channels to promote your online offerings, however nontraditional they may seem.
But when building bridges to communities which don't already have a strong connection to your news organization, it's especially important to promote your mainstream print, broadcast, online, and mobile offerings through your community-focused online and mobile projects. Give these communities of difference more exposure to the full range of value your news org offers.
For instance, maybe a routine school board story buried on the page 3 of your paper's local news section has profound implications for schools in a largely Hispanic neighborhood of your town. Why not write up a short nut graph or a few bullet points connecting those dots, put them online (or mobile broadcast), and ask for reactions? This could end up helping your news organization gain more traction in that community -- even if you still can't get those stories or angles on the front page.
Finally, you can use this kind of cross-promotion to demonstrate to communities of difference that their engagement is having an effect on how you cover the news.
For instance, if the community raises and issue that normally wouldn't have merited much (or any) coverage from your news organization, and you end up covering it, make special mention in your online or mobile community project that the story (or an angle within it) came about because they spoke up and their voices matter. It is critical that community members frame issues and concerns rather than the news organization.
This sort of validation is incredibly important to the morale of any community effort -- especially to communities that might have felt overlooked or poorly portrayed by your news org in the past. Validation that their efforts and energy are appreciated and useful is what will keep them participating.
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