By KENNY KATZGRAU
Dear Red Bank,
When I took on redbankgreen 18 months ago, I did it because the community that I love living and working in is much better with it, than without it. redbankgreen isn’t just about local news or keeping us informed, it’s about building our community, having fun, and telling our story together.
Our identity as the community of Red Bank is made possible, in a large way, by of our shared story and connection to each other.
When John first mentioned retirement to me, I knew that it would take someone who really cared to carry the torch, if anyone was going to carry it. I worked with him for thirteen of the eighteen years that he shouldered the full load of redbankgreen, and I knew how much time and effort he put into it.
With two very active little kids and a software business based in Red Bank, I didn’t think that I would have the time to handle it, much less grow it.
In running a small business, I’ve learned that every great thing that’s ever been built has been a group effort in one way or another.
It’s not about me trying to keep the lights on, it’s about all of us keeping the lights on together.
I have a mission to see that redbankgreen grows, stands, and serves Red Bank for the next 100 years. A founder like John Ward passing on the torch is a major, and eventually necessary milestone for all things that last: a creation survives the absence of its creator.
I think that I’m the right person for this phase of redbankgreen. In growing a small business, I eventually (and begrudgingly) learned to build a team.
I learned to establish a vision, identify and focus on what really matters. More importantly, I learned to recruit people who were aligned with and cared about the same things and were more motivated by purpose, not purely external rewards or validation.
The first move was bringing Brian Donohue onto the team to tell the story like nobody else could. And he has been: pranking a bunch of us along the way, making us tear up, and profiling all of the best benches in town, pretty much exactly how we thought he would.
The next was establishing a longer term and more sustainable business model. With 40,000 unique readers, redbankgreen has grown well beyond its roots as a humble hyperlocal blog. Here’s a draft copy of our media kit which shows how the advertising model shakes out.
With evaporating presence of legacy newspapers and journalists, redbankgreen shoulders the bulk of the reporting responsibility for our cool little town. Everybody reads it. And we have a lot of readers from Middletown, Shrewsbury, Fair Haven and Rumson too — almost 30,000 of them.
Around the country, quality “local news” is no longer a given. In fact, some think it’s likely to be extinct soon.
Not if we have anything to do with it, right?
The largest news organization in Texas recently shared their own vision to stand for 100 years, partially inspired by redbankgreen’s vision.
So I want to outline the next 5 important steps on the path to 100 years. These are things that you, if you believe in the mission, may be able to lend a hand with. You can be part of redbankgreen’s story too.
1. Remove What Is Not Working
Addition by subtraction.
Like all that was once new, like redbankgreen in 2006, things get layered on over time that eventually become counterproductive or stand at odds with core values. It’s important to periodically evaluate and address those.
It’s easier for someone with a fresh set of eyes.
For example, I noticed that we get a lot of emails (and threats) from people who are listed in police blotter entries from years ago, sometimes for minor offenses or what was probably youthful indiscretion.
The problem is that the blotter entries are often the first results when you Google someone.
I don’t think that anybody deserves to have their name Google-able and associated with their past misdeeds forever.
I also believe that someone is better defined by where they end up, and not where they started out.
While I agree with John’s perspective that redbankgreen should serve as an immutable ledger of Red Bank events, I also think that if we can de-list articles that are older than a given period of time from Google – say, a year, then we should do that.
So, no content will be removed from redbankgreen and will always remain searchable specifically on our website — but we’ll request search engines not to crawl or list those blotters.
I’ll be exploring ways to make that possible, and resolve other issues too.
2. Make redbankgreen a Two-Way Street
Some of our most fun stories, the ones most reflective of our community have come in through Partyline, a service were you (yes, you) can send text messages to us which automatically get set up as story posts.
Imagine that you see something in Red Bank, like Darth Vader standing outside of Welsh Farms, a dude dancing to trance music in the WaWa parking lot, or maybe a bunch of kids sleigh riding down Tower Hill on a snowy Friday night that would hit anybody who has lived here in the last 200 years right in the nostalgia.
Maybe a little outlandish but these are just a few examples. Maybe Dead Bank playing on an ordinary Friday night at Jamian’s? (Just a note, I wrote that before I actually knew they were really playing at Jamian’s tonight) Maybe an amazing coffee with a view? Maybe a great dish on Broadwalk? The possibilities are vast, and also up to you! It is local news, in the most authentic form.
Wouldn’t that be fun to share with the town, so we have a better and more fun idea of what’s happening, all of the time?
It shouldn’t just be us who get the microphone. We believe our community should get the mic too.
The more people who are the eyes and ears of the town, the more we have the most amazing and fun MAD Magazine of life in Red Bank.
And of course, we’ll keep hitting up the municipal meetings, because those are, of course, important too.
Read more about joining Partyline here. It’s so easy.
3. Build a First-Class Newsletter
This is so that nobody is out of the loop.
On the topic of newsletters, I have historically been one of the people who used to “let the news come to them” on social media.
“Why go seeking the news? If it’s important enough, one of my news junkie friends will let me know in my feed!”
Well recently, social media is more interested in showing us not-very-social videos that are rotting our brains in ways our mothers never would have imagined.
I don’t think that’s coming to an end any time soon. The real, live, definitely-not-articifial-intelligence action is on redbankgreen.
If you always want to know what’s happening in Red Bank, sign up for our daily newsletter. It’s all the latest, every morning at 9am, and it’s getting a major glow up very soon.
4. Serve More Businesses
Because our local businesses make Red Bank what it is.
You might have noticed that advertising on redbankgreen doesn’t look like advertising elsewhere.
We believe that the businesses and professionals in Red Bank are a part of the story and shouldn’t be relegated to a fuzzy banner ad or half-hearted “sponsored post.”
We create connection between Red Bank and its businesses better than anyone else can, better than our Silicon Valley competition (Google, Meta) included.
Take Stew from Monmouth Meats’ word for it:
When you support redbankgreen, you become an incredibly valuable part of our story, help us keep Red Bank entertained and informed, but also receive an unparalleled approach and service to marketing.
Broadstreet, the company spun out of redbankgreen, has won national recognition for its innovation in creating effective, performant local advertising that blows away what any local marketing agency is capable of.
Going forward, those who support redbankgreen will be memorialized, for at least 100 years, on our official Club Red page.
Thank you to dedicated supporters like Real Estate Guru Chris Havens, Personal Injury Guru Kyle Reed, Women’s Health Psychiatrist Shannon Parks, Stew at Monmouth Meats, YMCA, Red Bank Antique Center, Adam at Triumph and many more for making redbankgreen possible today.
5. Serve Our Readers
Last, but certainly not least.
It’s not really you, it’s us. We can have redbankgreen for 100 years, if we can keep it.
It’ll be a group effort, no doubt. And I certainly won’t be the last to hold the torch. I think I can probably match John in length of tenure, although I only have to do half the work he did, so maybe twice that.
If you’re reading this and you agree with what I’ve written, and can stand for the things that we stand for, I’m only asking this: decide whether you would like to have redbankgreen for 100 years too.
If so, consider helping in the effort, even if only in the tiniest of ways, when we really need it. Not right now, but in the future. If and when the time should come.
If you would like to be part of the effort in some way today, believe in our future and story together, please email me: [email protected]
Anyway, that’s it. Long live local news.
redbankgreen for 100 years.
