8:45am | The 562CityLife crew has been expanding their empire and, at the same time, narrowing their focus, building brand awareness on the one hand and serving as a resource for local business development on the other. In addition to creating excitement at local venues with music, art and a relaxed atmosphere, they’ve also partnered with local nonprofits to connect business and the arts.
On the virtual front, their website has seen an explosion of young writers sharing their insights into aspects of the cultural landscape not covered by other media. Still, their beloved on-line radio talk show, which was simultaneously insightful and hilarious, went off the “ai”‘ some months ago, much to the dismay of its devoted listeners.
Three weeks ago, they launched a partnership with KBeach.org, which has been presenting student and community voices for more than a decade, and is the current home of Greater Long Beach with Dave Wielenga and The Prime Spot with Kari.
The new 562CityLife show runs live every Wednesday morning from 10 to 11 a.m. and, for those who can’t listen live, is also archived. I will be featured on today’s show, talking about local music, public art and why sports teams from Buffalo can’t seem to get it together.
I spoke with Matt Saunders, cofounder of 562CityLife, to find out what they’ve been up to.
Sander: Your popular, informative, and often hilarious radio show went away for a while. Why?
Matt: The platform we were using at the time changed their format, started charging it’s users, and did not offer any additional services for those fees. In fact, they actually reduced services to their users. At the same time myself and TheMan [aka Floyd Hampton Livingston], felt it was a good time to pause and focus on some other important aspects of the site.
Sander: What aspects became your focus?
Matt: We wanted to expand our writing staff, work on our user interface and features of the site, and develop the business side. We figured it was about time to work on securing some sponsorships and develop some opportunities for us to generate revenue.
Sander: And how has that been going?
Matt: Really positive. We’ve been able to bring on two very talented part time writers who each have very powerful voices of their own. The businesses of Long Beach that we have been able to reach out to so far have been highly supportive. Over the next couple of weeks the site will receive a bit of a face lift, and we’ve introduced more social features, like an improved status update and latest activity feed.
Additionally, we’re aiming at expanding our consulting services in the area of social and mobile media development. Our goal is to be able to support small businesses and non-profits even better, by working with them in these areas that we feel we have valuable insight to offer.
Sander: It seems like there are many local entities trying to provide social media guidance to local businesses. What is it that separates you from the pack?
Matt: I feel like we look at social and mobile media in a different perspective. Often I hear the phrase “Social Media Marketing” used when selling a business on someone’s services. We have a different philosophy in our approach. Instead of using these powerful tools for heavy handed marketing, we approach it from a customer service and community building aspect. I go into this a bit deeper in my personal blog, citylifematt.tumblr.com, but basically it’s about understanding how to further strengthen your connections with your customers and strengthen your retention efforts.
I feel that we have lived this philosophy for the past three years, via our 562CityLife project. Instead of simply jumping into the realm and touting our selves as experts, we’re working hard to live and breathe it. I’m very proud of our proven ability to build strong community ties via these social media tools.
When I go into local businesses, like Lola’s for example, what I see is the business owners doing a fantastic job of greeting each and every visitor and treating them like family! That instant connection and relationship is amazing to see, and I think has really helped to fuel their tremendous growth. Now, my job is to help that continue to happen even after the customer walks out the door, and to retain the strength of that connection. Marketing is fliers, and fliers get tossed in the trash. Conversely, when relationships are properly tended too, they can last a lifetime.
Sander: So, with all this energy and growth related to the website, and your business development efforts, why resurrect the radio show?
Matt: Oh man! It’s just so much fun! TheMan and I love it. It’s so live and raw, and the ability to have an open honest conversation with our guests is just too much fun! Actually, before we left the previous platform, John Trapper of KBeach had asked if we’d be interested in coming onto the KBeach platform. That was actually really exciting to us, because it’s actually something that I wanted to do since I was a kid, believe it or not. The KBeach platform is another great opportunity to expand the CityLife community, and with their mobile apps for streaming, it also makes tuning in that much more flexible for everyone.
Sander: You’ve had a few shows since you resumed. What kinds of guests?
Matt: For our first show we had to bring on our old friend Logan Crow of Long Beach Cinematheque and the LB Zombie walk. He’s always a blast to talk to. He just has so much going on, and the next zombie walk looks really exciting. We also featured the Long Beach rock/hip-hop group MDMF in the first show. We discussed the redistricting battle in the 7th and 8th district with community organizer Kate Baird of the 8th district area, and featured a group called Z, formally Mulatto.
This last week we had a great interview with local foodie and restaurant owner Natalie Gutenkuaf of The Factory. For that show, since we hosted this months’ First Fridays after-party at The Factory, we also featured our DJ for the night, Frank ForReal. I’m actually really excited to have him spinning for us there.
Basically, our aim is to feature Long Beach artists, musicians, and business owners, and talk about local issues concerning the city. We also have an ongoing conversation about tagging and graffiti/street art.
Sander: Who do you have lined up for the coming weeks?
Matt: We have a slew of local talent and guests that are making various moves in the city. Our goal is to always mix some fun and some seriousness into the show, so we’ll be discussing various “news” topics as they occur, too. This next show, we’ll have a local musician and promoter by the name of Bari Kuda, who is actively involved with the One Love community. One Love does a lot of work in the hip-hop/reggae scene, and they hold a lot of events in the City that are pretty awesome. I’m also hoping to get Brian Ulaszewski of the Post soon, because I’m a nerd for his writing. I love infrastructure geek talk!
Sander: Aside from this interview, how do you plan to build an audience for the show?
Matt: Well, that is, of course, always the challenge with what we do. We have our existing platforms to leverage for outreach purposes. Beyond that, we just keep working to build quality shows, keep them short and sweet with engaging topics. We’ve also changed our time slot from Thursday nights to Wednesday mornings, so we’ll learn how that impacts our audiences’ direct ability to connect with the live feed vs. turning on the podcast replay.
We’ve already seen, though, that we’re able to get feedback and have a continued dialog via Twitter and Facebook through the podcast replays. I think the paradigm has just shifted. Just as people are now accustomed to watching their favorite TV show in a shifted time reality, we have to consider that flexibility for our show, too. When I watch Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution two days later, I’m still able to interact with the show and it’s topic for the week via Twitter or Facebook. These interactions are just now happening at different times, and we are open and responding to that accordingly.
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To learn more, or to participate in 562CityLife, visit 562CityLife.com.
Follow Matt’s personal blog at citylifematt.tumblr.com.
Listen to the live KBeach feed.
To check out the 562CityLife radio show archive, visit LongBeachRadio.podbean.com