Last year on April 6, 2011, a Twitter account was born with the intention of spreading news and information about the Chicago neighborhood Logan Square. Today, @LoganSquarist has more than 1,000 followers and a website www.logansquarist.com, as well as a Facebook page, Google+ page, Pinterest Business Directory and Google Events Calendar. No longer just a Twitter handle, LoganSquarist has become a neighborhood resource.
Half created from a need to connect with my neighborhood and half as a social media learning experience, I created @LoganSquarist without much of a fleshed out plan. I wanted to play with building community through social media and developing a localized brand. As a journalist, I knew it was important for me to keep up with current trends, and I definitely wanted to stay up to date with social media’s branding and civil journalism capabilities.
I began by following Twitter handles around the neighborhood: venues, restaurants, locals and community organizations. Then I started retweeting deals, specials and happenings around town. The Twitter following continued to grow and people started tweeting questions about events going on and requests for recommendations.
Last fall, the idea of hosting a TweetUp was discussed among some loyal followers and in November, LoganSquarist put together the first TweetUp at El Cid on Kedzie Avenue, which brought together like-minded neighbors together to network, mingle and patronize local establishments.
Last week, I realized that what I wanted to do throughout the neighborhood, I couldn’t do through Twitter and Facebook, so I built a website to house more content and to be a central hub of information. The website will allow me to conduct street reporting, allow me to flesh out a business directory and showcase a more through events calendar.
In a rush, I built out the LoganSquarist website in time to promote it at the second LoganSquarist TweetUp was hosted at Ciao Napoli Pizzeria, which brought together more than 30 neighbors.
You would think that building a site overnight and hosting a TweetUp in the same week would be enough activity but Friday I received some really exciting news. Drum roll please …
RedEye Chicago featured @LoganSquarist in its Follow Friday: Twitter accounts you should be following article. I didn’t even know they were including me until I received a tweet midday. To say I freaked out would be an understatement. I ran out of the house to locate a copy of the issue. Here’s a shot of the issue and the screenshot from the website.
I never imagined myself enjoying local, grassroots journalism as much as I have over the past year, or for it have taken off like it did. But I definitely have caught the bug and would love to see @LoganSquarist grow and take off. It’s definitely been a wonderful experience. I can’t wait to see what happens with this project. Stay tuned!
Connect with LoganSquarist:
Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Google+
Be inspired.
One of the best things I've ever done in my career is work with Kate Hamilton. Her enthusiasm for all things editorial, not to mention her energy and passion for any project she's involved with, is contagious. In addition to being a natural born leader, she's also a creative type, a thinker, a stickler for details, and someone with incredible vision and the drive to get things done. I always marvel at how she is constantly teaching herself new things. She always seems to be ahead of the curve on anything related to social media, and she also has an eye for design. This lady rocks! And she continues to be a mentor to me and others in journalism and communications.
I worked with Kate during my time as a community manager at Lightspan Digital while Kate was my direct manager. Kate’s communication practices really taught me how to navigate the sometimes complicated agency world. As an account manger, Kate smoothly orchestrated 10+ accounts at one time as well as help me manage and prioritize tasks in my role. Kate was a role model during my first few years in the professional world and continues to be so to this day.
I met Kate through the Association of Women Journalists (AWJ) and immediately was impressed (and inspired) by her creativity, drive, work ethic and use of social media. Her passion for journalism, digital media and communications overall is evident in the projects she takes on, including LoganSquarist, an online news outlet that she founded that uses social media to socialize the neighborhood. What I admire about Kate is her vitality as well as her desire to keep learning and growing personally and professionally. Kate is a modern-day renaissance woman who is multitalented (ask about her travel, knitting and marathon exploits!) and who brings instant value to any team or organization.
Kate did and excellent job with our website. We have received several compliments on how nice it looks and how easy it is to navigate. She also went above and beyond to make sure that we were able to update and the website ourselves through Wordpress. I cannot gush about how awesome she is and how happy we are with the site and her dedication to the project.
Kate is a wealth of knowledge who served as a tremendous mentor for all of our team members while constantly improving processes and workflows. She’s a tremendous project manager, pays great attention to detail, and is able to demand results from her team with respect. At LoganSquarist she has built and led a team of dozens of volunteer contributors committed to her vision of a community resource. I would happily work with Kate again anytime!
Kate has been a fantastic resource for all things digital, whether redesigning my website on Wordpress, fine tuning my social media profiles, or understanding Google Analytics. She's an excellent communicator, and I will absolutely hire her again in the future.
Kate has an incredible amount of drive when it comes to LoganSquarist. In the six months that I’ve been involved, I’ve watched the site grow from a pet project to a respected community publication. This success can be attributed to Kate’s technical and leadership skills. From building out the site to off-hours community management and a consistent flow of content, the site improves by leaps and bounds on a weekly basis. When it comes to team management, Kate delegates tasks in an organized and efficient manner, making her an all around great and inspiring person to work with.
Kate is a real professional and a pleasure to work with. She is a great communicator and always put her client's (my company) interest first. She is tremendously personal and had a great understanding of our business and how she could help it. She is great and is a tremendous asset to any company.