New Self-Serve Local Spotlight Rolls Out for Testing
We are pleased to announce a new feature with exciting potential that will soon be available for your newspaper's obituary page. The Self-Serve Local Spotlight allows users to honor anyone, from family members to friends to coworkers or classmates, even beloved local celebrities... and they can complete the whole process online.
Currently being tested in several markets with a broad rollout planned for Q1 2012, the Local Spotlight prominently appears just above the National Spotlight and to the left of the day's obituaries. Up to 10 obituaries can be featured each day, with the spotlight rotating through all daily features. We're currently testing prices and expect the final price recommendation may vary by market. Your newspaper will receive a 50% revenue share from Self-Serve Local Spotlight sales without having to devote any time or resources to maintaining the Spotlight - Legacy.com takes care of it for you.
The process is simple, and the self-serve tool walks users through the steps they need to complete. When an obituary doesn't include a photo, we'll offer a selection of three images that will display in the Local Spotlight section: a candle, a lily, or a U.S. flag. New or old obituaries can be featured, and if the Guest Book is expired, we'll make it available to read and sign for the duration of its time in the spotlight.
Through the testing phase and as we move forward, we expect to update this product based on feedback from users and our affiliates. Please contact us to learn more and to find out how you can add the Self-Serve Local Spotlight to your site. |
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Guest Books in 2011
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In 2011, we received and reviewed more Guest Book entries than in any single year before - almost 10 million entries to date. That's more than in our first five years combined! One entry is submitted about every three seconds, day and night, but we stay on top of them: our average turnaround time to review and post an entry is just an hour and a half.
In addition to reading and signing Guest Books for family members and friends, users love to check out our Featured Guest Books. Our most popular Guest Books this year included some favorite celebrities:
 Randy "Macho Man" Savage, pro wrestler, had the top Guest Book of the year, with more than 3750 entries. Fans loved his flamboyant style and wrestling-world antics and rivalries.
 Elizabeth Taylor charmed the world with her beauty, grace and talent, and we mourned her with almost 2700 touching entries in her Guest Book.
 Steve Jobs' death reverberated across the online world, with Mac and PC users alike flocking to his Guest Book. It's received more than 2600 entries to date.
One of the most-signed Guest Books of the year was not for an international celebrity, but for Chicago's former first lady, Maggie Daley. The wife of longtime mayor Richard Daley was beloved for her w ork in arts and education - but it wasn't just her good reputation that drove almost 1500 people to sign her Guest Book. The Chicago Tribune promoted the Guest Book with prominent placement: it was linked from their front-page coverage of Daley's wake and funeral.
Your newspaper can encourage more Guest Book use with the same tactic - link to national or local celebrities' Guest Books from your news stories about their lives and memorial services.
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Updated My Memorials™ Facebook App
My Memorials™ continues to provide a great way for Facebook users to gather and share obituaries and Guest Books for people who have touched their lives. We are pleased to announce the release of My Memorials™ 3.0 - this version of the application makes sharing memories on Facebook easier and more robust.
Upgrades in My Memorials™ 3.0 include:
- New interface where each memorial is highlighted on its own separate tab
- Integrated photo gallery for each memorial
- New Guest Book favorites where users can attach favorite Guest Book entries to memorials
- More robust searching so users can find obituaries and Guest Books easily
- New Facebook News Feed posts when updates are made to obituaries and Guest Books being "followed" in My Memorials™
My Memorials™ continues to help drive traffic to newspaper websites, and with continual updates to My Memorials™ and other Facebook initiatives, traffic from Facebook to newspaper websites has been growing more than ever, with 2.1 million visits from Facebook to obituaries in November alone.
Almost 27,000 people signed up for My Memorials™ last month. It's easy to join them and get started. Just visit the app on Facebook, or click "Follow on Facebook" next to the obituary you are viewing. The app is also accessible via the Guest Book.
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 Legacy Toolkit
Tips for making the most of your obituary sectionPay walls hurt obit pages. If you're considering putting your news content behind a pay wall, we'd like to encourage you to keep the obit section open and free. A few good reasons:
1. Obits drive readership and traffic. "Obituaries" is the third most common search term on newspaper sites. 2. Limiting obit access drives users to competitors' sites, where the information they seek may be accessed for free. 3. Obits are paid content, like other classifieds that are freely available on your site. 4. Traffic and usage decline behind a pay wall, reducing your advertising and product revenue. We recommend you provide obituaries online indefinitely as a service that users can view for free at any time. |
