eCoronado.com Takes Hold in Island Community on San Diego Bay
eCoronado.com turns the lifestyle of its small island home into the focus of a successful social network on the internet.
How does this happen? It happens when the founder, Steve Johnson, is an online marketing professional who practices SEO and social media management by day, and lives as one of the people of Coronado all the time.
Technorati called Steve at home on Sunday afternoon to ask him about the “how” of eCoronado.com.
TR: You started eCoronado.com as a hobby seven years ago. Can you still run this site by yourself?
SJ: No. There are just two employees, me and my wife Lisa, and an intern (from Coronado High School) who does our video production. The real vitality of eCoronado is contributed by our member/users. They're staff members, too — they're as involved as we are.
TR: What do the member/users actually do?
SJ: Well, they post lots of pictures and comments, even articles – as many as eight to ten a day — a continuing flow which Lisa and I edit and put online.
For example, when the city council proposed reinstating a toll on the Coronado Bridge, about 60 of our users posted comments, some of them very strong. The mayor, also a member/user responded directly on eCoronado.com. Likewise, every member of the city council is a member of eCoronado.
Another example – a member ate dinner at a restaurant in Coronado and didn’t like it, he put his review on eCoronado.com. The restaurant owner is also a member, so he replied directly to the review on our site. This happens often. You see, we have a function like Yelp.
Last week on a rainy day I put a notice on the site for free frozen yogurt for the first hundred members to show up — and within a couple of hours they did, The crew that helped me serve the Yogurt is in the picture with me.
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