Holly Springs Update Uses Nextdoor News to Drive Community Engagement

Summary

Holly Springs Update (HSU), a small, independent news outlet serving the Holly Springs, North Carolina community, joined Nextdoor in late March 2025. HSU wanted to expand its reach and foster deeper community connections by delivering timely, relevant updates to nearby residents. HSU also sought to increase engagement metrics and enhance referral traffic to its website on Substack. After three months on Nextdoor, Holly Springs Update saw a significant uptick in engaged, local traffic to its site, increasing views by more than 8x, growing users by almost 13x, and driving average daily views up by more than 12x. Read on to learn more. 

Why Nextdoor News

Holly Springs Update aims to foster an informed, connected, and engaged community through its original local news coverage. As part of its audience growth strategy and mission to inform local residents, HSU recognized the importance of meeting readers where they are. Nextdoor already served as a trusted space for neighbors in the area to discuss local matters. So, HSU created its News Account, hoping to become a part of the daily digital routines of residents.

Holly Spring Update’s Nextdoor News Profile Page

Holly Spring Update’s goals

While no firm data goals were established at the outset of the partnership, Holly Springs Update joined Nextdoor with the clear expectation of growing its key engagement metrics, including impressions, clicks on published stories, and a follower base of verified, local residents. HSU also aimed to boost referral traffic to its main site as measured by views, unique users, and subscriber conversions. These metrics now serve as ongoing indicators of HSU’s success on Nextdoor, helping to guide content and distribution strategies. 

Nextdoor News features are built for impact

Holly Springs Update actively utilizes several Nextdoor News features to support its goals as a small, independent publication, including:

• RSS feed integration, which automatically distributes stories to relevant communities with simplicity and efficiency. Content targeting continues to improve, ensuring the right stories reach the right readers with minimal effort.
  
  
• Comment threads, which have been particularly effective for community engagement. Readers use them to share opinions, and HSU sometimes joins the conversation to answer questions and provide clarifications, building trust and strengthening connections.
• Publisher dashboard, which is HSU’s essential tool for tracking the relationship between content and audience interest. Though still developing, the dashboard provides early insights, and HSU is helping shape its evolution through participation in Nextdoor’s product council.  

These tools collectively help HSU expand its reach, foster dialogue, and gain a deeper understanding of its audience.

Holly Spring Update’s Nextdoor News account publisher dashboard

HSU post featuring a Conversation Starter question prompt and comment thread between neighbors

What Holly Springs Update achieved

Since creating its Nextdoor News account just over 3 months ago, Holly Springs Update has seen substantial growth for key engagement metrics on its main site, including:

• Views increased more than 8x
  
  
• Total users referred from Nextdoor grew nearly 13x
  
  
• Average views per day rose more than 12x

The improvements in site performance correlate directly with key Nextdoor metrics, including higher story impressions and increased link clicks, demonstrating Nextdoor’s effectiveness in driving engaged, local traffic back to HSU’s content.

HSU popular news post

Final thoughts

Christian Hendricks is a local news industry veteran, president of the Local Media Consortium (LMC), and Holly Spring Update’s founder and publisher. He had this to say about HSU’s partnership with Nextdoor: 

Holly Springs Update was created to inform residents in a town that no longer had its own dedicated news source, filling a local information gap with trustworthy, timely, relevant local news and information of importance. Nextdoor has proven to be a natural fit for that mission, allowing us to share stories directly with verified neighbors in a space built on community trust. It’s rare and refreshing to work with a platform that not only values local journalism but actively helps publishers reach and serve their communities more effectively.

— Christian Hendricks, Publisher & Founder, Holly Springs Update

Through its Nextdoor News account, Holly Springs Update is not only growing its site traffic and engagement but also helping neighbors stay informed with locally relevant stories that matter.

Ready to reach your local community?

Create your free Nextdoor News account and engage with real, verified neighbors not found on other social platforms, drive local traffic to your site, and enjoy big rewards with little effort. Reach out to newshelp@nextdoor.com if you need any help getting started.