Often people ask me what is the difference between a news website and a fansite? They are practically the same right? They both post news and cover a subject? While it's correct that a fansite and a news website both post news, there are a couple of different things which separate a fansite from a regular news website.
News: Fansite and Website.
A fansite is more fan oriented.
This means that fansites even post about a certain aspect of the desired subject that doesn't seem relevant to the 'regular' visitor.
For instance, if you have a fansite about action films, and a new trailer is released, that is news for both a fansite and a news website.
Now...
what does a fansite do? A fansite analyzes the trailer, take separate screenshots from it and discusses it in great detail with their visitors.
A regular news website would just write a news article about the new action movie trailer and that's it.
That's one of the biggest differences, the details and the passion.
Content: Why they stay.
A fansite is also more content oriented.
A news website is nothing but a big hub that combines all the news posts and serves them to the Internet for easy consumption.
Great! But it's not a fansite.
Another example: the action-film trailer consists of certain unique story elements.
A fansite will write about all these unique elements and create a page about it so their visitors are always able to jump into their passion even more.
A news website will - again - just post the trailer and maybe hint to the unique story elements but will not explore it further.
That's the fansites' job.
Engagement: Welcome back! Creating a strong connection with your visitors is important and every website or fansite has their ways of doing it.
A news website doesn't care if people comment or republish their content.
Because they know that their site is being read by 1000's of people around the world.
A fansite, however, needs this kind of community.
That's why fansites are a lot more personal and visitor oriented.
They want to create some kind of 'tribe'.
The fansite will only survive if they have returning visitors.
Because a fansite is certain niche, it doesn't appeal to everybody.
A news website covers every subject in the world so they don't have to care about their visitors.
A fansite does.
This makes a fansite a lot more fun to read because they pour their heart into it! User generated: We love what you do! The basis of a good fansite is user submitted content.
You will never see this on normal news websites.
They have their team or writers and that's it.
A fansite on the other hand can thrive enormously by publishing visitors content.
Let's say you have a fansite about cooking.
Now a visitor emails you with the following: "Hi! I love your fansite about cooking; I have a great recipe that I would like to share with the world and your readers.
Can we work this out?" Of course you can work this out.
A fansite offers fans a voice and expresses their feelings.
It's alive.
It's a community! Conclusion.
These 3 examples are just the tip of the iceberg.
There are a lot of differences between a fansite and a regular news website.
I hope you enjoyed this article and stay tuned for more.