There’s local, and then there’s local niche. And Creedible falls into the later category. Creedible is a faith & values site, with a focus on Connecticut. The site is run by Tracy Simmons, who started it after reporting on religion for five years. Tracy runs the Twitter feed for the site, and is a one-woman-band. We asked her this Q&A via email. Read it, unedited, after the jump…
LR: What led you to start Creedible?
Simmons: I started Creedible in August of 2009 after the newspapers across Connecticut elected to either eliminate or reduce their faith sections because of the economy. I think the religion beat is crucial and am saddened to see that it’s the first to go when times get tough. Creedible is a way to continue reporting on what Connecticut’s faith communities are doing.
LR: Why the name?
Simmons: Creed is defined as any system of religious belief. This site is intended to be ecumenical, so I wanted a name that didn’t exclude anybody. And because the site reaches out to all denominations and is run by a seasoned faith reporter, I want people to know it’s credible. So, it’s a combination between those two words. And it’s catchy, too!
LR: What is your mission?
Simmons: Creedible’s mission is to make people aware of what is going on in the state’s faith community. And by doing that, hopefully become educated about one another as well.
LR: Do you have a business plan?
Simmons: Our business plan, in a nutshell, is to let people know about who we are and what our mission is. We don’t really have any competition, since newspapers don’t cover much religion anymore, so we definitely have an advantage there. Currently Creedible is funded through advertising and donations, though most expenses have come out of pocket. My hope is that as Creedible grows, we will be able to expand our coverage by adding staffers. In three years from now, I hope Creedible can be New England’s religion news source, not just Connecticut’s.
LR: What kind of audience do you have?
Simmons: I am surprised by our demographics. Creedible seems to have three very different audiences. The majority of our readers seem to be clergy. A second portion is younger adults, including many Yale and Wesleyan students. And the third population is made of people I call seekers. They don’t subscribe to a particular denomination, but consider themselves spiritual and want to explore and learn about other faiths. Each month our hits have increased by about 1,000. On average, I’d say we get about 10,000 visitors a month. So far in January, we’ve already had 2,077 unique visitors and 5,955 regular visitors. That tells me people are coming back to Creedible on a regular basis!
LR: If you had a big grant, what would you do with it?
Simmons: Market! The hardest part in launching this site is letting people know about it. A lot of our traffic comes from Google, Facebook, Twitter and word of mouth. But I’d like to be able to advertise. I think the more people know about us, the more traffic we could get. That would mean more advertisers which would mean more staff and ultimately, a better product.
LR: How will you define success?
Simmons: Success, to me, is having a quality, objective, credible site that people know they can turn to for information, news, trends, networking and so on.
