“Ah-ha!” Moments from Main Street 2.0
by National Trust for Historic Preservation on March 11th, 2009As a staff member who spent many hours planning the educational component of our Main Streets Conference, I was thrilled to witness several “ah-ha!” moments when the power of social media crystallized with attendees.
For example, during the session, “Social Media for Restaurants, Boutiques, and Antique Shops,” Chicago social media specialist Blagica Bottigliero hit on many opportunities that these common Main Street-type of businesses could benefit from. One point Blagica made was that business owners need to “listen” to what is being said about their establishments throughout the online community. Marketing strategy isn’t only about what you tell people or what kinds of ads you place. For example, people can use Google’s News Alerts to have a daily round up of blogs and on websites where the business name was mentioned. Blagica explained, too, that the micro-blogging tool Twitter (which people use to post a sentence or two to update people about what they are doing or thinking about), is a neat way to connect with what people are saying online.
A business owner in the audience who has a shoe shop raised her hand and asked, “So all I have to do is see who is ‘tweeting’ about my store through a search on Twitter and then I can see what my customers are thinking?” Customer feedback is priceless for business owners and this is a free and instant way to get this information. Not only that, but this same business owner can set up a Twitter account for her store and get people to subscribe to her updates and send out “tweets” about new shoe arrivals, special deals, and other tidbits that customers might find interesting.
Another presenter, Ben Muldrow of Community Newspaper Holdings, at a session called “Managing the Growth of Your Website” relayed another “ah-ha!” moment to me. He said a Main Street program executive director told him she was spending $700 a month on hosting for their website. During his presentation, he had discussed various web hosting options and how much each service should cost and which kinds of bells and whistles come with each package. He told her that he was paying that same amount for web hosting and many, many more perks; therefore, her program could save considerable money by choosing a different web hosting arrangement. Now that she understands the type of web hosting service she actually needs and understand about how much this should cost, she can go home with some real cost-saving ideas.
– Andrea Dono
Andrea Dono is the associate editor for the National Trust Main Street Center.
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March 11th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Perhaps the NTHP should consider creating subsidized, turnkey web solutions (ie hosting/domain/blog) for fledgling preservation NFPs
March 12th, 2009 at 8:34 am
BW: The idea of providing turn key web solutions for fledgling preservation nonprofits is one that the National Trust has considered. We don’t have the resources at the time to do this, but it remains a theme in our longer term plans. In the meantime, we do offer back-office support for online giving for non-profits, a service that some 50+ preservation partner organizations, including a number of Main Street organizations, now use to boost their online giving, with some impressive results. Organizations that are interested should contact the Membership Department of the National Trust.