Social Media Strategy for Discover Putney

Bringing A Small Town into the Future of Marketing

Created by Moriah Jagoda

Discovery Putney’s Mission

Discovery Putney has been connecting and promoting the local businesses of the charming town of Putney located in Southern Vermont’s since the 1970’s. Over the years it has had many names over the years but it’s mission has remained the same, to connect people to the businesses of Putney and to entice them to visit and continue visiting our quaint little town.

Discover Putney Today

Currently Discover Putney hosts a web page, sends out regular emails and produces a brochure that it distributes at welcome centers around the state. They encourage their members to support links to discoveryputney.com on their own sites and to distribute the brochure at their locations. This really is the extent of their current marketing plan.

Why No Real Marketing PlanDiscover Putney is a member run organization with a small marketing budget.

The person responsible for marketing does not enjoy spending time on social networks and does not see digital marketing as a time efficient use of marketing time.

Most of the members use social media regularly for personal use but not as a marketing tool for their businesses.

The small business owners of Putney stated that time constraints and lack of know how holds them back from learning how to use social media to promote their businesses.

Why the Need to Bring the Digital Age to Small Town Businesses

The last few years have given researchers a glimpse of how effective creating an online personality is the changing world of marketing. Most businesses big and small are embracing the opportunity social media networks create in order to build an on-line personal relationship with their clientele. As a result customers are becoming loyal friends that help to build communities around business brands. Social networking has connected like minded groups of people from all over the world. Businesses have discovered how to tap into these networks to create a new relationship with their customers based on communication, trust and loyalty.

Social Media Strategy for Discover Putney

Goals

• Increase visitors to discoveryputney.com and to draw physical traffic to the town of Putney, VT.

Purpose

• To make returning customers out of visitors to discoverputney.com for the small businesses of Putney, VT.

Outcome

• Links to discoverputney.com and local businesses on social networks will increase awareness of discoverputney.com.

Create a Social Network1. Sign up for LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com2. Sign up for Facebook – http://www.facebook.com3. Sign up for Twitter – http://www.twitter.com4.Sing up for Google+-https://plus.google.com/ 5. Sing up for Pinterest-http://www.pinterest.com/6. Start Up a Blog – https://www.wordpress.com/

Connect Social Networks to Blog7.Sign up for Feedburner – http://www.feedburner.com

This will distribute your blog posts to search engines.8.Connect and monitor all social network profiles on Hootsuite.com

Create Content For Social Networks

Each business represented by Discover Putney will be responsible for creating one blog post annually.

• Each post will inform viewers about the business owners, the products they produce and what makes each business of Putney, VT unique.

Every two weeks the marketing director of Discovery Putney will update the blog with a new post from one of the member businesses.

• Each blog post will link back to discoverputney.com

Spread The Word Discover Putney currently has an extensive list of email contacts.

• Each new blog post will be sent out in an email to the members of their email list.

Each blog post will include an option to sing up for regular email updates about new blog posts.

Create and periodically resend an email announcing and inviting members to link to Discover Putney’s new social media profiles.

Include links to all social networks on each blog post and email.

Create Yelp profiles for each of the businesses of Discover Putney, linking each profile to each businesses web page, if they have one, and to discoverputney.com.

Impact of Blog Posts on Inbound Traffic to Small Business

Websites

Keep Spreading the WordFor each new blog post, create a new message for each social network announcing the new blog post and asking viewers to share Discover Putney’s new content.

Post daily updates on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn announcing local events and activities.

Post weekly updates on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn linking pictures of local products created by the businesses of Discover Putney.

Each week visit other similar blogs leaving comments and questions. Include a digital signature that links back to discoverputney.com with each comment.

Keep Spreading the WordTwitter post, when appropriate will include #’s to themesand links to the businesses represented in the tweet.

Facebook posts will include links to individual business pages and will request friends to like the businesses of Discover Putney.The Discover Putney LinkedIn profile will create recommendations for each of the businesses of Discovery Putney that are LinkedIn members. Discover Putney Will post questions and look for questions to answer in communities relevant to New England, Travel, Private Education, crafts and small business.

Each business of Discover Putney and Discover Putney itself, will be represented by a Pinterest board. Relevant content will be pinned to each board as it produced.

TARGET AUDIENCE

The diversity of businesses that make up Discover Putney have already created connections from around the world.

• Putney is host to 5 private education centers that attract interest from around the world.• Putney Student Travel connects people from around the world with Putney, VT.• Many of the area crafters and specialty producers currently have customers from around the

world.

Families and individuals with a broad range of interests such as education, travel, crafts, green living and outdoor adventure will all within the circle of Discover Putney’s target audience.

Tracking the Success of Our Efforts

Tracking Tools

• 1. Facebook Insights • 2. Google Analytics• 3. Hootsuite Ow.ly Summaries • 4. LinkedIn Analytics

Target Outcome

Even without having a presence on social networks Discover Putney has made it’s way into a few mentions on twitter. This alone speaks of the success linking discoverputney.com with social networks could be. Creating content that links the businesses of Putney, VT to discoverputney.com will boost it’s ranking in search engine inquiries into subjects related to the interests of Discover Putney, bringing more visitors to discoverputney.com and the town of Putney, Vt.

Sources and RecoursesBasketvile. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 11 2013.

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Casserly, Meghan. "Why Small Businesses are Losing Out on Social Media." Forbes (2013): 1. Web.

Dosolutions.com. discoverputney.com. 2013. 20 10 2013.

Glass, Brandywine. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 11 2013.

Hanley, Ryan. "3 Reason Small Businesses Need a Business Blog." n.d. ryanhanley.com. 12 2013.

"http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2012/9218/blogging-drives-leads- website-traffic." (2012). 12 2013.

"https://placester.com/real-estate-marketing-academy/infographic-the-small- business- guide-to-social-media-mastery/small-business-guide-to- social-media-mastery- 2/." 2013. Plaster. 12 2013.

Sources and RecoursesHubspot. "Marketing Benchmarks for 7000+ Companies." October 2012. 12 2013.

Market, Putney Farmers. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 11 2013.

Myers, Ken. "http://socialmediatoday.com/kenm/1643906/not-overwhelming-guide-social-media-small- business." 3 10 2013. SocialMediaToday.com. 12 2013.Orchards, Green Mountain. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 11 2013.

Project, Next Stage Arts. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 11 2013.

Putney, Discover. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 10 2013.

Shandrow, Kim Lachance. "10 Questions to Ask When Creating a Social-Media Marketing Plan." 16 9 2013. http://www.entrepreneur.com/. 12 2013.Spinnery, Green Mountain. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 11 2013.

Store, Putney General. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 11 2013.

Swirl. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 11 2013.

Travel, Putney Student. Interview to discuss use of social media Moriah Jagoda. 11 2013.