Thinking Social Media & Digital Marketing? Think Westchester
The integration of social media in our lives continues, and the effects of this in Westchester lately have been extremely encouraging. Social media and digital marketing are being thought of much less as a novelty or fad, and businesses of all size are finally beginning to treat this new and evolving technology an important component of their marketing, advertising and public relations programs.
Like many other new technologies, social media becomes more useful to everyone once there are enough people in the community using it. For some areas of interest — such as web technology — this participation threshold was reached years ago, but now we’re seeing enough participation from the mainstream population that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube are effective tools for the local pizzeria, insurance agent or doctor. And we’re seeing not only a buy-in, but important leadership on the social media front from Westchester County.
This past Thursday, I attended an extremely well-organized breakfast meeting put together by the Hudson Valley Gateway Chamber of Commerce to listen to the guest speaker, Laurence P. Gottlieb, talk about issues affecting the business climate in Westchester. I was enthused to hear Gottlieb — the Director of Economic Development for Westchester County (a client of Thompson & Bender, the firm I work for) — explain to the crowd of 150 or so about the long list of things the county is doing to leverage social media and digital marketing for the benefit of businesses and organizations in our geographic area. A segment of Gottlieb’s presentation has been posted as a short video on the Thinking Westchester Facebook page.
Gottlieb is the force behind the creation of the Office of Economic Development’s “Thinking Westchester” campaign, which includes a website, social media accounts, and advertising. The mission of the OED is “to connect business owners and their representatives with the information, financial and human resources their organizations need to start, expand, stay or come to Westchester County.”
Gottlieb explained how, through the Thinking Westchester website, Facebook page, Twitter account and LinkedIn group, the OED is reaching out to greater numbers of stakeholders in the Westchester business community, as well as businesses the county would like to attract to Westchester.
“What we’re doing is we’re replicating what business has, and the way business operates,” said Gottlieb, “and it’s very different for government to operate this way.” Gottlieb told the audience that the social media platforms have been serving to drive traffic to the Thinking Westchester website, which in turn drives traffic to local resources.
Let’s hope businesses, organizations and individuals throughout the county, and beyond, take advantage of these opportunities, and that social media and other online technologies continue to be leveraged to promote the economic well-being of our community.
Deals, Deals, Deals — Are daily deals providing businesses with the business boost they need to weather the storm, or are they causing short-sighted business owners to make decisions from which they will never recover? While the deals may be appealing to consumers, I believe that far more businesses may ultimately regret their deal-making decisions as time goes on. Rather than winning long-term, loyal customers, deals often attract customers who only stick around until they are lured by the next great deal.
I plan to write more about the pros and cons of deals in the coming weeks. I’d love to hear your thoughts on daily deals, whether you’re a business owner or a deal-seeking consumer. You can e-mail me about this or any other social media issue at Chris(AT)WestchesterSocialMedia.com.
Chris S. Cornell is the Director of Social Media at Thompson & Bender — a Westchester-based PR, advertising and marketing firm. He manages several online communities, and consults, speaks and writes about social media. He is also the owner of Cornell Gallery, a custom framing business in Pleasantville. You can follow Chris on Twitter.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.