Social Media is a Lot More Than Facebook

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For a 21st century economic development organization, social media is part of an integrated strategy. The Roanoke Regional Partnership uses tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram as a gateway to connect with business prospects, disseminate news, and gauge the temperature of the market. That’s why we use social media across a number of channels and under multiple personalities, each connecting to a potentially different audience profile.

A recent Roanoke Outside campaign on social media was designed to get people to share photos of how they enjoy the outdoors while promoting the sale of Roanoke Outside shirts at local retailers. The response was greater than we expected with hundreds of people posting photos using the #roanokeoutside hashtag. The result was a 10-day reach of more than 25,000 people (541 likes, 30 comments, and 60 shares) in 10 days on Facebook alone, in a campaign that has long legs.

There are plenty of other ways social media helps bring attention to the Roanoke Region as well.

  • It expands the reach of our message, because we connect with the networks of our networks.
  • Campaigns such as #roanokeoutside promote and foster the concept that the Roanoke Region is a good place to live, work, and play with visuals to support that idea.
  • Social media campaigns help drive people to our events such as the Blue Ridge Marathon and GO Outside Festival and other places where our team is out and about.
  • Campaigns provide awareness of marketing tools such as the Get Outside Weekend Update newsletter and encourages signup, participation, and engagement. The weekly newsletter includes plenty of ways to be a more active member of our outdoor community.
  • It drives people to the Roanoke Regional Partnership website for information. We track data on these visits to see where website visitors are coming from and what they are interested in learning about.
  • Your prospective employees and our prospective businesses use these media channels to learn more about the community they are considering calling home.

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