IGNACE - Want to know what happens in the Ignace area? The Ignace Area Business Association has made promoting community events a lot easier with its Virtual Community Bulletin Board.
Sometimes navigating social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can be a little challenging to find events happening in the community. Social media algorithms tailor content to the user’s interests. With a single “like” on a news article or a video, the algorithm takes control, filtering “non-liked” content to the bottom of the user timeline to ensure that person sees exactly what they want rather than seeing what others have to offer. Facebook has community pages that help focus specific user-generated content in a single place. But a lot of the time the stream of memes pictures, news, and gossip can cutler up those pages leaving those community events lost at the bottom of the timeline as well. Some people don’t use social media at all.
Having a decided website to virtually promote community and business events in the Ignace area is a great alternative to relying on social media for information.
Bill Laidlaw, Chair of the Ignace Area Business Association said, “It is a public service for small entrepreneurs and people with things to do. It’s a community bulletin board, so it is not specific to the business community.”
For example, the senior organization Silver Top, which hosts a wide variety of public events, can place a poster on the virtual space. Crossroads Employment Service spread the word about new job postings in the area. The Ignace Public Library is hosting a Meet the Candidates Night on September 27 for the upcoming municipal elections.
One of the reasons why the Ignace Area Business Association is utilizing a virtual space rather than a traditional bulletin board is reach. Traditional advertising might not reach enough of the public depending on where the bulletin board is setup.
During the pandemic when social gatherings were limited or completely shut down, more people became aware of the comfort of digital spaces. Now that the lockdowns are over, digital marketing for events has taken over traditional marketing.
“One of the problems is a lot of stuff got cut up and shut down through the COVID and we are starting to get things back in operation,” explains Laidlaw. “A lot of lines of communication ended up getting stifled. Everybody is communicating with everybody else and not just sitting in their own little silo. If everybody works together, it can be surprising what we can do in the long run.”
By working together are spreading the word about upcoming events, the community has a chance to reconnect which each other, and having an easy-to-see virtual space to promote these events will reach the community and beyond.
Laidlaw explains that there are no specific criteria for getting your poster on the website, but “we want to be non-controversial. At this point in time, there are no rules, but it is expected implicitly, you know, let’s be polite and have common sense.”
To promote your event on the Ignace Community Virtual Bulletin Board, send your poster to [email protected].
