By: Dwayne Page
Aimed at learning about how better to reach more potential customers and expand tourism locally, members of the Center Hill Business Association sponsored a social media marketing workshop Monday at the County Complex.
Sara Beth Urban, Middle Tennessee Division Manager for the Tennessee Department of Tourism Development, was the guest speaker and provided some helpful tips.
“DeKalb is ranked 32nd out of the 95 counties in tourism and that includes $48.02 million in tourism expenditures coming directly into DeKalb County. Considering the growth that you have from 2002 to this past year it’s amazing how much growth has come out of this county and your rankings have gone up and been phenomenal,” said Urban.
“We know people come to Nashville or to see the colors in the Smoky Mountains but with $48 million dollars coming to DeKalb County they are coming here too. We need to make sure we are creating a whole product and getting the word out about what businesses are here and what there is to see and do in DeKalb County,” said Urban.
“The main purpose of today’s workshop is to provide tips and tricks for social media marketing. Trying to improve everyone’s posts they are doing on facebook and instagram and trying to let them know the practices we followed to help get the word out to visitors about how wonderful Tennessee is,” Urban continued.
One way is by taking advantage of the free partner pages on the state tourism website www.tnvacation.com.
“We offer free partner pages on our website for any tourism business in the state. If you are running a shop, restaurant, coffee shop, etc. you qualify for a partner page. Go on line and add information and photos. It shows how you can start a partner page. This gives us the opportunity to look at your business and make sure when we are writing articles about DeKalb County events and Center Hill Lake your page will be linked with ours to expose your business to more traffic through our website,” said Urban.
“DeKalb County is doing wonderfully. We love the growth we have seen over the past 15 years here but there is a lot more to be done. I think you are on track to break the $50 million mark in tourism next year. Tourism is the number 2 industry in the state. The first is agriculture. We bring in $20.77 billion. That is direct dollars coming back to local businesses, gas, restaurants, lodging, shopping all of those elements,” Urban said.
Joe Brown, owner of the Button Willow General Store and Coffee Shop downtown Smithville and Vice President of the Center Hill Business Association, said the workshop was helpful.
“It was huge. I think social media is definitely a way we are going to reach out to our community that for some of us has been unavailable. Not a lot of us are social media savvy or have the time to do it but the things Sara Beth has said I believe are going to be keys for helping grow our businesses and to help promote each other which is what we are about. We have to promote ourselves and one another and let people know that our services and businesses are out there,” said Brown.
Tony Luna, owner of Lake Homes Realty and Marketing Director for the Center Hill Business Association, said the group of 20 members formed about four months ago. Luna said Urban’s workshop will help the local business owners think outside the box when it comes to marketing themselves.