Social networks an underutilized tool for chambers

    Last week a group of us went to Orono to tour the Target Technology Center, where Deb Neuman and several businesses hosted us. Those of you following us on Twitter and Facebook know all this already, because following the trip, I promptly came home and dogged Deb Neuman, the Innovation Center, the Target Technology Center, and several of their friends, fans and others on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. I even discovered before I’d tweeted about them, they’d tweeted about us! Really very funny stuff, but it affirms there may be something to this Twitter business!     When I first started in January, I hooked us up with what seemed to be obvious contacts, the Maine Tourism Office, DECD, Maine Biz, some of the other Maine affiliations etc, and almost immediately became very “taken” with the Maine Merchants Association’s tweets, and the like. I scouted around for other chambers of commerce (because we just do), in case there were chambers we needed to be imitating. (You need to keep an eye out for these things you know.)
    For years we’ve received Maine Merchant, Maine Restaurant Association and others newsletters and routine publications. Some I have enjoyed tremendously, and we’ve copied and imitated programs they were doing, one of my early favorites was (and continues to be) the Bangor Area Chamber, I have a long established covetous relationship going with their newsletter, website and chamber membership programs. On Twitter and Facebook, I discovered a whole new set of folks to begin those covetous relationships with!
    By and large (I know you want to know) chambers aren’t doing so much. Jackson Hole Wyoming is, and so are a few other large cities, who have very slick sites, with lots of goings on to share, but in general there seem to be many chambers and municipalities, and other development corporations with an initial page without much activity on them (we did too: we had Facebook and Myspace accounts for a year and a half, because we thought we should, but I had little interest in futzing with it). It seems to be more all the time, even in the few short months we’re stumbling around (as opposed to stumbling up), many more chambers seem to be participating in the “new social media.” An aha moment: there you go, maybe it’s an idea for a new economic development innovative site, I hear there’s money in patenting these things: we could call it Stumbling Around in Aroostook … lol.
    I digress. What I’d begun to tell you was, by goodness, there is something different about a somewhat stationary website, and that websites’ Facebook and Twitter accounts. While I’ve always appreciated the Maine Merchants Association’s newsletters, to follow them on Twitter is altogether more engaging. Curtis Picard, their Exec Director is a former Chamber person no less, and he was the first person who said to me he enjoys Twitter more than Facebook even, because in his estimation, in short snippets you find out more about what’s going on, and develop a whole new perspective of the face behind the logo.
    So I’ve been dwelling on that thought, did I think it was true, are we putting things on Twitter and Facebook in keeping with our mission and vision statement? Are we re-tweeting and sharing things with our “friends” things which might not have a voice otherwise? We’ve found a whole new avenue to advertise various events which otherwise might not be out there, and I do believe through either one we’ve reached out to several folks across the state (and farther, all the Caribou folks living away who are still tuned in to what’s going on), so maybe it’s so.
    I’ve even been “speaking” so to speak with the Maine Restaurant Association, and there’s another one, good publications, but you really do get more of a sense of personality with this social media thing. I imagine I’d have nothing to tell folks about if it wasn’t for the Chamber, our loan clients, our businesses, our community and my pervasive thought that all contact and positive advertising may lead to an opportunity to develop a relationship where someone invests in the community, either by opening a business, choosing a second home, choosing to come back a different season to ATV, or ski, or whatnot. But from now until then, we have whole new (inexpensive) ways to advertise Caribou, and network with a whole host of serious folks who are technology minded, doing really cool things, who may not hear from Caribou otherwise except for the weather station reports (thank goodness for NOAA).
    I have to believe if we keep in mind Caribou’s mission and vision statements, we will move forward as a progressive community and market ourselves in new ways with “new friends” who’s radar we might never have made otherwise. For those still hanging on to the first couple of sentences about Orono, and the Target Technology Center (what’s up with that?): we’re hopeful we may be able to use parts of their model to bring something along those lines to Caribou. The most interesting thing besides odor absorbing paper for landfills which caught my attention (tweet me really, I need to share), was the pervasive idea that all successful economic development stories are based on relationships, trust, and people.
    Money certainly is the catalyst, it goes without saying, but without the right people, who are invested in the community, or the success of their “innovative center,” they may stumble and not ever really be the self actualized innovators they could be with far less money and resources. It harkens me back to our longstanding economic driver in Aroostook: agriculture. You know we can have an Innovation Center if we really want one perhaps, look at our farmers, look at your neighbors, who’s more innovative than we are?
    Wendy Landes, MPA, is the executive director of the Caribou Chamber of Commerce & Industry. She can be reached in person at 24 Sweden Street, Suite 101; by telephone at 498-6156 or via e-mail at wlandes@cariboumaine.net.