Main Street Santa Monica Embraces Social Media to Revive Community on the Street, Capping Off a Yearlong Effort With the Launch of New Website

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Santa Monica, CA (PRWEB) June 10, 2014

Today marks the launch of Main Street Santa Monica’s new website ushering in a new, more connected era for the merchants of Main Street. The launch of this new product caps off a more than yearlong journey to build community between the merchants of Main Street Santa Monica and to leverage social media to bring more traffic and interest to the street.

The initiative began in November 2012, when a few key organizations including Thismoment, Made to Order, Melrose PR, and the Main Street Santa Monica Business Improvement Association put their heads together and dreamt up a way to encourage greater interaction between the merchants on Main Street, which would hopefully lead to increased sales and awareness for the district. It was a two-pronged approach – one part hinged on the building of a new marketing platform, and the other depended on using the time before it launched to educate the merchants about the importance of social media. With that, they kicked off a year and a half long community education and organization campaign to help the merchants better understand how to use social media as a group and individually to enhance business on the street.

That program has yielded incredible results for the neighborhood. Activity on social media has increased more than 200% since the start in November of 2012. Facebook fan likes on Main Street Santa Monica’s page went from only 42 to over 3,700, there are now over 1,000 Instagram posts featuring the hashtag #MainStreetSM, and most importantly, the merchants have become a stronger community as neighbors have been introduced to one another and have been encouraged to share content and support each other through the use of social media.

Now, with the launch of the website (which was generously funded by Thismoment), Main Street hopes to have community engagement reach an all time high. Never before has a community as large as Main Street’s been brought together on a marketing platform such as this. A team of Thismoment developers worked tirelessly to adapt their existing platform to accommodate all 250 merchants/brands in one place. The platform is typically used by one brand for one or multiple products, but never before have 250 brands occupied one marketing platform as a community.

Thismoment CEO Vince Broady says, “We at Thismoment are passionate about helping small businesses and have been working on ways to create products that can provide the services that small business associations need without the expense that makes real tools inaccessible to them. That’s why we’ve been so thrilled to help develop this product for Main Street Santa Monica. We’ve seen the impact that the clinics have had on increase community engagement, and are looking forward to seeing an even more unified digital presence for the street with the launch of the website.”

Gary Gordon, Executive Director of the MSBIA says, “We were very happy to be chosen as the place and organization Thismoment wanted to work with to implement these ideas about using social media as a tool to build community. The importance of the business improvement districts and their relationship in contributing to a greater Santa Monica is not always readily grasped by everyone in the city. A tool like this will help us pioneer building community in the 21st Century so the symbiotic and holistic nature of the community can be more fully explored and realized.”

About Main Street: Just one block from the beach, Main Street Santa Monica is a unique and eclectic collection of restaurants, boutiques, cafes, and various services spanning about a mile from Pico to the Santa Monica City limit. Main Street is a diverse outdoor experience that hosts a weekly Farmers Market and various other local events including a constant appearance of various delicious food trucks. For more information, visit http://www.mainstreetsm.com.

Be sure to check out Main Street on social media via Facebook (Main Street Santa Monica), Twitter (@MainTweetSM) and Instagram (@MainStreetSM).

For media inquiries or more information please contact Kelley Coughlan | Melrose PR | Kelley(at)melrosepr(dot)com | (310) 260-7901

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