There’s a new way to get the word out about local events, businesses, nonprofits and attractions.
The branding committee of the Creative Economy group is releasing a logo incorporating a QR code to help Rutland County institutions reach potential clients.
The logo, designed by Mike Gauthier at Greenscreen Graphics, incorporates a keyhole, a yin/yang, the Green Mountains, the allrutland.com url and the slogan, “Where do you want to go from here?” I’ll include a picture of one here as soon as I can make the office scanner work (no, I’m not the technical brains behind the operation … I have an arts degree …).
People with smartphones with cameras and readers enabled can scan the code — one of those black-and-white squares — and be taken to the allrutland page. There they get a choice of 10 categories, including food/dining; nightlife; arts/music/entertainment; recreation; community; kids & family; shopping and retail; school and education; and health, plus the home page. Selecting any of these will take the user to the corresponding All Rutland County Facebook page. Participating groups/businesses etc., can get a presence on those pages simply by tagging @allrutland and/or the appropriate @allrutland category in any Facebook messages they are already posting; this will make their posts show up automatically. It will also show up as a clickable link at the bottom of your post.
The goal was to create a marketing tool that doesn’t get in the way of anybody’s existing marketing, branding or web efforts. A website, for instance, to succeed, would have to compete in search engine rankings with sites from around the county … and the Chamber of Commerce is fiercely vying for that top Google slot with City Hall and Wikipedia. Because the All Rutland County website and, for that matter, Facebook page, are simply portals to the community’s own content, we hope to assist, not compete with, other efforts. We don’t even want the most Facebook likes … that’s your job.
The “we” is not editorial by the way. In the interests of full disclosure, while wearing my volunteer hat, I have been on the branding committee since its inception. Most of the work has been done by Castleton State College’s social media guru Katye Robare Munger and Mike Gauthier.
If you want a window cling (static cling sticker) for your business / office / nonprofit anywhere in Rutland County and you use Facebook, drop a comment here and I’ll get you one — free. We have 100 in the first batch. I’ll also be happy to pass on technical questions to Katye.
thistownvt 