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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Social Media Networking Works for Valley Chamber

The unprecedented use of social media marketing this year, along with other tactical changes, paid off for the Greater San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce with record numbers of volunteers showing up to its annual cleanup day. A total of 177 people came out to clean along the Metro Orange Line Bike Path between Sherman Way and Hazeltine Avenue in Van Nuys on Nov. 6. Turnout more than doubled over last year’s 75 volunteers and exceeded the number of helping hands in the cleanup’s 27 year history, said Nancy Hoffman Vanyek, CEO of the Greater San Fernando Valley Chamber. “It was amazing to me the way people came out for it,” said Hoffman Vanyek, who largely promoted the event through social media sites such as Facebook. “I asked people to post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and on their own sites, I sent e-mails to all our members asking them to ‘like’ the event on Facebook so it would show up on their newsfeed, and it had such huge positive response.” The event was reposted in at least ten Facebook sites, in one high school’s website, Valley College’s site and a cyclist group’s “Meetup” site, she said. Panorama City Optometrist Barry Leonard was among the first to repost the event on both his personal and professional Facebook pages. “We got responses right away on both sites,” he said. “I think especially for this type of event – I’m not sure yet for e-commerce – this type of promotion works very well.” Leonard, who has moved away from advertising his business on the Yellow Pages and has turned instead to online advertising, said this is yet another example of how the Internet has become and will continue to be a preferred platform for communication. In years past the Chamber had spent a lot of money in print advertising and distributed more than 6,000 flyers throughout the community to promote the cleanup event, according to Hoffman Vanyek. This year less that 2,000 flyers were printed and only one print ad was secured in a local newspaper. “We haven’t had a lot of response from our print media advertising,” said Hoffman Vanyek. “For this type of event social media can really be your best friend.” The successful social media outreach effort required some thought, however, said Hoffman Vanyek, who spent countless hours studying the wording of online posts promoting similar events, in order to make her Facebook campaign effective. “It’s different than writing a letter or making a flyer, you really have to figure out the right wording to make sure your message gets across,” she said. In addition to enhancing their use of social networking tools, the Chamber also made some key changes to this years’ cleanup event, which might have helped attract volunteers. This year the event was moved to November hoping to entice students that are beginning to accrue community service hours during the school year. Last year’s event, which had one of the lowest participation rates, was held in May, a time by which many students have already met their community service goals. Traditionally the event was held in June, but the date was changed due to school distractions such as Prom and SAT’s, which could keep students from participating. “I’ve been here for 23 years and I’ve never heard the phone ringing that much,” said Hoffman Vanyek. “We had 13 percent more volunteers than we anticipated.”

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