The Lansing Entertainment & Public Facilities Authority (LEPFA) manages the Lansing Center, Oldsmobile Park, Lansing City Market, as well as other local/regional events. LEPFA works to enhance local and regional economic growth by providing safe environments and developing strong relationships with clients, sponsors and businsses. Public outreach and marketing is important to LEPFA to gain awareness for its venues, events, and supporting businesses.
While many people recognize the venues and events managed by LEPFA, most people are not aware of the existance of LEPFA. When Amanda Snook, Marketing Manager, came to LEPFA, there was no social media use at all. Now, LEPFA is utilizing Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr to reach out to the community.
My goal is to get people not only KNOWING about the things that LEPFA does and the places we manage, but to get them talking to their friends about Thirsty Thursday at Olds Park. Maybe they will share with their coworkers about the great conference they went to at the Lansing Center. For me, it’s a new way to meet people, to get feedback about our properties and events and to encourage name building of the LEPFA brand. – Amanda Snook, Marketing Manager, LEPFA
Amanda is also trying to give the authority a face. To show people that LEPFA is run by people, individuals who care, not a bureaucracy. That caring face comes through on LEPFA’s twitter account, run by Amanda. She has conversations, promotes other businesses, helps people, and generally has a friendly, optimistic personality. She wants people to see LEPFA events as a family-friendy with a large economic impact on the region.
Connections and conversations are also important in LEPFA’s social media use. LEPFA uses a Facebook group to connect with people in the region. While LEPFA post news and information about their events and venues, group members can also post links and have discussions with the Authority and each other.
Social media, for us, allows interactivity between what LEPFA does and what people want. It’s an instantaneous way for me to know what we are doing right, what we are doing wrong, who is hearing our message and which people are the champions of our town. – Amanda Snook, Marketing Manager, LEPFA
Amanda has recently started using Flickr to post and share photos of the area and hopes to eventually use YouTube to post tours of facilities and event coverage. By using social media, Amanda has raised awareness of LEPFA and the venues and events they manage, as well as given people a individual that they can connect and interact with to make LEPFA’s services better for all involved.
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Twitter has been a great way for us to connect with customers, partners, marketers, designers and lots of interesting people. We also use Twitter to provide information which we hope is useful to our followers. Much of this information is gathered via RSS feeds which is then sent automatically to Twitter every so often using Twitterfeed. As nice as Twitterfeed is, it still doesn’t have everything I need or want. I’ve also tried