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Main Spotlight: Local Instagram Takeovers Share Best Practices and Increase Connectivity Nationwide
An Instagram Stories Takeover is an easy and exciting way to showcase an organization’s impact to a new and engaged audience. Earlier this summer, Main Street America hosted our first-ever Instagram Stories Takeover, giving six Main Street organizations from around the Network direct access to our Instagram account. This opportunity amplified the impact and successes of these selected six local programs to our 10K followers comprised of Main Street programs, economic development organizations, small business owners, public artists, civic leaders, and everyone in between. Our hope was that these six communities would use this opportunity to showcase their Main Street’s story, celebrate their proudest accomplishments, and share replicable initiatives and best practices that they had implemented in their commercial district to inspire others.
Today, we connected with these communities to hear more about their experience hosting an MSA Instagram Stories Takeover. Read on to explore their unique approaches to showcasing their communities and their suggestions for hosting—and being the host of—an Instagram Takeover.
Photo courtesy of Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance. Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance (Harrisonburg, VA) Kate Harwood, Marketing Assistant
Hi y’all! My name is Kate Harwood, and I am the Marketing Assistant for Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance (HDR), and I hosted the first MSA Takeover on July 13, 2021. I could not contain my excitement the week leading up to the Takeover! I was eager to show the MSA community the beauty, creativity, and the amazing people of Harrisonburg, VA. My supervisor shared a document with all the local businesses that I could feature throughout my Takeover. The community was so excited for the takeover: I booked 30-minute interview/shootings with business owners during the day, and was supported and encouraged throughout. My day was booked from 8am to 10pm! I couldn’t have done it without Emily Winter, HDR’s Marketing Director.
For future takeovers:
I would schedule in flexibility as you visit. I had amazing conversations with some of the business owners in Harrisonburg, but felt like I had to cut them short to keep the Takeover moving.
Make sure you schedule in time for breaks and the time to make your posts visually engaging!
Instagram stories can only feature 100 stories in a highlight, and I posted over 230 stories during my Takeover. All of the stories couldn’t be featured in the Instagram highlight.
Always tag your organization in your Takeover! I always tagged @downtownharrisonburg in all my story posts, and my supervisor was able to share them on the HDR Instagram. She also could keep all of the footage to make a YouTube playlist later!
Despite the few challenges with overbooking and over-posting, the Takeover was a success! I am so thankful to MSA for featuring HDR on their Instagram. I am proud of featuring the amazing community of Harrisonburg. At the end of the day, I found myself tearing up about how grateful I was to work for HDR and feature The Friendly City on a national nonprofit’s social media page.
Photo courtesy of Historic Marion Revitalization Association. Historic Marion Revitalization Association (Marion, SC) Liz Herlong, Board Member
Taylor and I thoroughly enjoyed our Main Street Takeover experience! Main Street America made the process easy, as Abby was very accommodating. Getting the chance to talk to many of our Main Street business owners was a treat, since often, because of our busy schedules, we neglect to do just that. Furthermore, the entire experience made us realize how very fortunate we are to live and work in such a beautiful area with great historical bones and amazing people!
For future Main Street Takeover participants, my advice to you would be to have two completely charged phones, comfortable walking shoes, and a full day set aside for what will prove to be an enlightening, unforgettable event!
Photo courtesy of Downtown SMTX. Downtown SMTX (San Marcos, TX) Freddy Medina, Administrative Assistant
It was an honor to participate in the first-ever Main Street America Takeover campaign! We’d like to thank the National Main Street Center for the amazing opportunity and all the Downtowners who tuned in. Our #MSATakeover content made over 1,200 impressions on the Main Street America Instagram and received an overwhelming amount of positive engagement. The Takeover was the perfect opportunity for the San Marcos Main Street Program to showcase our beautiful city and feature accomplishments such as our vacant storefront initiatives, beautification projects, and placemaking elements. We’re proud to be a part of such an incredible network that creates everlasting impacts on our communities. Our hope is to have inspired other Main Street folk to implement some of our projects in their downtowns.
To future #MSATakeover hosts, we offer this advice:
Take time to plan your Takeover ahead of time. We used a lot of video, so it helped us to create a story board and scripts for our content.
Use Canva to create vibrant and engaging graphics. Keep in mind the dimensions for Instagram Stories are 1080x1920 pixels.
Create more accessible content by using Instagram’s closed-captioning tool.
Produce your content ahead of time and create a schedule for the day of your Takeover.
Lastly, have fun showcasing your hard work and beautiful community on a NATIONAL platform!
If you have any questions about our takeover, do not hesitate to contact our marketing guru, Freddy Medina, at amedina@sanmarcostx.gov or (512) 393-8430.
Photo courtesy of Heart of Biddeford (HOB). Heart of Biddeford (Biddeford, ME) Sam Perry, AmeriCorps Main Street Fellow
Thinking and talking about Biddeford’s future is fun, no doubt, but it is not every day we are given the opportunity to show off our Main Street. On Tuesday, August 10th, that is exactly what we did. After weeks of coordinating interviews, editing footage, and even paddleboarding out to sea, we were ready to take Main Street America on a tour of Biddeford’s very own Main Street.
Of course, a tour cannot be a one person show, so we connected with neighbors old and new and invited them to tell us their stories and about their roles in our community. After all, what better way is there to support your neighboring businesses after a year of distancing than to ask them, “Hey, we see all the wonderful work you do and how special you are to our community, can we feature you on a national platform?” And so we did! I found myself, an introvert who came into my now former role as a Main Street Fellow, perusing downtown Biddeford like a travel show host. Folks had so many wonderful things to tell us that it was challenging to edit the interviews down to the right length.
When I came into this role, I had no experience managing social media accounts or building community online. To that end, hosting the Takeover was one of my favorite experiences of my AmeriCorps year and an unforgettable day. It is my hope the MSA #TakeoverTuesdays inspire others to go out and discover, or rediscover, the wonder along their Main Streets
Main Street Wadsworth (Wadsworth, OH) Adrianne Patrick, Executive Director
Main Street Wadsworth in Wadsworth, Ohio, had a blast with their opportunity to host their Main Street America IG Takeover in August 2021! Located in Northeast Ohio near Cleveland, Main Street Wadsworth’s mission is to “create an unmatched downtown experience” and was proud to use the IG Takeover to highlight its revitalization progress. The Takeover featured an opening welcome video from Executive Director Adrianne Patrick, a mention of its “Best Hometown Award” from Ohio Magazine, small business interviews and features, videos highlighting its unique First Friday events, and real data about its progress (20+ new businesses, 100+ new jobs, $500,000 in grants, $2 million in private-public partnerships, etc.). The only unexpected challenge of the experience was discovering that videos were capped at 15 seconds, which created some short “blips” during longer videos. The Wadsworth and IG communities loved this change to our online presence (which is mostly present on Facebook).
Wadsworth’s advice to future IG Takeover hosts is to ask downtown businesses to share what makes them unique to give other businesses ideas and to research different IG hacks that improve the experience. One example of this is the addition of cool auto-subtitles during videos, a feature we learned from Main Street America’s Abby Armato—thanks girl!
Editor’s note: The auto-subtitles Main Street Wadsworth used was a feature that San Marcos Main Street introduced us to—we love that we all had the opportunity to grow and learn from each other during this initiative!
Thank you to these five communities for sharing their experiences with us! Be sure to check out their work on our Instagram channel in our Instagram Story Highlights, and stay tuned for future opportunities to take over our national social media channels!
At Fort Vancouver in Vancouver, Washington, Native Hawaiians played a critical role in the success of the Hudson Bay Company. Today, Vancouver’s Hawaiian history and heritage plays a crucial role in efforts to reenergize the city’s historic downtown.
Whether you're preparing your community for a surge of visitors, traveling as a visitor yourself, or looking for a glimpse from outside the path, there are many opportunities to be experience this unique event.
Learn how the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta uses this unique mural program to celebrate Valentine's Day and raise important funding for their work.
Small Business Saturday is an important opportunity to show your support for local businesses. We asked business owners across the network what your support means to them.
Learn how Main Street leaders and residents in Los Alamos, New Mexico have used the town's fascinating history to create a hugely successful week-long ScienceFest, going 16 years strong and counting.
Learn how Hendersonville, North Carolina launched their first annual Earth Day Festival to celebrate their local environment and educate residents about ways to get involved with regional environmental sustainability efforts.
Jessica Morgan and Hayley Isbill from the City of Sweetwater (Sweetwater, Tenn.) explain how they prepared their community for the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse and give useful tips and tricks for those who are preparing for the next eclipse coming in April 2024.
Meet Kavi, the first Indian American Girl of the Year doll and a (fictional) resident of 2023 Great American Main Street Award winner Metuchen, New Jersey!
From the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers in Paducah, Kentucky, to the tasty cakes and sweet treats of Kendallville, Indiana, these Main Streets are the perfect places to show your love for all things local.
From social media scavenger hunts to downtown passports, the Main Street network has used countless innovative ways to encourage their communities to Shop Small®—and had plenty of fun doing it.
Staunton, VA is full of fascinating people, so when Greg Beam took over Staunton Downtown Development Association SDDA in 2019, he wanted to find a way to showcase them.
Learn about Friendly City Fortune, Downtown Harrisonburg Renaissance's largest annual fundraiser. It provides flexible revenue for a variety of projects including art installations, façade enhancements, and small business support services.
As a social impact funder, the Levitt Foundation partners with changemakers nationwide to create those destinations, leveraging the power of free, live music to amplify local pride, inject joy into underused public spaces, and foster more equitable, healthy and thriving communities.
We challenged our Main Streets to tell us their downtown’s strange sightings, haunted buildings, or other paranormal activities for a chance to be named a 2021 Great American Haunted Main Street.
Love Letters for Local is a new initiative that encourages community members to write letters of appreciation and support to small businesses as they persevere into the new year
Promotion positions the downtown or commercial district as the center
of the community and hub of economic activity, while creating a positive image
that showcases a community’s unique characteristics.
Too often, as we’re strolling our favorite Main Street, we pass empty or dark shop windows that make us want to hurry home a little bit faster. Imagine instead, a charming streetscape adorned with vibrant, lively window displays, showcasing retailers’ favorite products and seasonal gift ideas.
From authentic comfort food to farm-to-fork fresh and everything in between, these restaurants, bars, and cafes are key to the thriving social, business, and residential life in the historic commercial districts in Main Street Iowa communities.
Located in southeast Kansas, Independence (pop.8,799) is home to Fab Lab ICC, which is on track to be the world’s leading innovator in combining entrepreneurial mindset education with a fab lab maker space.
Last year, Main Street Selma created the Jeffrey the Ghost Project to honor the late Kathryn Tucker Windham, a celebrated author, folklorist, and Selma resident.
What if someone asked us for some quick marketing ideas that any Main Street town could use for more visibility, especially online? Here is what we’d say.
Oklahoma's Main Street Guymon Director Melyn Johnson found more than just an innovative way to engage nearby college students in Main Street activities.
Carbondale Main Street, established 1989, is located at a “sweet spot” for watching the total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21—it’s just a few miles north of the point of greatest duration within the path of totality
Fritz the dog has made his way into the hearts of the residents of LaBelle, Florida, and helped our Main Street Community find a way to make what we do more noticeable.
The Easton Main Street Initiative, established just a decade ago and serving the riverside city of Easton, Pennsylvania, decided it was time to give ourselves a pat on the back.