The Revelstoke Chamber of Commerce has a brand new website, taking it out of the days of it’s old, static site, to a new one that’s far more interactive and flexible.
The new website contains a brand new look, a more robust business directory, a new calendar and interactive members service such as Idea Vote.
“It’s a much needed update,” said Judy Goodman, the executive director of the chamber. “As you know, our site hasn’t been updated for a long time.”
The site was developed by social media marketing expert Jean-Marc LaFlamme and developer Derek Marcinyshyn. It uses a Wordpress platform as it’s base, making it easier to use and manage.
“Even I can go in and update things, which is pretty amazing,” said Goodman.
The site’s home page features a search for the business directory, a listing of upcoming chamber events, weather and snow information, links to social media, and more.
The calendar is one of the key changes. Developed by The Seed network out of Nelson, it is one of the leading Wordpress-based calendars in the world, and provides multiple levels of functionality. Anyone can add an event to it, and listings can be categorized so if someone is only looking for upcoming concerts, they can highlight only that. It imports and exports events to Facebook and can be synched to your smart phone.
“They’re now the number one WordPress calendar out there and we’re pretty happy to be using that here,” said LaFlamme. “Hopefully that will be a centre point of a lot of activity that goes on in Revelstoke, whether it’s events, deals, sales, meetings, and onwards and upwards.”
Another key element is the revised business directory, which will allow businesses to include more information and photos to their listing. It’s also fully searchable so, for example, entering ‘yoga’ will pull up local yoga studios.
“It’s more robust than what we had before,” said Goodman.
If a business doesn’t have a website, their business directory listing will show up at the top of web searches, ahead of other third-party directories, said LaFlamme.
For chamber members, a host of interactive services has been included. A members-only online forum has been added to the site as a place for people to share business ideas and provide and receive feedback.
“We’ll have a member sign in so we can actually now communicate on a different level with our members,” said Goodman. “Members can talk to each other.”
Members will also be able to post polls to get the opinion of other business people. Goodman hopes this will inspire more members to log in and interact with the Chamber.
“It could be something like, ‘Do you think dealing with planning is an easy process?’ or ‘Do you think we should have more retail promotions during the year?’” said Goodman. “Our goal is to have our members more interactive and find out what our members want from us. What can we do for you? When I talk to a member one on one I almost always get something from them. If we can expand that to make it really easy for people to talk to each other, I think it will be great.”
Visit www.revelstokechamber.com to check it out.