How is your Chamber of Commerce website? Is it an active hub of information for your town, or does it just sit there, likely with old information? No matter what state your Chamber of Commerce website is in right now, it could be better.
A Chamber of Commerce is a group of business owners that come together in a community to promote business, promote their community through things like tourism, and who take an active interest in the world beyond the front door of their businesses. Even the smallest Chambers can have a big impact on their communities. Any impact that is made can be multiplied with the presence of strong website.
If a Chamber of Commerce can leverage the passion and knowledge represented within its group and make it accessible to the world through a website, that is a pretty good thing, right? Doing so could result in an online hub for your community, one that promotes, informs, and connects.
Here are some ideas about how your Chamber of Commerce could use a website. I will add more detail in later posts, so be sure to check back.
Promote
Most Chamber of Commerce websites offer lists of members, perhaps with a name and phone number. In an age where Google offers business profiles tied to their map feature, this is just not enough. A big part of what your Chamber site could and should be doing is promoting your members. A great way to do this is with extended profiles. Consider setting a whole page aside for each member. Fill that profile with custom content provided by the business, intended to point the way to their website or to directly drive sales.
On the web, businesses need to seek as many pathways as possible to their business. So, even if the business already has a nice website, a good profile on the local Chamber website will draw in more visits and customers, especially of the local variety.
Depending on the structure of your Chamber, you might consider selling these profiles as a fundraiser, thus creating an additional revenue stream for your organization. For $100, businesses could get a nice profile page on the local Chamber site, which will lead to more traffic. At the same time, their donation will help your group do even more to promote your local community and businesses.
Inform
The web has an amazing power to inform. You can keep up to date on, well, just about anything. Use your Chamber of Commerce website to share stories and news that are important to your organization. This could be anything from local legislation to business press releases. If your community doesn’t have great news coverage, you may even want to provide local news.
Keeping residents informed about matters that interest them, and which are important to your Chamber goals, can help pave the way to great relations and help you meet important goals. For instance, it is easier to get people to attend a local board meeting to voice opposition for a new regulation that will harm local business if you already have an outlet for staying in touch with them.
Any good Chamber website should have a blog that can act as your organization’s newsletter. Share great stories about your community and interview local business owners. Talk up local events as well. Remember, not only will residents read your blog, so will tourists and potential new businesses.
Connect
If you think of a website as little more than an online brochure, you need to update your thinking. Today, the web is all about connection. Your Chamber of Commerce website should encourage connection and help make it happen. There are so many ways to do this, some of them right on your website, others using the website as a home base in conjunction with other tools such as Facebook.
One of the simplest things you can do on your Chamber website is to host a community calendar. This can include events and dates for every group in your community. It is surprisingly easy to do this, with each group adding their own information so that it doesn’t become a management nightmare.
One big goal of any Chamber is to make sure the community it serves is a vital place. Businesses need customers, communities needs businesses, residents, and visitors. The Chamber can take a lead role in promoting the community, indeed it often does. Many Chambers also serve a tourism resource centers. All of this can translate very easily online, helping to connect all of the dots in the community and presenting a unified picture of your town or city to the outside world.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Chamber’s need to embrace current technologies in their continued effort to promote business and community.
