Small Business Season Heroes Van Burn Chamber of Commerce

Small Business Season Spotlight:
The Van Buren Chamber of Commerce

In this spotlight series we are highlighting the successful efforts of chambers around the country that expanded their focus on serving small business throughout Small Business Season and beyond. In each installment the Chamber Pro shares a little bit about their chamber, their practices and programs, and offers some advice to replicate their success.

Chamber Facts

Years of Operation: 69
Members: 438
Service area: Van Buren, Arkansas (community is a smaller urban area)
Staff size: three person staff

We recently sat down with Ailia Heilman, the Business Manager of the Van Buren Chamber of Commerce where she shared some of the things that worked for them. One of the things they did involved adorable videos of the mascot. These videos were so popular among their member businesses that they were also a bit of a challenge to ensure everyone who wanted to participate could.

Learn more about Small Business Season in Van Buren...

What Worked Well?

"We heavily used the social media marketing kit that Frank Kenny sent out, scheduling the provided graphics on Facebook and Instagram for almost every day.

We also did video posts of our small business members with our Piper the Pointer mascot that we posted to Facebook and Instagram.

Pointers are the high school’s mascot, so we have a stuffed pointer dog that has been great for interactions."

Here’s a link to a Piper video.

Additionally, check out this video where a holiday special was front and center.

What Were Your Biggest Challenges?

"Our biggest challenges were trying to get all of our Piper the Pointer posts filmed, edited, and posted to social media during such a busy time.

We had so many events to go to and a lot of members wanted to do a video with Piper the Pointer, so making sure we were able to represent as many businesses as possible was sometimes challenging."

While challenging, that is a great problem to have--so many members wanted to be a part of the videos. The Van Buren Chamber had a real hit on their hands.

What Advice Would You Give Other Chamber Pros

Give your small businesses a platform. Making a fun video with a small business and then posting it to social media is a great way to give them more exposure.