Why Choose Responsibility Chose Union Street Media

Choose Responsibility is a nonprofit organization that stimulates conversation about the presence of alcohol in American culture; more specifically, they focus on how this affects young adults ages 18-20. They strive to empower young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol in their lives.

The founder is John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College. John believes the drinking age should be lowered to 18 so young adults in the 18-20 age range don’t resort to dangerous measures to acquire alcohol. The idea is that by teaching people at an earlier age how to drink responsibly, it will lead to better habits in the future.

John came to us needing a better website, and that’s exactly what we gave him. Watch him talk about his positive partnership with Union Street Media.

Check out the Union Street Media YouTube Channel to watch other happy clients speak about their work with us!

Union Street Media’s Newest Site Launches

There were a number of exciting site launches this month:

Camp Pemigewassett (or “Camp Pemi” for short) is a family owned boys camp in the beautiful Lakes Region of New Hampshire.  They needed a better laid out site to reach potential campers to experience this character building camping experience. Their new site helps extend their reach and foster relationships with alumni.

Dream Maker Properties LLC is a boutique real estate firm in North Carolina that needed a stronger web presence to highlight their expertise. With offices in Chapel Hill and Elkin, they needed their website to extend their viability in North Carolina real estate. The new website and blog is designed to achieve just that that.

OMARA is a non-profit booster club that works with the Okemo Mountain Competition Programs and Okemo Mountain School to provide support to those who are serious about their future in their respective discipline. Their site offers more insight into what they do, who they serve, and the awesome snow sports programs at Okemo Mountain Resort.

This Massachusetts real estate agency needed to display their experience in Cape Cod commercial real estate, vacation rentals, and collection of other properties they offer.  Their new site gives visitors a fresh new interface, easier navigation, and a blog for the folks at Bayside Realty Consultants to display their knowledge.

This hydro-powered commercial property in Stowe needed a website that illustrated its authentic beauty. Redstone Commercial Group can be proud of this historic property, which was formerly a saw and grist mill. Check out the captivating Tubbs Mill and matching website here.

RE/MAX Presidential is a real estate agency serving the Mount Washington Valley in New Hampshire and Maine. They needed a better designed website to feature their extensive property listings and wealth of local knowledge. Check out their new site to see how easy to navigate it has become.

The Merritt & Merritt & Moulton boutique law firm, located here in Burlington, VT, provides support and guidance to a variety of start up companies. Their new Wordpress template better displays the depth of professional services they provide.

This forum for Vermont entrepreneurs was also switched to the Wordpress platform. It now has better functionality to provide a better link to the network of associated organizations and individuals. You can see the site and find out when their next meeting is here.

The Union Street Media team is proud to have these new additions to our constantly growing portfolio of awesome websites!

Facebook for Business

The Social Media boom may be bigger than you think; Facebook is at its forefront. Our “Facebook for Business” series will help you make sense of this powerful tool. You’ll learn how to tame the beast and harness it for your business. Follow our series during the next several weeks and:

• Learn Facebook basics
• Learn how to leverage Facebook to underscore your brand
• Learn how to get fans (and what to do with those fans)
• Learn how to optimize your Facebook page
• Learn about applications and FBML (Facebook Mark up Language)
• Learn how to measure your Facebook traffic
• Learn how to effectively link your networks

With over 300,000,000 Facebook users, 120,000,000 of whom log on daily, the business opportunity Facebook presents cannot be ignored. According to Socialnomics, social media has claimed the number one web activity spot over the previous “less acceptable” contender. Facebook is a free way to improve your online presence. To increase your success online, your business must be part of this popular activity.

Leading companies have joined the crowd and are successfully using their Facebook pages to keep their customers happy and connected with with their brand.

Look at who is making the best of Facebook: 10 Successful Facebook Business Pages (from the Penn Olsen Social Media blog). With due diligence, and focused hard work, your business could be among the leaders.

A business Facebook page is different than your personal Facebook page.

• You have “fans” instead of “friends”
• It represents your brand, not you.
• You have access to much more information about your traffic.
• There is more customization for privacy settings.

The business page is built off of your personal account and gives you plenty of tools to reach the growing network of individuals using Facebook. You can run ads on the Facebook sidebar, track the demographics of your page traffic with Facebook Insights, create a badge or fanbox to promote your page, start discussion boards with the fans, add company information and events, and much more.

There are many ways to use these features and many ways to optimize your page; but to start, how do you create a business page?

Read more