Showing the Heart of a Community Through Video

Our world has become increasingly dependent upon content to attract people’s attention. This content ranges from blogs on the Internet to television shows. Due to global shifts in our economy, economic developers have to work harder to attract companies and individual entrepreneurs. What used to be local efforts to attract job creators from neighboring cities and regions has shifted to competition with states located across the United States and foreign countries.

What if both paradigm shifts are taken into account when marketing one’s locality? How would that look? What would be the message?

At the Danville Regional Foundation, we think that using community-oriented video content in a Web format is an efficient and effective method to reach these job creators. With the power in numbers coming from the partners across the Dan River Region that make these videos a reality, we can harness their websites and contacts to spread these vignettes to larger audiences than we could do on our own. Collaboration is our greatest ally. Take a look at these videos to see what I’m talking about:

Yes, we are targeting graduate students at the many colleges and universities within a three-hour drive of our service region (the city of Danville and Pittsylvania County in Virginia, and Caswell County in North Carolina), as well as companies and individuals looking to set up shop in a high-opportunity area with a low cost of living and an excellent quality of life. But we are also looking to bring back some of our natives who have yearned to return home and start a business.

As we utilize our new competitive advantage of a diverse economy based upon entrepreneurship and technology, video content is the perfect tool to tell the story and show the heart of a community. Do you have a story to tell?

Matt Charles is communications and public relations director at the Danville Regional Foundation, a member of the Council on Foundations.