At a time when the news is consumed by the negative stories on the deaths of two celebrity icons- Farrah and Michael, Governor Sanford’s indiscretions, the guy with the name I cannot pronounce in the 70’s style Members Only jacket in Iran that stole the election, the Mad Man of North Korea who wants to shoot nukes at us, the economic downturn, and massive government spending, I've got some good news for you:
The refreshing nature of positive news sure seems to be catching on with the folks in Valpo.
To date we have told over 1,700 stories about kids, adults, organizations, sports teams, churches, leaders, fund raising drives, events, and anything else positive going on in town. We have posted over 500 events that have been held in or around Valpo, ranging from fun activities going on downtown to concerts and plays at the high school, universities, Memorial Opera House, and Chicago Street Theatre, to charity golf outings and community volunteer opportunities, along with business meetings, social gatherings, and presentations put on by one of the 50 houses or worship in town.
And just think, we've only been around a couple of months.
Starting this weekend, we will start to hit every house in town with a full page, 2 sided, 4 color ValpoLife.com postcard that demonstrates how to sign up, get engaged, contribute, spread the word, and put your company in front of this audience we have quickly built on the foundation of that positive focus, in a time where you really need to go out of your way to find truly good news.
Even yesterday alone, we produced two new videos on the opening of the new YMCA, another Concert in the Parks music video, and the Town Hall Downtown meeting with Mayor Costas and the expertise of Hyett-Palma. That builds on the leadership series of interviews we have done, profiles on athletes like Jerrick Suiter, and the hugely popular, What I Love About Valpo series of street interviews. That video library is growing fast -- we just passed 100 videos on the site, and we are closing in on 3,000 videos played since we started tracking the number of video views in early June.
And the reach of good news is spreading. We flew past 800 fans Thursday on Facebook within days of passing 700, and within three weeks of passing 400, and we have over 500 followers on Twitter, On Monday we held an Ice Cream party to celebrate some of that success with about 150 people coming out to join us at Valpo Velvet. Today, we should surpass 90,000 page views since we started just 3 months ago.
We've grown so much recently that one of the local morning radio DJ’s now uses ValpoLife.com headlines in his morning newscasts since there is so much good local content that we cover.
I swear we are not bragging, because we still have many miles to go in order for this to be thriving on every measure. Our end-goal is to be a permanent and significant contributing member of the community, which is our staff’s only true measure of success.
I just know that many of you are the folks that have been rooting for us since the beginning, whose early support helped us get this site to where this is today, and who have wished for our success from the second you heard about the premise behind the site and our goals. I want you to know your work, hope, word of mouth, and outward support continues to build an incredibly positive momentum beyond even what we thought it would be.
This positive thing sure seems to be catching on.