Click here for Part 1 (Reasons 1-5)
Interactivity
One of our biggest points of pride with our site is our interactivity. We strive to be the most accessible and interactive publishing entity in Northwest Indiana and we're constantly looking for new ways to communicate with our readers. If you ever have a story or idea to contribute, send us an email at any time to contribute@valpolife.com and we'll get a conversation started!
Eariler this year, we opened up commenting to make sure our readers have a voice. We encourage you to add a comment if you have anything to add or a point of view to share on any article on the site-- we just ask that it is positive and/or educational in nature. You do need to be a member to comment on any articles, so be sure you head to ValpoLife.com/register and sign up today!
We want to make it easy as possible for you to share the stories we have on our sites, your stories really, with your networks and friends in any way you can. At the top of every article, you can easily email a link to your friends, just by clicking "Email" (for you old-fashioned people, you can click "Print" right next to it). Help us spread our good news on your networks by sharing links-- the more we can get our stories out there the more stories we can ultimately tell!
One of the cool new features we've added to the site recently, and probably one of our favorites overall, is the Facebook "Like" button that sites atop many of the pages and articles throughout our site. If you're logged in to your Facebook account and click that "Like" button, you can easily share an article, story, video, or anything else that you find cool or interesting with the rest of your network. At the bottom of our stories we also have a "Share" button that allows you to share these articles with your Digg, StumbleUpon, and many of the other social networks out there. Give it a shot!
Business Listings
Want an easy way to find a business, company, or firm that may supply something you demand? We are compiling a listing of every business in town in one, easy-to-access area of the site. We offer a free business listing for any company serving Valparaiso. If you do not see yours, enter in your info or send it to us and we will update it.
Also, on the Business Listings page, we have Featured Listings of some companies who want more visibility and who support us and help us tell their stories. We ask all of our readers and supporters to keep these businesses and firms in mind when you're in need of a particular product or service. Their support lets us share all of the great things going on in the community.
Advertise
As we've accumulated all of the articles, videos, photos, and everything else on the site, we've become a great place for local businesses to market themselves in front of a exclusively positively-minded audience. Our marketing options are inexpensive, super targeted, quantifiable, and results-oriented. We offer so much more than just running an ad. Your business or organization's content and advertising is never next to crap like crime or scandals. We have no contracts, so if you don't feel like you're getting your money's worth, you can stop any time. We go crazy on behalf of our participating Featured Profile and Advertiser supporters spreading as much of a good message as we can
Most importantly, though, by marketing with us you're supporting what is good in the community. In order to have those non-for-profits, parents, coaches, community leaders, and everyone else who rarely have a voice to have a voice on the site, we need to charge those who have the means to market their business to market it on the site.
Local
When it comes down to it, there couldn't be a more locally-focused center for good news than ValpoLife.com. We comprehensively cover Valpo and its surrounding area. We have more pictures of local events, way more video than anyone else, 3,700 Facebook fans, 4,000 newsletter recipients, even over 600 people, organizations, and businesses focused on Northwest Indiana contributing to the site-- more than than anyone serving Valpo. And we don't try to be global, it's all local.
If you want to talk to Valpo and you want to learn about Valpo, then come to ValpoLife.com. We are Valpo.
Exclusively positive
This is our favorite aspect of the site. There is no junk on our site, no crime, murder, racism, accidents, corruption, complaining, or anything of the sort. ValpoLife.com is a safe place for you, your family, and friends and neighbors to go to find out about fun, nice people and things to do in Valpo. Getting your story up on the site is free and easy for any non-profit, school, church, coach, mom, dad, kid, volunteer, charity or anyone who truly has a good story to tell.
In short, we're a website that is chock full of good stuff, many of which you likely do not realize is going on, (and even more importantly, those around you do not realize). Help us spread the word about the site by talking to your hubby or your wife, your kids, your parents, team families, church members, business associates, neighbors, mom’s group, friends, etc. You can make a difference in spreading Good News.
Our growth is massively dependent on you – this is your site, your community, your stories. We just need you to share, forward, email, talk about what you saw on the site. Wear your VL gear, advertise, promote your organization, subscribe to our newsletters and "Like" us and our articles on Facebook.
Basically, help us preach the word of ValpoLife - what it is about, why they should check it out, how it serves them if they support it, and how to make it better and better all the time. We've grown incredibly fast through word of mouth and people sharing links, and really we have just scratched the surface. It's all about movement, momentum, and opportunity. We are the whirling dervish of positive and you can help feed this crazy Tornado of Good.