Night Time Activity is Crucial to Active, Vibrant Downtown

I often talk about downtown Elizabethton in my column, but the reasoning is that there is so much potential to see it grow and prosper even more than it does now. Nightlife is one area where this is very true. Right now, many businesses close up shop around 5:00 or 6:00pm. While we certainly encourage our retail businesses to stay open until 6:00, restaurants and entertainment venues could benefit our downtown by staying open even later.

Having attractive businesses and establishments open at night helps create a social culture within our community. Humans are social creatures and we are drawn to social locations. Adding a nightlife atmosphere to our downtown will be attractive to others in and outside of our community. Now, when I say nightlife, what I am not suggesting is turning downtown into a huge block party every evening, but rather having entertainment and food places open and available after 6:00pm for people to get together, meet-up, or make new friends. Think more of the family-friendly nightlife of Kingsport or Bristol rather than the college night-life of Johnson City. You can enjoy a nice meal, watch a local band, and maybe get a cup of coffee or tea at the end of the evening all within close walking distance. Oh, and don’t forget to drop a dollar in the street performer’s violin case!

These types of nightlife activities also cultivate and encourage downtown placemaking. I’ve talked about placemaking before, but this is a multi-pronged approach to creating a public environment or space that promotes citizen’s happiness and well-being. There may be street vendors, street performers, or restaurants serving food to customers on the sidewalk, but all of these contribute to an energetic, vibrant, attractive space to simply visit and be a part of. Having options for citizens to stay local during a weekend evening out, or if you’re just looking for a change one weekday evening, helps our community, local businesses, local economy, and helps create a sense of place unique to our small city.  Having a downtown nightlife cultivates the placemaking concept in our downtown atmosphere.

Similar to placemaking, nightlife helps identify our downtown at a third place. A third place is somewhere you choose to be and desire to go. Unlike the first two places – home and work – a third place is somewhere unique to you, somewhere of your choosing that you desire to be a part of. As downtown nightlife grows, it starts to become that “place” people go. It becomes your “hang-out” location for you, your spouse, or your friends. Downtown Bristol has, in my opinion, excellently captured and identified itself as a third place.

The more activities we have downtown after 6:00pm, the more we will see our downtown revitalize. As energy builds, others (including developers) will want to be a part of the vibrancy and excitement. This all starts, however, with changes in city policies, businesses willing to make the change, and property owners willing to make the investment. One alone cannot have the impact needed, but working together we can make downtown what we desire. Let’s talk about it!

Getting Online is no Long Optional for Small Business

Each year we hear and see more and more people going online to purchase everyday products and holiday or specialty gifts. Online shopping has become so prevalent and important to businesses, that Cyber Monday is quickly closing in on Black Friday for holiday shopping. In fact, the number of online consumer sales grow by almost 3.5% to 4% every year. As customers’ demands and desires change, so must our small businesses. Having an online presence is no longer an option for a small business that plans to be around in 10-20 years – it is a requirement.

I have talked in the past about making sure your small businesses is listed on Google Maps and has a Facebook page. While these two things are important to help your small business effectively and successfully market itself, these have quickly become the standard. An online presence is becoming a must rather than a plus.

Fortunately, the demand for easy, user-friendly website design has created many new services that make creating a website for your small business as easy as designing a flyer in Microsoft Word. Some award winning options include Webs.com, Weebly.com, and Wix.com – don’t ask me why they all begin with “W”! All of these sites allow a small business to create a great looking website in a matter of a few hours with no previous programming or website design experience necessary. If you can use Microsoft Word, you can create a website for your small business. You can even sell your product on your website with all three of these services! The best part is you can create your website and sell the products online for less than $170 per year making these options hard to pass up.

Having an online presence also expands your customer base. No longer can you only sell to customers who live within driving distance of your business. You can now sell anywhere in the world!

The Tennessee Small Business Development Centers have a location at ETSU. They offer training and can help you in marketing your website as well as other online and web elements such as Google’s Ad Words, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. They can also help you decide what content to put on your website in order to make the biggest impact. They have helped many small businesses in Elizabethton such as Greg’s Pizza and all of this training and advice is absolutely free!

If your small business isn’t listed on Google Maps, you don’t have a Facebook page or a website, it’s time to get started! You could get your small business online in all three formats with no more of a time commitment than a Saturday afternoon. Contact me for help or assistance or feel free to contact the SBDC at ETSU directly. We want to see small businesses grow and succeed in our City and our County. Let’s talk about it!