When you think about it, Main Street is an easy sell. Supporting local merchants, caring for older buildings, and maintaining community character all have a feel-good quality; instinctively they’re the right things to do. And the community of volunteers and stakeholders who make it happen  sell it the best.  With inexpensive technology and free hosting sites such as YouTube and Facebook, video is a great way to let them do it. Here are three examples from around Virginia:

• Down at the Virginia-Tennessee border, Virginia Main Street affiliate Believe in Bristol used video to let some of the downtown merchants do the talking and gave a downtown Bristol tour.
• Staunton put a quick and detailed face on the merchandise offered by merchants participating in their after-hours campaign last September, and they archived the video on Facebook.
• Downtown Blackstone, Inc. highlighted the dramatic changes in their ongoing revitalization through a recent Community Development Block Grant in the video, “Virginia Main Street Changes Take Over Blackstone, Virginia”.

If you’re not quite ready to line up a local production team, but you still want to incorporate some a video-based message on your site, consider embedding this “Shop Main Street” video from the National Trust Main Street Center.  And for a statewide look at Main Street, the 25th anniversary slideshow is online.

Send Doug links to your video efforts and we’ll incorporate them as examples in our ongoing Main Street Media initiative.