Our digital world, much like our real world, is continuously changing. Sometimes rapidly, but oftentimes it is so gradual and staggered that we simply adapt without realizing. Small steps quickly head toward something.
If you have checked out Main Street Monroe online in the past year, you have more likely than not found and explored our Facebook page. I also hope our new Instagram page has taken a bit of your time. And while both are social media, our Facebook page has been the source of information for all of our LIVE! events, holiday open house, and new business openings — like our pop up shop: Busy Bee Floral & Gift.
Our Instagram is geared towards the beauty of the district and snapshots into life in downtown Monroe: from the tasty pick me up dinner on a Thursday to fall color and our murals. Much like everyone and everything in the digital world, the precursor to all of this was our website.
Our website presence first started in 2005; the year we became an organization. It had seen a bit of an overhaul in 2015, but, aside from routine maintenance, it hadn’t been updated. When we first found ourselves upside down the first part of this year, it became apparent that the tried and true foundation of digital world, our website, painfully needed an overhaul. We asked ourselves a series of questions: Why were we still maintaining a website? What were people going to mainstreetmonroe.org for? What do we like in a website?
Our answers to those questions are that we are maintaining a website to give you as much information about our world as you want. This information ranges from volunteer opportunities to our Four Point Approach and board of directors to our virtual walking tours and a list of businesses in the district. There are multiple categories so that you may find exactly the right business. This includes late night eats, breakfast, insurance services, health and wellness, home décor, specialty gifts, and fashion, to name a few.
I am excited — like excited should be in all caps — that as we arrived at those answers, we decided to completely relaunch our website. It has genuinely been a labor of love that has taken nearly three months. What was the motivation behind it more specifically? Our motivation is the purpose of a website. And that is, that we designed it for you. I feel safe in saying that our new website is user friendly, and navigation is intuitive whether you’re on a desktop or your phone, it’s colorful, loaded with information, but only when and how you want it. It’s simple, faster than ever, and loaded with imagery.
As you check out the different pages, you will also notice that our newer logo and its digital elements are the basis of everything. It’s modern and fresh, but still symbolic and reflective of Monroe. We want to thank the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (to which we report) for providing the resources for these new branding materials. The process of creating a new website itself first and foremost had to start with the talent to actually create it. No cats out of the bag moment here, but I was not that person. I am super happy to say we had someone locally create it, though. This involved technical skills, but also an eye for aesthetics, digital content, and an understanding about who we are and we who serve.
So while our Facebook and Instagram pages are not going anywhere, we want to better connect all of you to everything Main Street; especially as your Christmas shopping and planning for the holidays and end of the year kicks into another gear. And while we may have to spend some more time social distancing and second guessing who said hello to us from behind those ever-present light blue masks, there is nothing stopping us from interacting and linking you to the hundreds of businesses that make up our district all from one link: www.mainstreetmonroe.org. Please check it out and let us know what you think. It’s waiting for you.
— Jordan Nordby is the executive director for Main Street Monroe. He can be reached at MonroeMainStreet@tds.net.
