Penn State Wilkes-Barre students have been involved in the America’s Best Communities competition!

As their semester project, Terry Clemente’s Contemporary Business Skills class at Penn State Wilkes-Barre have been educating and engaging local businesses, non-profits, community members, and other colleges students about the America’s Best Communities Competition and our community revitalization plans and goals.

The 12 students in the class were divided into three groups, and each group was assigned a personalized hashtag (#PSU1, #PSU2, and #PSU3) to promote some friendly competition and allow students to track their progress through social media. Each team was responsible for developing their own education and social media engagement strategy for ABC, which they would then implement throughout the semester.

Students were given suggestion lists of local businesses, non-profits, community events, and surrounding higher education institutions to reach out to about the Wilkes-Barre’s plans for the ABC campaign, and were encouraged to connect with organizations and individuals from their own networks as well.

The students sent emails, made phone calls, arranged meetings, and set up outreach tables throughout the community to spread the word about America’s Best Communities, and to engage local organizations and community members through social media. People were encouraged to show their support on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by using the ABC50 hashtag. Many have responded featuring pictures of their businesses with our America’s Best Communities signs, “selfies” with these signs, or text posts about the competition. The students themselves have developed countless posts to promote ABC, and one group has even developed a Facebook page for The City of Wilkes-Barre’s ABC campaign.

The student’s efforts have been responsible for over 300 posts, with approximately 3,300 additional engagements through likes, shares, and comments.

They have truly connected with and inspired our community, and have made our community excited about being one of America’s Best Communities!