4.1 TERSR 07-19-2021Community Business and Employee Appreciation Week!
August 23-27
Show your Together Elk River Spirit by sharing your appreciation for local businesses and their
employees!
Why this? Give our residents and visitors an opportunity to support our local economy and say thanks to
local business for all they do to make our community great; highlight community businesses beyond
retail and restaurants.
• Our local business could use some positive feedback and words of encouragement right now.
• We can showcase why these businesses are someplace you’d want to work.
• Expose people to business they don’t know about yet, highlight service oriented local offerings
(ie you don’t have to drive to the next town over find a yoga studio, a physical therapist, a great
cup of coffee, or car repair shop)
• Help people tell their friends and neighbors about businesses they need to discover
• Support not only the businesses, but the awesome people that make the business what they are
• Encourage kindness
Budget and Staffing needs from the City
• Funding to purchase prizes (at least 10, more would be better)
• Digital and print advertising
o Print flyers
o Purchase newspaper ad and digital advertising
• Create a QR code, phone number, and email address to use, plus staff to monitor these
• Social media posts for 2 weeks prior, week of and week after
We’d like to highlight businesses on social media for two weeks prior to the event. Ideally two
businesses per day, so 28 businesses. If they would like to be highlighted, we’d ask them to submit a
photo for us to use (could be their building, their staff, their product—whatever they’d like), as well as
some talking points that may or may not be used in the post. If there are more than 28 businesses
interested, the Chamber could help fill in, or we could have a random drawing to determine which
businesses will be highlighted.
Each day of Spirit Week, people and businesses can share about employees and businesses they
appreciate. From each day’s posts, one winner will be drawn at random to receive a prize basket with
swag and gift cards for local businesses. The person that submitted the entry will receive a basket AND
the person or business they thanked will ALSO receive a gift! The business or employee recipient will be
featured in a post (maybe the following week?). We want people to share their appreciation on
Facebook or Instagram, so others can see it, but nominations can also be submitted via QR code, text or
email.
Ideas:
Show some extra love: share a pic of you making a purchase at your favorite store, enjoying a meal at a
favorite restaurant, or participating in a group event.
Tell your friends: recommend local service providers and let us know why you love them
**still want to encourage them to patronize local businesses, not just talk about them
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Businesses: Tell us about your neighbors, your awesome team, and the local businesses that your
business patronizes!