Resources:
Lee Van Roth's Feature Article: New Ypsi DDA website offers free business profiles, event calendar, job board
Ypsilanti Downtown Development Authority (DDA)
Transcription:
Lee Van Roth: You're listening to 89.1 WEMU. I'm Lee Van Roth, and this is On the Ground Ypsi. Finding information about what's happening in downtown Ypsi, where local businesses are hiring, and how residents can get involved in the community is about to get a little easier. The Ypsilanti Downtown Development Authority has launched an updated website that brings business profiles, a community events calendar, job postings, and volunteer opportunities altogether in one place. Today, DDA coordinator Danya Youssef-Agha is here to tell us a little bit more about the new website, how it works, and what the DDA hopes it will mean for the Ypsi business community. Danya, thank you so much for being here today!
Danya Youssef-Agha: Yeah! Of course!
Lee Van Roth: So to start, I'm curious about what brought on this idea from the DDA to do this pretty large overhaul to the DDA website. What brought it on for you guys?
Danya Youssef-Agha: Yeah. So, we were talking within our committees. The DDA is structured with a board that helps guide us. But before the board talks about solutions or actions they want to take, we run them through committees. We have a marketing committee and a district vitality committee and many other committees as well. But I believe the CRM, the customer relationship manager, came out of our marketing committee and just discussion over how many storefronts we have, how many business owners or point of contacts we have at a certain location and how to manage that. So, on our search of finding a CRM that could work for us, we also found a CRM that helps solve a lot of other issues for us. So, we started looking at Locable, and we really liked their design, their ease of use for us and business owners. And we had a few discussions with the Locable team. And then, we decided to bring them on because of their integrative tools for our website of having an event calendar, of having job opportunities and volunteer opportunities and for businesses to kind of create their own page on our website to increase their search optimization.
Lee Van Roth: And speaking of those business pages, I know that there are a handful of businesses within the DDA's jurisdiction that have taken up that opportunity to create their profiles through the website and there's still some work to be done since these updates are still pretty fresh. But what are the kinds of information that businesses are able to share with the community, both with the business community and with the rest of us here in Ypsi? What are you hoping folks are using these tools for?
Danya Youssef-Agha: Yeah. So, if a business claims their page, they're able to kind of make their own profile, their own description, have a link to their website, it will show their Google Maps, their hours, a link to their Facebook or Instagram. And then, they also have the opportunity to include some history about the business and upcoming events and any job postings. So, we're really looking to optimize transparency.
Lee Van Roth: And the job postings aspect of this, too, I thought was pretty interesting, especially since it came from a conversation with folks through the Ypsi Daytime Warming Center over the fall and winter. I'm really interested in what did those conversations look like as far as making these job opportunities a little bit more accessible.
Danya Youssef-Agha: Yeah. So, Elize mostly handled the conversations at the Daytime Warming Shelter, but I've been in conversations as well that were similar with our SHINE team. I don't know if you're aware of our SHINE team. They are a great group of people that we've hired to help keep our downtown areas cleaned. And the program's changing a little bit, but the program is structured now where it's 90-day employment and then resources for people returning from incarceration and a lot of the conversations after their 90-day phase is, "Oh, I'm not sure where to look for a job." So, we're able to have a job listing board that includes city employment, jobs, and businesses in the DDA district that they are also serving. They love our community, so if they're looking for a new job, they're trying to stay in the DDA or in the city, so yeah, just really making it all accessible in one spot. But also, I notice a lot of times job postings can be found primarily on social media. We'll see a lot businesses post if they have openings and this also opens the door for people who don't have social media to look for local jobs that they might not find on LinkedIn or something like that.
Lee Van Roth: And it really sounds like all of these different pieces working together is a really strong--I don't want to say--attempt because it seems like it's pretty successful so far, but a pretty strong attempt at bringing together the all of these different facets of our community. Was that a primary goal of kind of community unification through this as well?
Danya Youssef-Agha: Yeah, absolutely! That's a huge goal of ours is to have transparency with customers and the businesses and the community. So, this kind of links everything together!
Lee Van Roth: You had mentioned the search engine optimization aspect of it as well. I could see that obviously being a way for more businesses to connect with folks in our community, but also outside of our community bringing folks to Ypsi to check out all of the wonderful things that we have going on here. Would you say that that's sort of another piece of that?
Danya Youssef-Agha: Yeah, absolutely! I think people are fighting AI and how it kind of changes the internet, so trying to do things that can increase the click for businesses to get people to their page, to get people to their hours or whatever information they're looking for.
Lee Van Roth: This is On the Ground Ypsi on 89.1 WEMU. I'm talking with Ypsi DDA coordinator Danya Youssef-Agha about the DDA's new and improved website. Danya, this update is still, again, relatively fresh. And I know that the DDA is working with as many businesses as you can to get them to claim profiles, start contributing information, and become a part of this larger network. What has the sort of response been so far of the folks that have come in and claimed their pages?
Danya Youssef-Agha: Yeah, I think their response has been great. Like, we do coffee hours monthly, but we did a kind of a local focus coffee hour last Monday where we had businesses come in and I could show them how to set up their page, how to post jobs and volunteer opportunities or events. And people's feedback were really great. A major thing that was said, time and again, was how easy it was to use, which is really something that we were looking for with this process was the ease of us to help businesses do this, but also for businesses to do it on their own.
Lee Van Roth: You know, it can be challenging sometimes, especially for newer businesses to the area or like family owned businesses, older folks running these, establishments that maybe don't have all of the technological tools that folks may be over at the DDA have. So, I think that's a really wonderful thing to be able to have these open kind of hours for folks to come in and participate again. I think, again, that kind of comes back to that bigger community building, community unification piece, that you had mentioned as well.
Danya Youssef-Agha: Yeah, absolutely.
Lee Van Roth: And as far as businesses that haven't had a chance to claim their page yet, or maybe they're looking forward to a coffee hour like you had mentioned to get some more information about it, would that be the best way for folks to get more information? How do more businesses get involved with this new process?
Danya Youssef-Agha: Yeah. So, we're sending out emails just to remind people we'll be setting up more coffee hours for businesses to come in if they have any questions, if they need any help setting up the page. And then, I'll be on the ground going door-to-door to businesses that haven't signed up after we've kind of given them this period to do it themselves. And then, of course, some businesses, they're busy or they've got other things going on, so we'll set up the page for them eventually. But we're really giving the businesses the chance to take ownership on that part of it.
Lee Van Roth: Well, Danya, I want to thank you so much for joining me today and for walking us through this platform, this new platform, a little bit to connect Ypsi businesses with other community members with each other and with the DDA. Any way to strengthen our local businesses, I think, is a overall plus--any way we can keep Ypsi thriving. And I think the DDA seems to be doing a pretty good job at that.
Danya Youssef-Agha: Well, thank you! I appreciate it! And we appreciate the report on it, too, because it just helps get businesses aware of what we've got going on.
Lee Van Roth: For more on today's conversation and a link to the full article, visit our website at WEMU.org. On the Ground Ypsi is brought to you in partnership with Concentrate Media. I'm Lee Van Roth, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU, Ypsilanti.
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