Sabetha Chamber of Commerce

Manufacturing Day Social Post

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The routine assignment — Record Manufacturing Day and produce another recap.

 

The question — “What do you hope to accomplish?”

 

The real opportunity — Make influential people recognize Sabetha’s manufacturing importance.

 

The new approach — Create a timely social package, a reusable promotion, and material that could be sent to the governor and Mike Rowe.

 

The result — Immediate content and a stronger promotional asset; no response from Rowe to date.

 

The lesson — Discover the objective behind the deliverable—and take the worthwhile shot.

 

In the past Wenger had always sent a camera or two to record Manufacturing Day in Sabetha, Kansas.  From what I understood, they would edit a recap video and send it to the Sabetha Chamber of Commerce which facilitates the event.  

 

Wenger is the largest manufacturing facility in Sabetha, but there are a handful of other companies that were started by former Wenger employees who found another need in agricultural business and decided to use what they learned breaking off on their own.  

One of the statistics I learned at the pre-event lunch meeting was the population of Sebetha doubles when the manufacturing employees come to work. I myself, commuted an hour each way. 

 

After the information was presented at the lunch meeting, I asked one important question to Cindy Alderfer – president of the Sabeha Chamber of Commerce. "What do you hope to accomplish from the video we're putting together?"  She had a quick reply, and I speculated that no one from Wenger had ever asked this question. 

"Generally, the governor doesn't even attend this event and we would like his office to take it more seriously. With all of the revenue our small town generates, you would think this event would be covered more."  

 

Then another woman spoke up who was also an employee of the chamber and added that a relative of hers had received a scholarship from one of Mike Rowe's programs. 

 

I immediately thought of a way to connect to someone who could make the event more important. If I could send a presentation to host of Dirty Jobs, and he covered the event, the chamber might get their wish. And even if not, the package I created would play on social media and a link to the piece could be emailed to the Kansas governor and anyone else. 

 

I then took it upon myself to publicize the event on social media directly after it occurred and the chamber could use the package to promote next year's Manufacturing Day. I also found Mike Rowe's contact information and sent him a copy of the package.