Learn What’s Up in West Chester

Brad Warm and Jillian Kelley of Merge Social Media and What’s Up West Chester

Feel like you’re out of the loop with things to do and places to go in your community? A new online resource will tell you what’s up.

What’s Up West Chester, launched in June 2013, features events and businesses from the West Chester and Liberty Township, Ohio, areas.

The site was founded by two friends and business associates – Brad Warm, founder of Merge Social Media, and Jillian Kelley, sales and marketing manager for Merge Social Media – who volunteered their time to create a better solution for connecting community members with events.

Warm has 15 years of small business and digital marketing experience. In 2012, he started Merge Social Media to help small- to medium-sized businesses with their social media, graphic and web design, logos and business card printing. For the past year, Kelley has been the Sales and Marketing Manager for Merge Social Media.

“In 2008, Kelley started volunteering for numerous community organizations and working with small business on their branding and marketing,” says Warm. “She also has 20 years of large corporation experience in sales and marketing for Kraft Foods.”

With community involvement with the West Chester Liberty Chamber Alliance, the Community Foundation, and the West Chester Police Department, Warm says this makes Kelley the perfect person to help spearhead the What’s Up West Chester initiative.

Warm’s expertise with websites, logos, graphics and social media gives them the experience and resources necessary to launch and manage the site. In fact, they’re currently posting on a daily basis to let everyone know “What’s Up West Chester.”

“The biggest success so far has been growing the [Facebook] page to over 3,200 fans in less than two months,” Warm adds. “The community has really responded to having all their community’s information and events in one place on the web.”

The inspiration for starting the page was that Kelley and Warm’s personal Facebook accounts were starting to look like billboards because they were advertising for so many events. They wanted to create a community page for all of this information. “It is great to see the community get involved with the page by sharing, commenting and engaging, not only the page, but each other,” explains Warm. “The organic growth in such little time is very inspiring to see how much the community can get involved when they are given the information.”

They post everything from local farmer’s markets to concerts. New business grand openings and attractions are also featured. In addition, businesses can purchase advertisements on the site to further highlight their events, sales or brand.

On the horizon, keep your eyes open for other “What’s Up” community pages coming soon. To learn more about Merge Social Media, visit www.mergesocialmedia.com. To stay connected with What’s Up West Chester, visit www.whatsupwc.com and like their Facebook page to keep updated.

Photo courtesy of: Len Kaltman