WEST LAFAYETTE – Purdue University’s Brian Lamb School of Communication students are the first to start utilizing iFrontdoor’s programs to help Indiana’s small rural communities improve their existing online presence. Rushville is one of the first communities to participate and community partners are excited to aid in the student’s capstone learning. The students spent a semester working alongside Rushville to benefit them and are eager to present a campaign specifically for their town.
“This a great opportunity for students to gain hands on public relations experience while also helping a small Indiana community with their communications needs,” Brian Smith, associate professor of communication in the Brian Lamb School, said.
Students conducted an online audit of the community and discovered Rushville was being perceived positively and had the opportunity to grow even further. Rushville has already begun efforts to promote themselves online but were excited for the opportunity to have future public relations professionals to assist them in their work. The Purdue students focused their efforts on helping the local businesses expand their online and social media presence, which would then boost Rushville’s search engine optimization making them easier to find by tourists and others coming to the area. This group of students created a social media guide that can be used by all local business owners to promote their contributions to the city. They also created a training program with materials for Rushville to present to any local businesses so they can get direct feedback.
For the final touch, the students are creating materials to help encourage the Rushville community members to be tag and use hashtags. In return, this will bring positive social media traffic for major Rushville websites.