Use Todayville.com to tell the community how your business has adapted and what new products or services you’re offering.  

Share your story with Todayville.  And Todayville shares it with the community. Click below to access an easy to use form.  Fill it out and click SUBMIT. 

 As an example, we’ll share our own story, below.  We know there are a lot of businesses that may not be able to change their model.  But there are some who are, and we want to feature them. They are the heroes of our time.  They inform us, they feed us, they help us keep our homes running properly, all in an era of social distancing.

Today we’re starting this series off by telling our own story.  We invite you to tell us all a bit about yourself.

By Lloyd Lewis, President of Todayville, Inc.

Business Name:  Todayville Inc.

Contact: Duane Rolheiser 403-350-1155 or Lloyd Lewis 780-232-2863 — email [email protected] (monitored continuously)

What does your business do?

We have created a platform that allows everyone to have a voice and share information on an open platform. Our focus is this community and we create and publish stories that are unique and help inform. We also have regular contributors, including local businesses, who publish interesting and informative content about their companies and organizations. Todayville is an open platform that is not restricted to your group of followers.

There is no subscription fee.  We offer advertising and brand storytelling to help our clients (business, charities, and other organizations) increase their exposure in the region. Having a well-told story is key to marketing today, and our stories are easy to share in social media.  These are published within a mix of other stories of interest to the community. We are also an affiliate of Canadian Press and provides an up-to-date stream of provincial, national and international stories. This cross-pollination of stories in one place helps to break down the information echo chambers that many of us live in by bringing stories to diverse audiences who may not otherwise see them.

We’d encourage people to REGISTER on Todayville.com and write their own stories, or promote their events, meetings, gatherings, etc. Once registered, we review the registration and in no time, you’ll be able to post a story or an event direclty onto our site. Here’s our story.

How has COVID-19 affected you?

It’s affected us in a number of ways.  Our clients are local businesses, all of whom are struggling to pay their employees and keep them safe, pay their rent, renegotiate with suppliers, find supply chains to replace others that may have collapsed during this period, literally so may things that are more important than marketing and telling their story.

On the other hand, we have seen inredible increases in people coming to our site. Our footprint has been increasing continuously since we launched in the fall of 2016.  Covid-19 has created a new interest in current events.  We’ve also seen intense interest in local stories since we launched.   Trusted sources are suddenly becoming more and more important when lives are at stake.  We’ve worked really hard to be a good actor.  Our team has decades of experience in traditional news and media organizations, including CTV, Global, and CBC.  Both Duane and I have long histories in Red Deer.  I started my career in TV here in 1981 and have had a relationship with this market for almost 4 decades.  Duane started working here in 1992 as a reporter and has lived and raised a family here. We have both been really involved in this community for a long time.  This gives us a pretty deep understanding of this city and the people who live here. We want to help.

What are you doing to adapt?

We are doing a LOT more online meetings. If done properly, we’re finding them very effective.  Our focus right now is about helping our community communicate with one another and support one another.  We want to be inspirational and help promote how others are finding ways to adapt (where possible) and change course in a way that allows them to survive.

What kind of help do you need?

We want people to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.  We share the most relevant stories on our site to social media.  You can also bookmark our site so that we’re easy to find.  We want stories.  We also need businesses who want to take advantage of this period to advertise or send a message of hope to the community.  Some businesses will flourish during this time.  Others will struggle.  We have significant traffic on our site and if you have the means to promote yourself, now is a great time to do it.  We will provide really good value.  Also, tell your own story. We’d encourage people to REGISTER on Todayville.com and create content that can be read, enjoyed and considered by the entire community.  Our audience, this community, wants to hear your story.  It’s a way of bringing the community together.

What do you want the community to know?

We are a local business that started right here in Red Deer.  Our stories are generating tens of thousands of views each day.  If you want to tell your story or advertise your products and reach a wider audience, there is no better time! We want to help this community. We have been a part of it for decades.  Your story may be just the inspiration our readers need.  We’d love to help you tell your story. You can call me directly at 780-232-2863.  Duane is available at 403.350-1155.

If you want to publish a story, simply register and once approved, it’s a pretty simple process.  Here are some examples of “feature images” that you’ll want for your story. Try to create your thumbnail in a 16×9 format.  It should be a .JPG no more than about 200kb in size.  Online tools such as Canva make this pretty simple to do.

Let us know how we can help!  Click here to email us directly.

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