The Harlan Daily Enterprise (HDE), Middlesboro Daily News and Claiborne Progress Regional General Manager Alexander Gould was a guest speaker at a meeting of the Harlan Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. Gould said various forms of technological or digital multimedia, now being embraced by local newspapers, will enhance the readers experience, making it easier and faster to convey information. Examples range from websites such as harlandaily.com to actually holding a newspaper in your hand.

“There are a lot of other things we do (as a newspaper) that you as a business community need to be made aware of,” said Gould. “There is information we can share with you as business partners to help you be successful as well as us being successful too. We want to be good business partners. We want to engage — have dialog with our community like never before.”

Gould went on to say engaging the community is a two-way street.

“We’re not all knowing,” said Gould. “We don’t know everybody and we don’t know everything. So, if you know a story, have a story or think you have a story, I strongly suggest you pick up the phone and call Debbie (Caldwell), Nola (Sizemore), Joe (Asher) or John (Middleton).We may not take everything, we just may not be staffed to do it, but we may say if you want to go and take pictures of an event, we’ll be happy to get it on our website. That is one of the biggest changes in our industry, we’re more willing to take outside contacts like never before.”

Gould reminded everyone if they have an upcoming event the need to call in advance is vital. He said the newspaper is limited in resources and the more they plan ahead, the more HDE staff may plan ahead in order to help them. Gould said there are other things the newspaper industry does besides providing news to help the community.

“We do a community directory each year that is mailed to homes,” said Gould. “We have a printing facility in Middlesboro. So, if there is stuff you want done for your own businesses or events you are going to, we can do commercial printing. We can help with website creation and design. We know media — content creation. We know advertising. Those are things we’re good at. If you want higher rankings on Google, I can help you with that. Our sales people can help you do that. If you want to get into social media, we can help you with that. We do tourist magazines. We have other printing solutions, other products, if you want to change the way your message appears.”

Gould suggested looking at long-term solutions — planning ahead. He said more and more businesses are recognizing the tremendous benefits and responsiveness that multimedia generates when used as an advertising medium and marketing strategy.

“For example, in the last 30 days harlandaily.com did 32,284 unique visits and 314,793 page views. More people continue to get media through their tablets, iphone, laptop to their own home personal computer,” said Gould. “From a digital point of view, as you’re thinking about marketing yourself — where you need to be, for every dollar spent on the Internet, five of those dollars are spent off-line on products and services that were influenced by an online research. If you don’t have an online presence, you’re making a mistake. An avid digital person who has a cell phone, a laptop, tablet and TV, on average changes their media 27 times in 30 minutes. If you’re not putting your marketing in more than one place, you’re making a mistake.”

Reach Nola Sizemore at 606-573-4510 or at nsizemore@heartlandpublications.com