Promposal takes acn #Ruralviral

​More than 1,000 shares on Instagram courtesy of Cosmopolitan is a pretty big deal, especially for a Northeast Nebraska media.
 
So how did the Antelope County News hit #bonuslevel on social media with more than 1,000 shares on Cosmopolitan to become #ruralviral? Well, hashtags.
 
Last Thursday, Cosmopolitan & Seventeen Magazine featured ACN’s Instagram post in their "15 Seriously Cute Promposals Any Girl Can Pull Off."  The post featuring Neligh-Oakdale seniors Damon Arehart and Chase Vleck via the Antelope County News has now gone viral, and has been shared almost 1,000 times.
 
So why is this such a big deal? Well, come on – it’s Cosmopolitan, Seventeen Magazine and Neligh, Nebraska … but really, it’s all about strategic social media. Social media is the one thing that can bring like-minded individuals and businesses together around the world within just one click of a hashtag.
 
Hashtags group similar ideas, discussions and topics to a single thread, which makes it an efficient avenue for individuals to search for compatible content. Hashtags also allow content to be more easily seen by others on social media and search engines. For ACN, the hashtag #promposal took the Instagram post from small town to big city in less than 10 days.
 
National attention obviously is a pretty big deal when you are coming from a small rural community, but what’s even more important to ACN is that we engaged with a younger generation that is sometimes hard to reach. Over a single post on Instagram, our reach and engagement went through the roof.
 
In fact, ACN is one of the few media outlets in Nebraska to reach consumers via Instagram – the platform that enabled all the hype. Instagram is one of the hottest social media platforms available. If it wasn’t for Instagram and our #promposal, we wouldn’t have made Cosmopolitan or Seventeen Magazine.
 
ACN has come to show that social media is a very powerful tool. In fact, it might be the most powerful tool in the box. However, it is only powerful if you use it strategically and resourcefully -  by hashtagging items that are related to the content you are sharing, sharing on multiple avenues of social media, not just the mainstream Facebook and Twitter, and encouraging engagement throughout posts.
 
We let social media and hashtags take us to the #bonuslevel and #ruralviral. Pitzer Digital could do the same for you. 

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