MEDICINE PARK – The Medicine Park Economic Development Authority’s current agreement with Gary Gregory, a contractor who manages the Discover Medicine Park page on Facebook, will end next month.
At Gregory’s request, the board voted 4-0 May 9 to cancel his existing contract effective June 1. Gregory will draw up a new proposal for promoting events and submit it to the board for consideration.
The board was scheduled to discuss renewing Gregory’s contract for another year, an item that has been on the agenda for several months. But the board combined that item with a separate conversation about whether the board should recruit another influencer to promote the town on social media platforms, including Instagram and TikTok.
The Discover Medicine Park page belongs to Gregory, not the board. But board member Noel Alsbrook said he thought the board should be responsible for any additional social media accounts.
“We need to own our own social media accounts, long term, and other marketing,” he said. “And then contract people who do marketing for it, is my position.” Promoting events Gregory’s original contract called for him to create 10 Facebook posts for MPEDA each month, but the contract was revised to require him to post one item each day about local businesses, Alsbrook said. He said the board later decided that it was only interested in promoting the town, not individual businesses, and reworked Gregory’s contract accordingly.
'We adjusted it to what we have now, which is a minimum of 20 posts a month featuring MPEDA events and other announcements,” Alsbrook said. “In my mind, we reduced the posts by half because we went from a potential 40 posts a month to 20.”
Alsbrook said the board originally paid Gregory $300 a month to promote special events, but the fee later increased to $300 per month plus $200 per event. But when Alsbrook looked at the board’s budget, he was concerned about how the board could afford to create its own marketing.
“I know we’re going to have to increase the budget, but we’re still limited on how much we can increase,” he said.
Alsbrook proposed an arrangement in which the board would pay Gregory to promote the town’s five major music festivals on the Discover Medicine Park page, at the rate of $200 per festival. He said that would open up some money for other marketing efforts.
Gregory said a contract that limits him to promoting music festivals would require a different approach than an agreement that allows him to promote other events as well.
“I would have to create a scope of work for each event and give that to you,” he said. “And you make a decision whether ‘Hey, we think that’s a good deal’ or ‘We don’t think it is.’” Social media coordinator On a related topic, the board discussed finding someone to manage the town’s social media accounts but did not take action.
Gregory said managing just one social media account is a full-time job that involves promoting events, filming them and producing promotional materials.
I could be wrong, but I think what you’re looking at is if you have somebody running town social media, it’s going to be a position that would be a salaried position,” he said.