Sydenham Road Traders online

[Tim Lund]

Lots of us think about how to help Sydenham Road as a Town Centre and put forward ideas here online and elsewhere - for example these recent posts

• High Streets and Markets
• Get Sydenham High St on the television (Appeal)
• Kirkdale Pop Up Feedback & Next Steps workshop

My starting point has always been the development of reliable, maintainable datasets, relevant to existing and potential businesses, but this has to take account of what is developing anyway thanks to the power of non-local internet businesses. Most obvious of these is Google, so when involved in discussions about setting up a Sydenham Traders' web site, I have not been keen on trying to produce our own local map, rather than piggy-backing off whatever can be derived from Google. The model our former Town Centre manager always had in mind was this from Southsea in Hampshire, but if you follow the links through, it is clearly not very up to date, and looks amateurish to me.

Google itself doesn't yet have the complete up-to-date coverage that it will be aiming for, but I noticed yesterday just from entering an address on Sydenham Road into Google maps that it's getting there



Click on this image to go to the actual Google maps page, and then click on the various icons - such as I have done for Trat Raff - for what must now be, and will remain for some time I guess, the best guide to Sydenham Road Traders online.

For me, the bottom line is that any serious initiatives to promote Sydenham Road must use this dataset, encouraging businesses to get themselves on it, not trying to reinvent wheels. And it should be supplemented with further data sets - e.g. demographics and feeds from other sites, not least the Sydenham Town Forum!

[Manwithaview1]

Some places have twitter accounts and they tweet latest specials/events etc.

[Tim Lund]

Some places have twitter accounts and they tweet latest specials/events etc.

Good point - are there will be plenty more bits of data which could be brought together.

[leenewham]

Like this:

https://twitter.com/inmuswellhill

Which also links to this:

http://www.facebook.com/inmuswellhill

The identity links it with shopping bags, signage, magazines, events etc.

We are working on the website later.

[Manwithaview1]

Some places have twitter accounts and they tweet latest specials/events etc.

Good point - are there will be plenty more bits of data which could be brought together.

There is a tweetsDulwich account which pools info from local traders to tweet to the public and follows and ReTweets other local businesses which also have their own twitter feeds.

Even Jack's Cafe in SE22 has a twitter account so size of business doesn't matter. I wonder if Lewisham Council would fund an initiative like this, so someone could canvass every local business to see if they would join in. The more getting involved can only be good for all concern.

[leenewham]

I agree, it must have information such as local demographics, buying habits, it would be good get some surveys done for the area etc Other traders groups, BIS and councils are doing this in other areas.

[Manwithaview1]

I agree, it must have information such as local demographics, buying habits, it would be good get some surveys done for the area etc Other traders groups, BIS and councils are doing this in other areas.

Not even established businesses like Kirkdale Bookshop have a twitter account, which I found surprising. So many people would use their events more if they were advertised better and twitter etc are all free. The time to send out the info isn't but no advertising is absolutely free.

[leenewham]

I'd value Facebook over Twitter, but you can link you facebook account to twitter so it automatically posts everything you write on facebook.

This very forum does a similar thing, the posts automatically appear on twitter.

Quite a few local businesses have Facebook accounts (we set up Trattorias) and social media payed a big part in publicising the arts festival, library campaign, home park etc. It's definitely worth doing.