Old St. Vital BIZ
230K+ views, a rebuilt website and a 500-person anniversary summer
- Social media management
- Website
- Event campaigns
The Old St. Vital BIZ represents the businesses along St. Mary's and St. Anne's Road. It had a 30th anniversary summer to put on, sponsors to thank, 160+ member businesses to promote and a website that wasn't doing its job. I was the one person doing the marketing, so I did all three.
Marketing was the smaller part of the job. Most of my hours were hands-on work out on the street, like graffiti removal and the flower planters. Everything on this page fit into the time left over.
01 Social media management
The result first: 230K+ views and 210+ new followers on Facebook and Instagram from April to September 2026. Facebook views went up 1,300%, and 93% of views came from people who didn't follow the page.
A member spotlight series, so every business got its turn, not just the loudest ones. Many went out as Instagram collab posts with the business, so they reached its followers too.
Sponsor carousels and event graphics in Canva, built to the brand guidelines I wrote, so every post looked like it came from the same place.
Adjusted as I went. I tracked every post in Meta Business Suite and changed format, timing and messaging based on what reached people. The two that reached the most: spotlights on new stores, and event posters.
Two new-member spotlights: Secret Point (May 2026) and Indee Room (July 2026).
Source: Meta Business Suite, April 1 to September 30, 2026. The 1,300% compares Facebook views with the months before I started.
02 Website
I redesigned oldstvitalbiz.com and rebuilt its directory of 181 businesses, so anyone can find a local business by type. The old site looked out of date, didn't match the BIZ's branding, and the directory was a mess.
Before: the old homepage, April 2025 (from the Internet Archive).
After: the new homepage.
Rewrote every page, listing and event posting in the same structure, with on-page SEO, so the directory reads cleanly and nobody looks forgotten.
Wrote the BIZ's brand guidelines and applied them across web, print and social, so the site and the campaigns feel like one organization.
The rebuilt directory.
03 Event campaigns
The result first: over 500 people came out across the summer. The year before, the BIZ's two events drew about 40 and 20.
The BIZ turned 30, so the whole summer was built around it. Five events with 15+ sponsors: an opening ceremony, a summer market (the biggest), Music in the Park, Wrestling in the Park and a closing ceremony.
I promoted each one to members and residents, made the graphics, and coordinated sponsor deliverables, timelines and on-site logistics, including evenings and weekends.
Left: the Summer Market poster. Right: Music in the Park, June 2026.
04 The rest of the job
Most of my days were out on St. Mary's and St. Anne's: removing graffiti and looking after the flower planters. I turned that work into posts too, so members knew the free graffiti removal existed.
