#MediaMonday – Local Lily
Each Monday, we are posting a blog to help our readers get to know the media just a little bit better.
With a TWIST!
No, we aren’t posting story pitch tips or media lists, but instead great stories from the media themselves about their lives, their work and other little known facts! Think of it as your first “networking” opportunity of the week!
Today’s #MediaMonday comes to us from LocalLily.com.
So, Beth & Brandi, time to share!
What do you want to tell the blogosphere about yourself today?
We love the European lifestyle…minus the terrible water pressure. Boutique shopping, outdoor markets, restaurants where owners greet you at your table-businesses that you wouldn’t necessarily know were there except that as you’re strolling down a cobblestone street, you happen to peek in. Character. Intimacy.
But that’s a tall order in this town. Between big box monster malls and speeding down the road at 45 miles an hour, sequestered in your car, how are we expected to find these hidden gems?
We wanted our lives to be filled with more inspiration, more good food and good drink, shops with unique character that connect us with our community and our neighbors who run them.
So we began looking for a resource online that shared these exceptional ‘mom and pop shops’ where quality is paramount.
But we couldn’t find one. So we created it: LocalLily.com
‘Lily’, the character we created who writes the blog, is that friend ‘in the know’ who shares her favorite recommendations for the best locally owned places to Eat, Shop and Experience AZ. Think Katherine Hepburn meets Audrey Hepburn.
Through great pictures, a few lines about her experience and all the info needed to discover those hidden gems, Lily gives us the opportunity to get out of our cars and uncover what makes the valley great.
We strive to be Lily in our real lives, but truthfully neither of us are. Only Lily, Kate and Audrey could be that perfect.
LocalLily.com seems to have struck a chord. It wasn’t just the two of us who were looking for something more out of living here. Lily gets emails asking pointed questions-from locals and tourists, comments on the blog, suggestions of places Lily should go and business owners who appreciate our mission and want to collaborate with us.
Our readers see Lily as a person they can connect with and want to live in her world. Who wouldn’t??
We started out with the intention of connecting more with our community. Not only have we accomplished that, but we’ve ended up building a community of our own in the process.
Recently on Media Monday, Katarina Kovacevic was featured and she said something that resonated with us:
“’…we can’t keep denying this one simple fact: consumers have limited funds and they would rather spend their money on quality products with a lot of value…At a conference I attended recently, a futurist by the name of Faith Popcorn said something that really stuck with me: “Consumers buy brands. Human beings join brands.” Perfect. Now, what do we do with this information?We think Local Lily has figured out the answer to that question: create a brand people want to join and help consumers find the brands to buy.
After the successful launch of our free, downloadable guides, LocalLily.com’s Guide to an AZ Summer that doesn’t SUCK and LocaLily.com’s FALLiday Guide (available online now), we continue on with our next seasonal guide this spring. These guides are so much fun for us to develop because it forces us to find the best ways to enjoy each season to its fullest.
When you seek out the best, you generally find it. And surrounding ourselves with the best, you can’t help but enjoy living here a little lot more.
