How Best Places Accolades Support Talent Attraction

At Livability, our annual Top 100 Best Places to Live in the U.S. is a data-driven collection of the best small to mid-sized American cities. We curate our list based on 100+ data points, and it represents the top 5% of 2,000+ U.S. cities with populations between 75,000 and 500,000.

Ours is the only list out there honing in on affordability and the fantastic places across the country besides large metros — celebrating the cities where most Americans are creating dream careers, building families, launching businesses and leading meaningful lives.

Besides the bragging rights, recognition like this can help you attract talent to your area. The online components of your community’s story are key when it comes to getting your area in front of talent — your online presence, social media platforms and media coverage you’ve received. They make up what we at Livability like to call your “digital front door.” It’s what people find out about your community online — the first things they see when they search for information about your place.

When you receive recognition from outlets like Livability that rank highly in search, it becomes a key part of that “digital front door.” In addition to showing up for people seeking information about your area specifically, your city gets in front of people who are just looking for the best places to live in general. People who have never considered your city might realize it’s their perfect place!

Industry research has also noted the influence of rankings when people are considering places to relocate to. So next time you appear on one of these lists, rankings or roundups, know that it’s giving your talent attraction marketing a boost.

We Made It! Now What?
Share on all your platforms! A few other best practices we love for amplifying these placements:

• Make It Your Own on Social. Create a graphic that emphasizes your community’s placement, like the Fox Cities Chamber did this year.
• Capture Traffic. Boost traffic to your site with your own blog about the accomplishment – like this example from Winston-Salem, Inc.
• Pitch Local Media. Local media will pick up these accolades, and even further delve into them, like in this piece from Warwick, RI. At Livability, we conduct media outreach in all Top 100 communities, but your local connections may be more effective for coverage.
  
  

How Do I Get My City on a List?
We get it — it’s exciting to be recognized — but since the methodology for most best places lists, including ours, involves a complex data-driven process, reverse engineering it is easier said than done.

It can sometimes take years for changes in your community to not only happen, but to be reflected in data. Plus, we’re all working with what we have … your amenities are a lot more changeable than your natural disaster risk, for example, and our list factors in both.

The answer here: keep doing what you’re doing. Your work growing, supporting and bettering your community over time is what it’s all about. If you’re reading this, you know all about the meaning to be found in that process.

Livability Media  Livability Media is a media and content marketing company focused on bringing talent to your city. We work with chambers and economic development groups to share stories of your area through custom print and digital content programs.