Battle Creek Businesses: Cereal City Buzz Local Is Live

It’s official, Battle Creek. Cereal City Buzz Local is live!

We’ve been working behind the scenes to build a local business directory directly into the Cereal City Buzz newsfeed, and we’ve already loaded 1,644 local businesses into the system.

That means there’s a very good chance your business is already there.

Now we need local business owners to come in, find their businesses, claim their pages, and make sure everything is correct before we begin promoting the directory heavily to the public.

And the best part?

Your basic business listing is free.

Claim your free page

Start by opening Cereal City Buzz Local and choosing the category that best fits your business.

For example, Home & Property includes businesses connected with buying, selling, improving, repairing, and maintaining a home. That includes contractors, plumbers, landscapers, pest control companies, real estate professionals, home service businesses, and more.

Once you enter your category, choose All.

Don’t worry too much about subcategories yet. The important thing right now is finding your business.

Listings are arranged alphabetically, so scroll through until you find yours.

Once you find your business, open the listing and click:

“Is this your business?”

From there, you can claim the page and take control of your listing.

Once you have access, check everything carefully.

Make sure your business name is correct. Check your address, phone number, website, hours, and other contact information. Add the images you want customers to see and make sure your listing represents your business the way you want it represented.

This is your page.

We want you, the business owner, controlling the information customers see.

No problem.

At the top of the directory, simply click “Add a Business.”

Fill out the form with your business information and submit it.

That’s it.

Our goal is to make sure Battle Creek and the surrounding area have a useful, accurate local directory where residents can discover the businesses serving our community.

You’ll also notice something different inside Cereal City Buzz Local called Hotspots.

Hotspots are separate from regular directory listings.

A directory listing helps someone answer:

“What businesses are available?”

A Hotspot helps answer:

“What’s happening right now?”

Think about a food truck.

Knowing that a food truck exists is helpful. But what people really want to know is:

Where is it today? What hours will it be there? What’s on the menu?

That’s what Hotspots are designed to do.

We’ve created Hotspot sections for things including Food Trucks, Traveling Bands, Artisans & Makers, Open Houses, Happy Hours & Specials, Pop-Up Shops, Cruises & Bike Nights, Business Meetups, Churches, Farm Stands, Support & Recovery Groups, and more.

Depending on your business or organization, you may want a regular directory listing, a Hotspot, or both.

We also wanted this system to serve more than businesses.

Certain community Hotspots have been set up at no charge.

For example, churches can maintain information about services, Bible studies, and other activities.

Support and recovery organizations can maintain their own pages so someone who needs help can quickly find out where and when a group is meeting.

Business meetup organizers can let local entrepreneurs know when and where their next gathering is happening.

The idea is simple: let the people who actually run these organizations control their information and keep it current.

We’re especially excited about what Hotspots can do for businesses that don't always operate from a traditional storefront.

A farm stand, for example, can let people know what is available today.

During the winter, a home-based baker could update a Hotspot with this week’s menu and tell customers to call or message for an appointment.

A realtor can list today's open houses.

A restaurant can promote tonight's dinner special or happy hour.

A traveling band can let people know where they're playing.

An artisan can tell customers where they're setting up this weekend.

Instead of hoping people happen to see a social media post before it disappears down their feed, they'll have another local place to look for what's happening.

We know some business owners are going to jump in and have their pages set up in five minutes.

Others are going to have questions.

That’s okay.

You’ll find a Cereal City Business Builders section inside Hotspots as well.

Beginning soon, we’ll be scheduling free Zoom training sessions where local business owners can join us, ask questions, and get help setting everything up.

We’ll start with the basics, but then we’ll go further.

We’ll show you how these tools can help you promote your business, keep customers informed, collect interested customers for your email list, and create better ways to stay connected with the people who already want what you offer.

For the next couple of weeks, our focus is on you, the local business owner.

We want businesses to have time to find their listings, claim their pages, correct their information, add missing businesses, and get everything looking the way they want it.

Then we’re going to begin introducing Cereal City Buzz Local much more heavily to the public.

So don’t wait until customers are already using it to discover that your hours are wrong or your business information is missing.

Find your business. Claim your page. Make it yours.

And if your business isn't there yet, add it.

Cereal City Buzz Local was built to help people discover more of what Battle Creek and the surrounding community have to offer while giving local businesses another way to be seen and stay connected with customers.

We’re all in this together.

Let’s help Battle Creek businesses get found, build trust, stay connected, and grow.

Claim your free page