You may have noticed a name change to the chamber of commerce in Jefferson.

Recently, the Chamber Board voted to change its name from Greene County Chamber and Tourism back to Jefferson Area Chamber. Ian Wilkinson, the chamber board president, says there are a few reasons why they chose to go back to the original chamber name, but the most important reason was for branding and marketing purposes. Wilkinson explains, they worked with a social media agency, “Chatterkick” who did an analysis of the community this past summer.

“When people go out, in this day and age, and try to decide on a place to visit, whether it be for tourism or recreation, whether it be for shopping, you’re going to go search for it, you’re going to Google your community that you’re looking at. They (Chatterkick) found out that it’s eight times more likely people are going to search ‘Jefferson’ than actual ‘Greene County.’ And the Chamber is traditionally a cornerstone in most communities as far as information, and the easier they can access that information, the easier it’s going to be to grab them, to get their attention.”       

Wilkinson points out, the Chamber isn’t turning its back on the other communities in the county, but they want to capture as many people as they can to visit. He believes that if they can get more people to visit Jefferson, that will have a trickle down effect to the other communities.