Siloam Springs advances to top five
Public voting is open online through Feb. 20.
Siloam Springs is one of five finalists for Season 3 of the Hulu show Small Business Revolution: Main Street. Public voting for the winner is open through Feb. 20.
Amanda Brinkman, show host and chief brand and communications officer for Deluxe Corporation, made the announcement during a Facebook live video broadcast at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Brinkman also announced that Ty Pennington, of TLC’s Trading Spaces and ABC’s
Extreme Makeover Home Edition, will be her co-host for season three of the show.
“After reviewing thousands of nominations and visiting 10 incredible communities, we have made the challenging decision of narrowing the list to five finalists. Now it is up to the public to decide,” Brinkman said. “The people in these unique communities represent everything that the
Small Business Revolution is all about. And after receiving nearly 1 million votes for Season 2 finalists, we cannot wait to see how these amazing Season 3 finalists rally votes for their communities.”
“Siloam Springs is now in a fierce race to win by a national online vote from Feb. 13-20, so we need everyone’s help now,” a press release from Main Street Siloam Springs stated. “If we get the most votes, the show will infuse $500,000 and expert business assistance into select Siloam Springs downtown businesses. It would be a great opportunity of growth and publicity for Siloam Springs, the region and the whole state of Arkansas.”
The winning town last year received more than 350,000 votes and it is expected to take even more votes to win the competition this year, according to Kelsey Howard, director of Main Street Siloam Springs.
Community members can support Siloam Springs by voting on www.smallbusinessrevolution.org every day through Feb. 20, Howard
We are kind of underdogs in the population challenge. People need to get really involved and share our social media posts, create their own social media posts and call family and friends. … Everybody needs to think about who they know who has a following and wide reach or impact that would be willing to support us and spread the word. Kelsey Howard Director of Main Street Siloam Springs
said. Each person can vote once per day, per email address, she said. Individuals can sign up for text message reminders to vote by texting MySiloam to 797979.
Howard said another way to help Siloam Springs in the competition is to spread the word about the vote through emails, Facebook posts and tweets using the hashtag #MySiloamSprings and providing a link to the show website.
Siloam Springs is competing against towns in much larger metro areas than Siloam Springs, such as Martinez, Calif., which is near San Francisco, Calif., and Bastrop, Texas, which is between the cities of Austin and Houston, Texas.
“We are kind of underdogs in the population challenge,” Howard said. “People need to get really involved and share our social media posts, create their own social media posts and call family and friends. … Everybody needs to think about who they know who has a following and wide reach or impact that would be willing to support us and spread the word.”
The show will be providing four updates during the voting week to show each town’s current standings. The last update will be on Monday, Feb. 19.
“I want to emphasize, nobody rallies like Northwest Arkansas, however we all need to do our part to think creatively and get the word out and get votes every single day,” Howard said.
Over the past three years, more than 30,000 small towns have been nominated for the show, Brinkman said during her Facebook live video. Siloam Springs was named one of the top 20 towns in the competition in November, then the town advanced to the top 10 in December. Brinkman and her team visited Siloam Springs in mid-January as part of their nationwide tour of the top 10 communities.