Episode 047 – Office of Two, Audience of Thousands

Larry sits down with Brittany Kenner, marketing director for Murray, Kentucky — the self-proclaimed friendliest small town in America, home to Murray State University and a tourism office of exactly two people running the whole show. Brittany’s through-line is that a small budget and a small team aren’t a handicap so much as a forcing function: when you can’t buy your way into attention, you get very good at earning it. Her headline take is that social engagement isn’t dying, it’s relocating. The public likes and comments are down, but the real conversations have quietly slipped into DMs and shares — and chasing vanity metrics means missing where the actual interest now lives.

From there it’s a clinic in scrappy, place-led marketing: treating Instagram and TikTok like the search engines they’ve quietly become, putting paid dollars where they actually convert (Spotify and Facebook, not TikTok), and being your own influencer when you can’t afford to rent one. Brittany also digs into building a destination brand from the ground up with no marquee attraction to lean on, the genuine synergy she’s built with the university, and a charmingly low-tech visitor-guide campaign she hand-addressed herself — Hallmark-movie energy with a real marketing brain behind it.

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SPONSORED BY:

ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Brittany Kenner (Murray CVB site)
Director of Marketing & Communications

Brittany moved to Murray in 2020 and went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations from Murray State University. She brings a fresh, energetic perspective to her role as Director of Marketing with the CVB. Her time as an Account Manager at Bauer Entertainment Marketing gave her a solid grounding in brand strategy, the hospitality world, and content creation — all of it central to putting the MKY on the map. Outside of work, you’ll find Brittany spending time with her family or out enjoying a good music festival.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Engagement didn’t die, it moved to the DMs: Likes, public comments, and clicks are trending down across the board, but the conversations are still happening — they’ve just shifted into DMs and shares. Brittany leans into shareable, story-driven content (where to eat, get coffee, what’s worth the trip) and started an Instagram broadcast channel to meet people where they actually talk now.
• Social is the new search engine: Post-COVID, people aren’t scrolling for pretty pictures — they’re planning trips and hunting for things to do. That changes what content earns its keep.
• Spend where it converts: With a small paid budget, Brittany puts money behind Spotify and Facebook rather than TikTok, which drives reach but not the overnight stays and economic impact her board cares about.
• Be your own influencer: Paid influencers are expensive and rarely nail a tiny market’s vibe, so Brittany and her intern became the faces of the town — content that doubles as local goodwill, since residents already know them and show up in the comments.
• Building a brand from the ground up: Unlike a music festival with a built-in fanbase, or a Lexington (horses) or Louisville (everything), Murray has no marquee attraction to coast on. The job is finding people who genuinely fall for the place and come back.
• The university is the ultimate local partner: A board seat for the university, joint wins like the “top three best small college town” ranking, and a real give-and-take (they share content; she shares geofencing and alumni-event insights).
• Find partners who actually get small-market tourism: Most agency pitches assume an attraction and an audience that small towns simply don’t have. The right partner understands ground-up, no-amusement-park reality.
• Case study — the hand-addressed visitor guide: A deliberately simple campaign (social ads + Spotify + web content) to move boxes of guides, hand-addressed one by one, riding the wave of the Kindness Matters murals’ Good Housekeeping feature.