Chelsea Kopelman Builds Community Through Keeping Up Local
Photographer / Robert Jones
Have you ever moved to a new town or city and just felt lost? New job, new church, new friends, new restaurants — it can be overwhelming to start over.
Chelsea Kopelman, founder of Keeping Up Local, came up with an idea for those who were struggling to find connections in a new hometown. She would know—she was one of them.
“My husband and I used to live in Broad Ripple. Butler University really helped guide us to the area, and we were really comfortable there,” Kopelman says. “In 2018, we had our first son, and I was feeling the call to step away from my marketing job at a large Fortune 150 company in Indianapolis. We moved to Carmel, and I really just felt like a fish out of water. This was a great place to raise a family, but there’s so much that I don’t know. There’s no connection.”
Shortly after their move, the world shut down during the pandemic, and Kopelman says she felt even more out of place. By the time things got back up and running, she had had her second child, was at home with two children and determined to find community and connection in Carmel.
“We were going to be here for a while, and I wanted to love it like I loved Broad Ripple,” Kopelman says. “I started looking at a lot of different resources for things to do as a wife, a girlfriend, an adult or a parent. I was pulling a ton of information from a lot of different sources, so I started thinking, what if I pull it all together in one platform? What if I take what I’m doing in private and make it public to see if anyone could use this?”
She took her marketing degree and years of training in social media and launched Keeping Up in Carmel in 2022, discovering there was a desire and appetite for this type of content in the community.
“I really envisioned this content as adding value to our lives,” Kopelman says. “When you’re finished watching, you should be entertained, but you should also be prepared to try something new in your community. Whether you’re new to town or have been here forever, let’s look at our community in a new way.”
Think of it as a one-stop shop — best dining, things to do, where to get your hair done, a dentist with phenomenal referrals, and more. It’s hyper-local to the individual community, and all the information is posted online through a website, Facebook and Instagram.
“By October of 2024, I had launched nationwide under Keeping Up Local, and we currently have seven communities up and running,” Kopelman says. “The majority of the content is visual, and Instagram is our largest following. We’re using imagery, photography and video, but we also have a traditional website and newsletter.”
Every Sunday night, newsletter members receive a list of events for the following week with clickable links to buy tickets or make reservations.
Businesses like it because Keeping Up Local drives awareness toward their establishments. The community likes it because they receive valuable information about local hotspots.
“I think the biggest compliment I received was from Carmel Salt Caves,” Kopelman says. “I did a piece on that, and she had to hire double the staff to keep up with demand because the feedback was so incredible. From the audience perspective, you may have never known this place existed or that this event was going on.”
Kopelman says she takes care to make sure each post adds value to the audience. Many of her videos include “Know Before You Go” tips and tricks to make the experience the best one possible.
“I’m not just sharing the ‘what’ but the ‘how’ so you can have the most fun and be prepared,” she says. “Maybe you have a little one, and the park with mulch isn’t a great idea, but another park has the rubber turf. Those little details help make your experience better when you visit the location.”
Kopelman says they make it a point not to simply cover “mom” spots or young 20s bar scenes. The content is well-rounded and specific to the community, with an appeal that anyone in any stage of life could enjoy.
It’s also first-hand experience by the team.
“As I grew, one of the big conversations I have when interviewing new affiliates is the social aspect of it,” she says. “You have to be willing to get out there and talk to people, experience things and tell the story from your perspective.”
They’re doing just that from Carmel, Greenwood, Downtown Indianapolis, Westside Indianapolis, Southern Indiana, Rockford, Michigan, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
“My goal is not to create something that you binge and scroll through,” Kopelman says. “I want the first 45 seconds of what you see to spark inspiration, connection, hope and then encouragement to go out and be present in your community. The real impact is when you put your phone down.”
