Jessie Spellmann-Mignone lives in Mount Kisco, but spends so much time in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow that “I might as well live there,” she said.
The Instagram influencer has insinuated herself into the communities’ fabric by publicizing local events, promoting businesses and joining the Sleepy Hollow Tarrytown Chamber of Commerce. She also volunteered to turbocharge the organization’s social media outreach.
“She did a takeover of our Instagram page and instead of promoting her own clients, she focused on local events,” said Lucia Ballas-Traynor, the chamber’s executive director. “Now that she’s managing the page, you can tell the difference because she creates engaging content. You need an expert, you can’t slap just anything on social media.”
The number of page followers doubled to 12,000. People shared one post about the Sleepy Hollow Street Fair 60,000 times with 1.4 million views (due to a successful collaboration, Instagram parlance for sharing from two to five accounts).
“People are engaged,” said Ballas-Traynor. “They are bookmarking, sharing and viewing.”
Instagram is Spellmann-Mignone’s preferred platform and one of her endeavors, the page whats_in_westchester_ny, reaches 46,000 followers. One post about an upstate pumpkin train attracted 1.6 million views.
A professional photographer who grew up in Manhattan and attended New York University, she wanted to live in Sleepy Hollow or Tarrytown – where her husband grew up. He sought a change of pace and when they moved to Mount Kisco, she set up a Facebook group for moms, which focused on local businesses and services.
Her deep dive into Instagram came after nominating her photography business to win a Best of Westchester award from Westchester Magazine and realized that 300 followers looked weak.
“I didn’t even come close to being chosen, but it put me on a new path,” down the Instagram rabbit hole, she said. She took courses on how to build a following and now teaches the techniques.
She also develops reels (short videos that loop endlessly) for private clients like the new Nespresso store in The Westchester mall and the forthcoming DeCicco’s in Sleepy Hollow.
In addition to all the online activity, Spellmann-Mignone served on the Witches’ Festival committee, is devising plans to introduce a tour so that visitors can take selfies and will MC the Make-a-Wish Walk for Wishes on Oct. 6.
When News 12 broadcast from the Sleepy Hollow Music Festival the morning before the event, she acted as producer for three hours beginning at 4:30 a.m., lining up people to appear on camera as the studio kept cutting to the reporter in the field who conducted the interviews. The channel returned for the festival itself.
Her website serves as a calendar of events, including many festivals and farmers markets, the majority of which are outdoors. With the locals really leaning into Halloween, the calendar of events in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow is stuffed.
Spellmann-Mignone, a former city kid, enjoys Mount Kisco, but leaves her heart in this corner of the county: “I vicariously live in my two favorite towns [Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown], especially at this time of year. When the leaves change color, it’s like walking through an oil painting full of history.”
