With 11 stores in Athens, Georgia, home to the University of Georgia and the Georgia Bulldogs football team, Golden Pantry Food Stores wanted to cheer on the Dawgs at the start of football season with a note on its marquee. But instead of reading, “Go Dawgs,” one of its locations displayed “Go Dagws.”

The spelling snafu “blew up on Reddit,” said Katie Morris, marketing director at Golden Pantry. But what some retailers would have considered an embarrassing mistake that needed quick correction, Golden Pantry took in stride. “We went around and changed it on all of our signs. Georgia won that game, which was a big one, so we joked that we meant to do that. Now, it’s a good luck tradition in the community for us to have the team misspelled on our signs.”

More importantly, Morris said, the initial blunder taught the company that signage is “an antiquated but really effective and fun way to engage with your community.” And beyond that, analog signage can translate to digital engagement through social media, which “can connect your business with a tremendous audience.”

Case in point—one of Golden Pantry’s customers is a local social media influencer. When her store’s Diet Coke machine was broken and the influencer posted about it on Instagram, Golden Pantry changed the sign outside the store to say “Theresa we have Diet Coke” after it fixed the machine. (Morris noted that she and the influencer have mutual friends, so all the exchanges were done in good fun.)

“That sign also blew up on social media though, and suddenly we had people driving by our signs to take pictures of them. It was a silly instance but something we tried to have fun with, and it drives so much digital engagement,” said Morris. She noted that some of the city’s influencers that shop at Golden Pantry have upwards of 500,000 to 1.5 million followers.

Golden Pantry has also let local customers use the signs to wish a loved one happy birthday or celebrate the retirements of employees or other community members, including local law enforcement. The retailer often showcases new local partners, vendors, or events with the marquee.

The retailer focuses on community engagement at the neighborhood level within its market, using the signage to celebrate high school sports teams even if it has stores in communities that are rivals.

One of its biggest community initiatives is participating in Shell’s Giving Pump program. “We go all in and let our customers and store employees choose the charity they want to donate to for their community,” said Morris, noting that even if the organization is national, Golden Pantry ensures the donations go to local chapters. “We promote the charities on the signs as well, and maybe that sign isn’t what’s going to make someone stop, but we want it to tell our customers that we're real people that are part of their community and our mission is to be a trusted neighborhood store.”

Golden Pantry also leveraged signage at a store under renovation to get community feedback about what customers would like to see from the new location. “It’s in a kind of funky historical neighborhood right near the University of Georgia’s campus,” described Morris. “We worked with a contractor to put window signage and QR codes across the site asking people to engage with us through a nonprofit, Historic Athens, and are using that feedback to inform our decision about what to stock, our foodservice program, and more.”

One consistent piece of feedback from the residents was that there was no coffee shop in the neighborhood or anywhere walkable to buy coffee. “So we will invest in good bean-to-cup machines,” she said.

Engaging the community through local nonprofits like Historic Athens allows Golden Pantry to deepen its relationships with local partners and stay in the know about their needs. When one of the retailer’s stores had an excess of beer inventory, for example, it donated the merchandise to Porch Fest, an annual community event that puts on free neighborhood concerts.

“We really try to go as granular as we can when it comes to figuring out how to be a good, trusted neighborhood store,” said Morris. “Our resources are not those of a national chain, but we always look at how we can leverage every resource we have to be a good partner to our community.”