Homewood Communications and Engagement Manager Antonia Steinmiller presented the communications report for 2025 to the village board at the Jan. 27 meeting. 

The goals of communication and engagement with residents are to inform, educate and entertain, Steinmiller said. 

The Homewood social media pages have gained significantly more traction and followers in 2025, she said. 

According to Steinmiller, the Homewood Facebook page had 16,716 followers by Dec. 31, 2025, a 28% increase from 2024 and a 47% increase from 2023. The village’s Instagram page reached 4,005 followers by the end of the year, a 20% increase from 2024 and a 34% increase from 2023. 

The Homewood Police Department’s Facebook page had 7,415 followers by the end of 2025, which is a 48% increase from 2024 and a 74% increase from 2023, she said. 

“These are huge numbers that have increased just by us posting more frequently, following trends, reading the algorithm, all the things,” Steinmiller said.

According to statistics, 15.1% of total followers are from Homewood, while the rest are from the Chicago area. 74% of followers are women between the ages of 35 to 45, and only 25.7% of followers are men, she said. 

The number of views on the village’s Facebook page reached about 5.5 million in 2025, up dramatically from 1 million views the previous year, Steinmiller said. 

The village’s top post of 2025 was the “No Drunk Driving” reel, which reached over 900,000 views by the end of the year, and currently has over a million. The post also reached nearly 28,000 interactions, she said. 

As for external communications, the new Village of Homewood app has reached 2,180 downloads by the end of 2025. The digital newsletters gained 6,605 subscribers in 2025 as well, Steinmiller said. 

The Citizens Civics Academy, which is intended to educate citizens of Homewood on the workings of local government, was first launched in 2025 and had 117 graduates. The program will continue to run twice a year, both in spring and fall. The development of a Youth Civics Academy program for teens and youth to participate will be in the works, she said. 

Hot Topics is a new program to educate residents that launched in 2025. The first meeting revolved around how tax increment financing districts work, and it had 15 attendees. The second meeting is being planned, she said. 

Going forward, the goal is to continue finding creative ways to engage with residents, Steinmiller said.