Shop small Saturday, shop local campaigns, holiday open houses, sales… all things small businesses do to generate revenue during the gifting season.
But what you can actually do to help your local bars, restaurants, shops and more around the holidays?
Did you know you only see posts from 10% of the accounts you follow? That means you’re missing out on 90% of possible interesting content. What’s worse, Instagram’s algorithm determines what you see based on what you interact with. So, if you never Double Tap, Like, Comment or Share from brands you like you will stop seeing this content completely.
How does social media impact small business?
During the holiday months there is an over saturation of content because brands are trying to get in front of potential customers to boost holiday sales. The problem is, the more content that is pushed out the harder it is for businesses to cut through and get noticed.
How can you help?
Engage with your local businesses on social media platforms. Follow the restaurants, shops etc you frequent and comment on their posts and stories. Send pretty images to your friends. All of this engagement will help them reach existing as well as new consumers.
If you like a margarita from a local favorite- take a picture, tag the business and it share in your story. User generated content is huge for small businesses and it expands their social media reach allowing them to connect to a larger demographic than the 10% that normally sees their posts.
This is how to help keep your favorite places in business. And the great thing is- engaging with their social media content costs you nothing!
What doesn’t help them? Simply tagging them in a selfie designed to only help your personal performance. Not following. Not commenting. Viewing stories but not clicking on Polls, Scales or Question Boxes.
2. Shop Local Instead of The Big Box Shops
This is obvious. But it does serve as a good reminder. Amazon is super easy, but imagine what will happen to all of our favorite boutiques if we stop shopping these local gems and resort to only ordering online. If you are trying to limit your public outings see if your favorite local places offer online shopping, if they don’t, call them and ask if they would do over the phone orders.
Because of COVID many companies are adding e-commerce to their website or transitioning to Shopify so they can sell on Instagram. Shopping their online stores, buying gift cards is helping them pay their employees, puts actual food on the table of our neighbors and friends.
Since you are shopping more this time of year than almost any other time, think about buying one of a kind items from our local shops. You’re spending money anyway, why not inject it back into the local economy.
Avoid Starbucks while out shopping. Instead grab a cup of coffee from your local coffee shop.
3. Give Gift Cards
Gift cards are great for local business for a ton of reasons. One, is it gives an instant boost to their revenue. But there are some other hidden benefits to shopping this way during the holidays.
If the business sells gift cards on their website you are helping generate web traffic by visiting their website to purchase— which is great for their organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Essentially the more web traffic a business can generate the better their website will perform in search. So having a sudden boost in website traffic during the holiday months will help their overall search engine performance during the rest of the year (ideally).
Finally, most times when we get a gift card we end up spending more when we redeem. This is a win, win for the local business.
And here’s a bonus way while we are on the topic.
4. Leave Reviews
Many businesses will generate new business from their online reputation and personal anecdotes from customers. Too often we only share the bad news, imagine the power if everyone took time to drop a few positive 5-star reviews for all the businesses we love! It’s a beautiful thing.
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