5 ways to share your love for local
While February makes us all want to share the love around Valentine’s Day, this year I’ve chosen to focus on how I can continue to support small local businesses.
Whether you’re buying a present for your loved ones, getting a haircut for a big date or stocking up on chocolates to share—spending money with local businesses means so much more to them than you might realize. Your purchases, small or large, can be the difference between a vibrant community full of small shops instead of only having access to big box stores.
While the best way to support any small business is to buy from them (and buy often, if you can), it’s not realistic for most. However, there are so many other ways that you can support a small business and show them love that can make just as big an impact as buying.
Here are 5 things you can do to make a big impact for your favourite local business:
1. Follow them on social media
While you might think ‘of course I’m going to follow them on my favourite platform’—by the time you get home and start catching up on however many things are left on your to-do list for the day, it’s easy for this to slip our minds.
Take 5 minutes to look up your favourite businesses to like their pages and, if you like what you see, interact with a few of their posts so that the platform will know you want to engage with them.
If you’re worried about your feed being clogged up with business posts, there’s no need to worry. Most platforms only show their posts to a small percentage of their audience, so you’re likely only going to see one out of every few posts.
And remember, every time you like a business page, a small business owner is smiling from the other side of the screen!
2. Share their business/your experience with your family, friends and followers
While it’s not as easy as hitting share on your newest Wordle conquest, taking the time to post about an experience you’ve had with a local business is huge.
Most people will choose a company they’ve heard about from a friend or family over a company that has tons of positive reviews. People buy from those they know, like and trust, afterall!
This could be as simple as sharing a photo of your newest haircut and tagging your hairstylist or posting about taking a bath after a long day and showcasing your newest bath bombs by tagging the maker.
So next time you find a new-to-you small business, make sure to let your friends and family know about it! Chances are they'll love it just as much as you do.
3. Engage with them on social media
If you’ve followed them already on your favourite social media platforms, make sure you interact when you see their posts come across your feed! Most of the social media platforms out there will ONLY share their posts to more of their audience if the ones that see it give it a like.
It takes seconds and doesn’t cost you anything. Like their posts, leave a comment, tag them in your posts if appropriate, watch their stories, or tag a friend in the comments who might like it. These little actions build up and have a huge impact over time.
4. Write a review
If you really love a business and want to help them gain traction online, take some time and leave them a review.
This can be on Facebook or Linkedin, but the BEST place you can leave them a review is actually a lesser-known social distribution platform—Google My Business.
Look them up online and when you find their business on Google, you can choose to leave them a review. This has a huge impact for businesses because it shows people searching for their business for the first time that they’re trustworthy.
Next time you visit a small business or purchase from them, consider leaving a review on public sites like Google, or Facebook!
5. Sign up for their newsletter/email list
I know your inbox is probably bursting with emails already, so save this one for the businesses you’d ask to be your Valentine.
Most small business owners know not to email more than once a week, and there are a lot of perks to joining their list—things like discounts, advance notice of sales, new product announcements, or free resources.
Having an email list or a newsletter allows the small business owners to speak directly to their clients and signing up gives them a better idea of what audience they’re serving.
Show the love all year round
While we’re definitely more motivated to show our favourite business owners some love during the holidays, I hope if you’ve clicked to read this post, you’ll take 5 minutes out of the day to help a local business, even if you’re seeing this well past February.
Have a business you want to promote? Drop their name and links in the comments so we can all show them some love!