Today kicks off Small Business Week. More importantly than that, Webbin’ It will be dedicating the month of May to discussing different ideas to support local business. Because working together goes a long way.
If you are reading this then I know you haven’t been living under a non-internet rock. I’m sure you have seen social media posts about how you can support local business. But have you ever really taken the time to put it into practice? We are going to explore what it’s like for your friends who own small businesses if you didn’t follow through on the suggestions in these posts.
Operating a small business is not for everyone. But, imagine for a minute that you have a dream to sell (Garrett and Ryan would say the proverbial red harmonica, but I’m a girl so let’s go with…) shoes. Because let’s face it who doesn’t love shoes!
You’ve done the market research and the business plan is in place. The logo is designed. You have made the investment into shoe stock. Webbin’ It has designed a compelling website and optimized your SEO. Finally, your brick and mortar store is opening for business.
You have a modest budget for marketing, so you decided to run radio ads. That has eaten all of your marketing budget. There has to be an inexpensive way to further promote your store. The web developers you have been working with (Ahem…Webbin’ It) have expressed the need for a solid social media presence to help boost traffic to your website and thus boost your SEO.
So, now it is time to consider reaching out to your friends and family on social media. Because you need them to help spread the word that you are opening the best shoe store in town. In today’s age of social media, it’s the most logical place to reach the masses. In this case, your friends and family are your target audience.
So you sit down and let the creative juices flow, and create the grand opening post below.
You post it and then ask everyone in your “friends” list to share it with their friends and family. This is going to be huge, you just know it. You have a lot of friends and family in your pipeline and you know at least some of them have large followings as well.
A day goes by. Now two days, you see a few people liked the post, but no one commented or shared it at all. This can’t be right…tap, tap tap is this thing on?
I hope you can feel the frustration that your friend the small business owner is going through when hoping to engage their friends and family for some FREE help.
Ok, back to the reality of the here and now, where you aren’t a business owner, just the friend of one.
According to Wikipedia, six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six, or fewer, social connections away from each other.
Nikki Peters for Social Media Today, says that it is now only three degrees of separation thanks to Facebook.
What does all of this mean to you? It means you have the ability to provide an invaluable help to your friend or family member business owner!
Today you saw the post that your friend is having their grand opening a week from Saturday. You know you’re going to go because you are excited about your friend’s success. Now you know that you should share the post with everyone you know on social media platforms. But you also know that commenting will be that little extra oomph. So, you share it with, “I’m going to be there! It’s gonna be the best party in town! Be sure and share with all your friends.”
Just think if you tell 100 friends about the grand opening on social media, and those 100 friends tell their 100 friends, and those 100 friends tell another 100 people. The post about the grand opening would reach 1,000,000 people. That’s three degrees of separation. And to think a million people could now know about your friends business for FREE!
Webbin’ It Wisdom has been looking for a way to show our support of small businesses in a very public way. So, we will be highlighting a different small business in May, August, October, and December.
Up first on May 9th we will be visiting with Ann Heck owner of the M Lazy C Ranch. The Ranch is located in beautiful Lake George, Colorado and we are very excited to be able to stream from the Ranch. Look for the behind the scenes photos too. We hope you can join us. There will be surprises you won’t want to miss.
Join us for Webbin’ It Wisdom where we discuss everything you need to know about building a solid web presence.
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