Black Friday and Cyber Monday still get the bulk of holiday shopping attention, but let’s not forget Small Business Saturday – which celebrates and encourages shopping at small businesses that are so vital to our economy.
Since Small Business Saturday’s founding by American Express in 2010, the event to promote small businesses has spread globally and has seen its awareness grow. According to a joint Amex and National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) survey conducted in December, 2013, awareness by U.S. consumers of the Small Business Saturday jumped to 71%. The survey also found 46% of consumers planned to shop Small Business Saturday and reported spending $5.7 billion with Indy merchants, up from $5.5 billion the previous year.
It’s delightful to go the AMEX site and see the literally thousands of participating small businesses. Businesses can participate in this event by becoming a part of the American Express Shop Small movement.
For their part, customers can register to get up to $30 back when they Shop Small by spending $10 or more at participating businesses.
One of the main ways a small business owners can enhance their business prospects is to invite customers to participate and shop at their business. We all know promotion can be a daunting task for owners who don’t know where to start. Small Business Saturday provides a great, easy entrée – creating free marketing materials, including digital banners, signage, events and more, making them available. More than 346,000 free online tools and materials were accessed by small business owners last year according to the NFIB/Amex survey.
Amex also has lined up major partners like Facebook, Verizon and AARP to help promote awareness, participation and shopping.
Here are few social/tech tips for small businesses for Small Business Saturday this holiday season and beyond:
- Use and look for the hashtags! Last year organizers reported more than 300,000 Tweets went out in support of #SmallBizSat , #ShopSmall, #DineSmall. That’s a lot of opportunity for you to be seen.
- Leverage the official social sites like the Facebook Small Business Saturday But also take advantage of the trend and ask your best customers to add a Facebook page for your business or to Yelp you.
- Be visual. Beautifully displayed merchandise, features of satisfied real customers modeling your wares (with the owner’s permission, of course!) posted on Instagram and Pinterest can be great for enticing new customers. As they say, a photo is worth, what, a billion words now?
- Embrace the power of video. Share your business’ unique story and why your products and specials are special this holiday…
- Finally, with all the worrisome security breaches in the news, give yourself a gift as a small business owner, and do an IT Security Health Check to make sure you are prepared for the holidays – and everyday – to keep your business information and your customers safe.
I know I will #ShopSmall local businesses this Saturday and throughout the holiday – and be looking on #DiningSmall. It’s so great to see a friendly face that knows exactly what you want!
