Is your community’s Buy Local initiative taking off? Are you tweeting, posting and blogging about your small business? Are you building brand loyalty with your customers? Are you seeing increased sales numbers? Terrific! Guess what? It’s time to start thinking Bigger Picture. What does that mean? It means that social media is pushing the evolution of the Buy Local message into its next phase. Now it’s time to start thinking a new message: Grow Local. That’s right. It’s time to get involved with social media manufacturing.
Manufacturing? Yes. Small business owners, like you, are bringing manufacturing back to the United States in the form of job creation. Buy Local initiatives linked to social media are consistently generating increased sales and an exciting new outlook for the future of small business sustainability. By using the power of social media, you are now at the forefront of the new Grow Local movement which is revitalizing the very definition of community. You have the power to manufacture jobs and grow a stronger local economy by using social media to distribute your message. No need to wait for corporations or the government to employ people. You, the small business owner, can take charge and kick-start economic growth right in your own backyard.
So how do you adjust your posts, tweets and blogs to shift from Buy Local to Grow Local? Here are a few suggestions which have generated positive results:
1. Mutual Marketing. Link arms with other local business owners. Buy Local is not just a slogan aimed at the consumer. You, the small business owner, should buy local to enhance your own product offerings and create new ones. Businesses which consistently tweet, post and blog about working together are the ones getting repeated customer engagement. Suddenly customers see their favorite café posting on Facebook about new coffee beans they are using from a local roaster. The restaurant they frequent tweets that they are purchasing their terrific salad greens from an organic farmer just 20 miles outside of town. The Day Spa gets handmade goat’s milk soap from a woman who has been tending her small herd for years. There is an amusing interview with her posted on the Spa’s blog. Customers are posting comments. They are buying the coffee and the salad and the soap. Mutual marketing with social media is giving customers information they did not have before. Knowledge is power. Knowledge creates demand. That’s when job openings can start to happen. This is one instance when talking about other people is highly encouraged.
2. Community Involvement. Get involved. Get passionate. Small business owners need to think of themselves as ambassadors of their communities, not just people who have something to sell. Find out what is important to the people who spend their hard earned dollars with you. Do they want more vegan options on your dinner menu? Do they want to see more local authors celebrated in your bookstore? Do they want more offerings on your website? Find out what’s important to them. It literally pays to listen to your customers these days. Does someone have a volunteering opportunity for you? Wonderful! Get your business involved. Encourage others, visitors and locals alike, to join your efforts. Post it, tweet it, blog it. Celebrate it. Let people know you are listening and acting upon their suggestions. Create lasting bonds with your customers and you can create sustainability. Successful community involvement is a two-way street. And it’s one more avenue to creating job growth.
3. Change the Conversation. Local small business owners no longer use social media to simply say “What’s on Sale”. Linking with other businesses is allowing them to change the conversation to “This is What We Created for You and this is Why”. Spread the message about the bond between local consumers and local businesses and how you can turn this bond into jobs, jobs, jobs. For several years the message has been about increasing sales to help businesses stay alive. But it’s time to talk about thriving not just surviving. It’s time for you to get busy and get moving in a direction that can have lasting impact where you live. Change the conversation. It is already happening in small towns nationwide. And because of the far reaching impact of social media, it is proving successful. People are no longer waiting for someone else to lift up their community. They are doing the lifting themselves and they are talking about it online.
A business is not an island unto itself. Link up. Tell everyone. Get involved in the needs of your town/city/neighborhood. Use social media outlets every step of the way. Be consistent; blog, post and tweet about the importance of keeping dollars local, not just to increase sales but to grow jobs. It is up to you to get the message out. Job growth no longer requires a large corporate entity. You can make it happen. Manufacturing jobs in your community and using social media to facilitate that process is the next step in the evolution from Buy Local to Grow Local. Just use those fingertips of yours and get busy changing the conversation. Tap into the power of your online presence. Post it. Blog it. Tweet it. Grow Local.
Meagan V. Albury
