Every year the American Independent Business Alliance celebrates Independents Week as a show of support for independent businesses. The week-long celebration looks to encourage supporting community entrepreneurs and small businesses. Here are a few creative ways to use social media to get the word out in your community:
- Feature a small business in your community in a post. Share something they make or sell and help them stand out.
- Take pictures of an inanimate object, like a mascot, at local shops (think Travelocity’s wandering gnome). You can even make a contest out of it and ask people where the picture was taken.
- Interview local entrepreneurs to share their challenges and successes and give advice to future entrepreneurs and business owners.
- Invite people to share their favorite local businesses on your Facebook page.
- Challenge people to take the #IndieChallenge for the week and only buy indie. Hopefully they’ll share their experiences on social media. You can even challenge yourself and then blog about it.
- Offer a passport game for check-ins at local stores or try a scavenger hunt, visiting local businesses to find the items. If you don’t have time to print off hundreds of scavenger lists, create an online hunt by posting a new item to find every day at a specified time from your social media profile.
- Hide an item in a local store or business and give clues on social media to help people find it.
- Find out which community businesses are running specials or discounts and share them on social media.
- Host a cash mob at a particular local business or host a traveling mob at a couple of locations.
- Try a flash mob of dancers in a public place to call attention to shopping local. These sorts of things require great organization but people are generally willing to do it for free. You can create a highly choreographed moment or just arrange for people to break out into any dance of their choosing when the music begins playing.
- Make an investment in your community by starting a local currency program.
How will you celebrate Independents Week? Share your ideas below.
