A lot of people are under the mis-conception that supporting a small, local or online business means solely buying things from them. But in fact, that is only half of the ways you can actually support their business.
Businesses like us here at Country Allure, are actually somewhat reliant on our customers, viewers and supporters, to be our voice and basically be our megaphone! We need that word of mouth reference to expand and grow.
In light of the recent Facebook and IPhone updates, we have decided to dedicate this week's blog on how you can support us, and other small, local and online businesses, without buying a single thing (if you don't want to).
Okay, we will start off with social media. There are three main posts here.
The world of social media is now the biggest way to advertise, and although those ads are great, in my opinion, the most effective and trustworthy is still word of mouth. So with social media platforms for people to speak to other people there, there’s all the opportunity in the world.
Number one - The most common and also the most helpful. Those likes, shares and comments on our socials. They are probably the biggest helping hand.
Everytime you engage on any of our posts, it not only shows you more of our posts in your newsfeed to see, but it also does it for your friends too. That's how we can branch out to what I'm going to call our 'audience tree'. Scroll down to the very bottom if you want to read about this analogy straight away. I’ll leave a line marker here for you to be able to find your way back to us here!
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Anyway, this is why we have our monthly competitions, as an incentive for our supporters to do this little bit of work for us. It's a win for you and a win for us.
The best way to engage with us is to 'love' react to our posts, add a comment and share to public viewing. And although emoji's are quick and easy, those comments with actual words spread our page further. Don't ask us why, it's just how the cookie crumbles with Facebook. But we appreciate every comment and react, no matter what it is. Except the nasty ones, they aren’t nice!
Number two - Tagging and name dropping on socials, forums, groups, pages and BSS's.
We've mentioned the power of social media and word of mouth. But what about when you add those two together, for things like reference, feedback and review? According to studies, you're looking at at least 80% of viewers, followers and customers that are going to listen, trust and get onboard with what you're saying.
So when somebody asks where sells really high quality cowhide and leather handbags, cute country accessories, or western fashion in a wide range of sizing, when you tag us, post a link to our site or simply comment our brands name - your bringing us not only potentially a customer, but adding a whole new branch to our 'audience tree'.
Now, number three - feedback and reviews. We just mentioned this above. And we can confidently say, people actually listen to these!
You know when you're on eBay and you check out a seller, see that they have 80 negative and 20 neutral feedback in the last month and you cringe a bit on the inside. So you decide to look somewhere else that may be a bit more reliable and that has more positive feedback, reviews or an overall vibe. That's what I'm talking about. Public influence.
So if you've purchased from us or not, if you think we are a top notch brand, love our products, like our feed, think we are hilarious (which I mean, we already know) your positive reviews on our socials CAN help us grow and expand.
Okay, and the final - Physical word of mouth. All that reference stuff that I explained here above, but essentially, in person.
If someone hits you up and says 'oh I love your purse!' (Which will evidently happen at least once with our pieces), instead of just saying 'thanks, me too', add in some type of variation of 'Oh yeah, i got it from Country Allure, you should check them out'. And again, that audience tree grows. How?
They go home later, remember you and what you said. So then they jump on our website and see something they like, potentially buy it and next thing you know - they are standing there in the middle of the shopping centre telling the person who just complimented THEIR new piece, about us. And again the branch extends.
It's honestly absolutely incredible how it works. You see, it's one thing using platforms like radio, tv, billboards, magazines and other advertising techniques to boost your business, but there's nothing more satisfying and efficient then building from the ground up with an audience that truly loves, supports and enjoys your brand. And from people who actually WANT to get your name and brand out there.
What may be a tiny bit of effort that you put in, can be a huge thing for us. And that's why we give back as much as we do, because we are so grateful and appreciative of every single shout out, share, comment, referral, like, tag, review, ...everything.
So for everyone who do some or all of this already, thank you so much. We see you, and we appreciate you so much. For everyone reading this because they want to learn how to support a business without buying anything, thank you for reading, we hope you learned a thing or two! And for those who are about to jump over to our page and spam us with engagement, you're the bomb, thank you!
If anybody wants to learn more about how to support a small, online or local business, or just any other general question or enquiries, please don't hesitate to reach out on any of our social pages. We will do our best to help.
Signing off for now;
Jess Price ✨
The Audience Tree
If you don't know the anatomy of a tree, well you're about to learn.
Basically, imagine a big ol’ established tree. Let’s break it down.
You’ve got the roots, the trunk, the branches, the limbs, the twigs and the leaves. And if you're super special, you'll also have flowers and fruit. But that's going way too far into depth into that analogy, for what I'm trying to put out here.
There’s the Roots and that is us, Country Allure. Then there's a Trunk, that's our advertising platforms that we put out there, like our social media posts for example. Then there are Branches, those are you, our first hand sharers and referrals, straight from our pages directly.
On those main branches, joining onto them are multiple limbs, and on their ends, there are leaves. Some of these branches have what could be hundreds of offspring, each part joining onto another, before it gets to that end foliage, aka leaves.
The limbs that are adjoined to those branches, those are your friends, family and viewers who jump on board CA from your shares and referrals. Sometimes it ends there, other times it doesn't. Your friends or family may also jump on board and share, comment, refer and spread the word, then BAM! - you’ve got another limb on our tree. A whole new opportunity. And again, it may stop there, but it may not.
Not every limb has leaves, the leaves being purchase’s in this case. But each time you support our brand, you could very well be adding to our audience tree. Which in turn, could lead us to a sale. And you see, the main point that we are trying to make here is that it's not just the sale that counts. It's everything that happens beforehand that leads to that sale that is just as important.