Black Friday! Sounds like a particularly bad day, but for retailers across the country this is the biggest shopping day of the year and the official start of the Christmas season. The term CyberMonday was coined to reflect the following Monday, where online businesses experience a similar boost in holiday sales.
Last year, American Express introduced Small Business Saturday and it’s exploded this year with lots of high-profile sponsors, like Google, Twitter, and Facebook.
How your business gets a boost?
Small Business Saturday is much more robust this year — generating tons of engagement and urging consumers to shop small businesses. These efforts alone should drive significant traffic to small businesses in general.
- Facebook fanpage engagement – the page promotes engagement and helps spread the word about Small Business Saturday with all the share buttons, peer support, etc. The site has over 2 million fans. The fanpage is linked to their website, integrating social media efforts to maximize returns.
- $25 credit – consumers get a $25 credit by registering their AMEX cards and buying $25 or more at a small business on Small Business Saturday.
- Posters for your store and banners for your website – whether you marketing online or off, Small Business Saturday has promotional materials developed to promote you small business for the event.
- Advertise your deal – retailers can advertise specials they’re offering for Small Business Saturday and merchants accepting AMEX cards can share their deals with customers.
- Find a small business – the fanpage lets you search local small businesses by zip (in case you don’t know about them already).
- City guides – are in the works for several cities. Guides highlight special offers by small local businesses.
- Links to local events – organizers in various cities link their fanpages so you can easily find local events and special offers.
Small Business Resources
The benefit of Small Business Saturday extends beyond helping businesses cash in on the holiday shopping frenzy. Resources help small businesses stand out online and market themselves more effectively.
- Create a Facebook page for your business – you won’t end up with a cool landing page, but it steps you through the easy process of creating a fan page for your business.
- $100 in Free Facebook ads – whether you’re creating a new fan page or already have one, you’ll get free Facebook ads (once approved). The ads are easily customizable, but only distributed to your local area. This is great for local retailers and services, but not so good from internet businesses.
- YouTube – Add your story to the YouTube video created as part of the Small Business Saturday project. Currently, over 100,000 people viewed this video.
- Get more Twitter followers – a tool for adding a “follow me on twitter” button to your site.
- There’s also a checklist to prepare for Small Business Saturday and a link to learn more marketing from experts at American Express OPEN.
What are you doing to build your small business? How can Small Business Saturday help?
