Disclaimer: ♡ As an affiliate, I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. I only recommend products or services that I use and trust and that will be valuable to you. ♡ :
You would never have guessed how easy it is to support small businesses in your local area. Whether you have just discovered an amazing online shop or there are small businesses in your local community, shopping small is good for heart and soul. There are so many small businesses out there that you can help for free by doing so many simple things. These tips not only apply to businesses but also local restaurants in your area.
Here are my 8 best ways to support small businesses. The great thing is most of these ideas are free!
PIN THIS POST FOR LATER!
RELATED POST: Check out my 20 Pretty Pinterest Templates Start Kit
Ways to Support Small Businesses: Overview
- Why should we support small businesses?
- Talk to friends and family
- Show some love on their social media posts
- Shop more locally
- Write them a review
- Share their products on social media
- Sign up to their newsletter
- Reach out to small business owners
- Support small business by buying their products
Why should we support small businesses?
There are so many reasons why you should be supporting your local small businesses. One of the main reasons is because it’s mostly free to do so. A simple share or like on a post can do wonders.
With lots of small businesses about, the competition can be a lot meaning every little thing you do can be a massive help. Especially when a new business is just starting out, when they don’t have much of a social media following or an audience, that is when it means the most to them.
Another reason is that shopping locally is so much more sustainable. You are not shipping anything into to country meaning it should be cheaper for you and there is less air pollution.
Sometimes, it becomes a more personal experience when you shop locally. You can get to know the owner and it can be a much more pleasant experience. It increases community spirit which will make the business feel the support it is getting.
1. Talk to family and friends
One of the best ways to support small business is giving a personal recommendation to family and friends. If you have road-tested their product and you think it’s great, then spread the word. Small brands benefit from word of mouth and appreciate kind words about their products.
Also, personal recommendations mean more to people. I personally would look into a brand after my friends or family talking about it.
2. Show their social media posts some love
A really easy way to support small businesses is by sharing their posts online. Whether it is blog posts, Instagram posts or Twitter posts hitting that share button can take seconds but helps small businesses ripple out to new customers. Small business love interacting and sharing supporters content online, too.
3. Shop more locally
Stop going to the big brands online that ship across the country. Try looking into small businesses in your area and see what they are selling. I managed to find a local soap shop where the ingredients are locally sourced!
Not only will you be helping smaller businesses but you will be saving shipping costs which is much more sustainable.
4. Write a glowing review
Writing a positive review online helps small businesses to grow. If you’ve bought a product, then leave a review directly on their online shop. Other places that really help a small business are leaving a review on their Facebook page and also their Google account which is normally the top search result when you search their company name on Google.
It will take you no more than 5 minutes so its definitely worth it.
5. Share their products on social media
As well as showing their posts some love, you can re-post their tweets, IG posts and stories or their face book posts. This will help increase their audience reach and its free to do so!
You wouldn’t believe how easy it was to help someone else.
6. Sign up to their newsletter
Newsletters are a great way to keep up to date with the latest developments at your favourite small business. Being on their newsletter is a sure-fire way to get time-limited discounts and special offers.
Small businesses love their loyal customer base as much as the customers love them. You never know what deals will show up that might be of interest to you.
PIN FOR LATER!
7. Reach out to small business owners
Small business owners either work by themselves or have a small team. They love personal messages and interacting with their customers.
Sometimes the contact form seems a little impersonal so look them up on their social media channels and get in touch. This type of contact inspires small business to continue to improve, grow and service their customers with a big smile on their face.
I personally get so much joy from seeing a message about a product I have created. It really makes my day and makes me feel like I am doing something right.
8. Support small business by buying their products
Like all business, small businesses live and die by the support of their customers. The great thing is that when you buy from small businesses you know that every product has been made with a labour of love.
Many small businesses sell handmade products and the benefits of buying handmade products range from being superbly made to super ethical. Small businesses put in so much effort into their own products that it feels much more rewarding knowing where they came from.
About the author
That’s my best ways to support small businesses. I’m sure there are many more and I’d love to hear about them in the comments below. I will certainly use these ideas myself! I’ll also stay around to answer any questions in the comments so feel free to join in.
Amy Crossland is the founder of Aubrey Bay: soy candles UK and has a passion for bringing amazing candles to those with a love of beautifully fragranced homes.
Social media Links:
Thank you for writing this post! We all need to support small businesses now more than ever. Great Post!
And thank you for stopping by, reading our post and leaving a comment.
Super cool post! It’s so important to help small businesses and so cool to see them ‘grow up’! Thanks for sharing 😊
Thank you for reading and commenting, Lisa x
Some great tips here – even if you can’t afford to buy from small businesses, sharing or liking their social posts costs nothing and is such a good way of spreading the word – you never know, you might have a follower who’s looking for exactly what the small business supplies! Lisa x
Hey, Lisa thank you for reading our post. Sharing – really is caring as they say. Like you, I always like to share others content even when it’s not for me as it may be exactly what someone else in my community has been looking for. It’s really interesting that you mentioned the price point of independents. We do review our prices against the competition and keep ourselves competitively priced. We are also currently developing a smaller candle in a silver tin with lid which will open up further options to cater for different budgets. Ready in a few weeks – exciting!
This post is so needed! Now that the world is slowly opening up again I really hope that people will still remember to support small local businesses. From my part I can promise to do so: I can’t wait to go back to my favourite restaurants (small, independent ones, of course) and I try to promote small sustainable fashion brands on my blog and my Instagram to make people more aware of them. Fashion is the 2nd biggest polluter on the planet so we need to start making better decisions when shopping clothes. And small brands are the solution 🙂
Teresa Maria | Outlandish Blog
These are some great tips! I love supporting small businesses, even if you shout someone out on social media and spread the word. Plus smaller businesses appreciate it much more! Great post xx
We really do appreciate every customer, tweet, share, like, link to us, shout-out… When you are competing against the larger chains every act of kindness is worth its weight in gold.
These are really good tips! We really need to help small businesses through this time and I’ll definitely be using these tips to help them!
That’s amazing! Thank you for reading our post.
Some really good tips, I’m a massive fan of small businesses and try to support as much as I can. I’ll definitely be taking some of these tips forward in future! Thanks for sharing
James.
Awesome, James x
Great post! Small businesses are the heart and soul of EVERY community!
Some great tips. I’m passionate about support small business as much as I can. I have already purchased a candle from Aubrey Bay, it looks amazing. I’m saving it for my partners birthday in July. They definitely get my recommendation and I’ll likely buy from them again.
Adam – http://daddoesautism.com
Yes you did Adam! Thank you again for supporting us x
I love this! I’m definitely going to be doing this more from now on 🙂
Love these ideas! R x
These are great ideas! Whenever I buy from a small business, I always try to leave a review or at least share my purchases on social media (tagging the brand of course). Even if you can’t buy from a business, a share is always a good idea too ♡ Thank you for sharing these great tips!
It’s a great tip to tag in the brand. Most often, with smaller brands, they will return the favour and share some of your content, too. Sadly, this is not often the case with larger brands and your shout out goes unloved – another reason to love shopping small.
This is such a great post. With the help of returning customers, businesses can thrive, but in the current climate, its definitely harder, so any support businesses can get is great.
Times are tough at the moment, for sure. Thank you for stopping by.
I love this post! So important to support small business right now more than ever. I always try to when I can as well.
This was actually so helpful! Great post
Great post, its so important to support small businesses, especially at the moment too! It is so easy to just share their products/shops on social media, or write them a little review if you’ve bought something from them!
Chloe xx
Great post! I think it is very important to support small and local businesses. I love doing it and like to feature it on my blog a lot. Thank you for sharing.
Em x
https://loveemblog.blogspot.com/2020/05/georganics-sustainable-solution-to-oral.html
Some great tips even if you’re not in a position to buy from small businesses right now. I never thought to simply reach out to small businesses. Thanks for sharing x
This is such a timely post. Now more than ever we need to support small businesses. I like to do my part by sharing about them on social media or featuring a couple on my blogs from time to time.
Visiting from #BloggersTribe.
What a great post, Amy!
All the ways you’re describing are often super easy and mean so much to the small business owners!
Especially in these challenging times, we have to help and support the small business owners as much as possible.
Thank you for bringing some attention to small businesses and giving us some great tips on how we can help them!
This is a great post! I will definitely be doing some of these things to support small businesses.
Great ideas! SIgning up to newsletters is one I never thought of, but as a small business owner it does make a huge difference when I see those kinds of numbers increase. Lovely post 🙂
Anika | chaptersofmay.com
Love this! I love supporting small business, these are great ways to do it!
I love that these suggestions include things that are free and literally take two seconds. Small businesses are often more expensive and not everyone can afford to support them by purchasing but something as simple as a retweet or sharing something you like with other people can possibly support them far more than your one individual sale could have. Obviously purchasing from them too is great if you can, but a bit of social media promotion can go a long way too and potentially make the world of difference depending how small the business is x
Sophie
These are some helpful tips. I have been supporting small businesses where I can 😊
This is great, we definitely need to support those small and sometimes local business. I find myself going onto Amazon way to much for thins, I think mainly for the ease of delivery, but I have branched out more onto Esty to find smaller business. I think when you are in the blogging world, you can appreciate how much time and effort someone has put into their business, as you are sort of doing the same thing with your blog. It costs nothing to share the love by liking their posts, signing up to emails and sharing on your social media does it?
Thanks for sharing!
Aimsy xoxo
Aimsy’s Antics
It seems more important than ever to support small businesses right now. I’m lucky enough to have continued working at the moment, so I’m trying to buy a little something from Etsy or small jewelry businesses each week to try and support as much as I can. I’m definitely going to try and share more stuff on my social platforms to help out more though!
Ellen xx
http://www.ellennoir.co.uk/
I work for a small business and I’m all for them right now as they’re in such danger of going out of business, they need our help and support more than ever right now! x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
I love that we can help support small businesses in so many different ways. Word of mouth is SO important. I try to plug one of my friend’s salon business to friends when I can. Even helping them create media content helps too! Thanks for sharing all of these different tips!
These are such sweet, easy ideas! Especially the social media and sharing ones, positive exposure is so so important for a small business!
Ella – wanderingterra.com x
Great post small business need support to survive. Especially, now with the way the world is.
Great advice here! It is vital in these times to be supporting smaller businesses. We’ve unfortunately lost our favourite bar due to everything going on, so have started making a lot more effort to support local businesses further.
this is a really meaningful post. I always love to support small businesses, but in the current climate is more important now than ever!
I love this! I always share my friends post when she shares her products. It’s so easy to support small businesses and so important to support each other.
#ShopSmall is life 🙂
Great tips! Supporting local and small businesses is so important, especially in a time like this!