6 Ways to Help Your Favorite Small Businesses without Spending a Dime
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Fairface Podcast transcript / show notes
Intro:
Hello my friends! Welcome back to another episode of the Fairface Podcast!
It's been a while since I've been here and I'm sorry about disappearing.
On a personal note, we've been navigating whether or not we have to move, which has been a big back and forth adventure.
As a quick update, the house we're renting is being purchased so they can develop the land that we're on, which also unfortunately means tearing down this house. We have been told we have to leave several times over the last few years, and then those move out dates have been extended by the owner. So we have been fortunate enough to be able to stay.
But most recently, (about the last 9 months) I have sold many of our belongings and packed up most of our house, only to find out that we may get to stay for possibly another year.
So it's been a lot to deal with and has been pretty mentally exhausting, but we are so grateful for the proposition of being able to stay, that we're just trying to remain as flexible as we can throughout the extra time we have here.
So that's what's been going on with me, the last well, couple of years, but more intensely the last 9 months. We're now kind of at a place where we are waiting for the final say, but it looks really good in that we'll get to stay, for hopefully, another year. So, I can unpack our house and hopefully calm myself down.
On another note, I've been planning out some guest appearances on the podcast that I am really excited about and I think they will be very informative and fun to listen to and helpful so I'm looking forward to adding those in, in the coming months.
So lets turn to today's episode
Today I want to share
6 ways you can help your favorite small businesses (including ours) to spread the word, without spending a dime.
Your power as a consumer
I don't think any of us realize the power we hold in our hands, as a single consumer, that can help support and grow someone's small business.
I know I didn't realize it until I was a small business.
We have the unique position, as consumers, to be able to share about the products we use and love, and those shares, can greatly impact the small businesses we love.
You've seen things go viral. They go viral because of all the shares, from one person to the next, to the next.
Word-of-Mouth Advertising
I'm going to age myself, but back in the 80's (so some of you won't get this reference) - but do you remember that commercial about shampoo that said, "When I first tried "this shampoo", it was so good, I told 2 friends about it. And they told 2 friends, and so on, and so on, and so on." and on the tv screen a grid popped up of those shares and the grid grew as the shares multiplied.
So even back then, they knew the power of one person sharing their favorite product with another friend, who shared it with their friends, and so on, and so on...which with social media, now it can spread faster than ever.
In the marketing world, it's called, word-of-mouth advertising. And we just know it as sharing things we love with our friends and family.
This might look like you meeting up with a friend for lunch and saying, I love this shampoo I bought the other day, it smells like cherry and almonds and made my hair so soft. I got it at Aveda. You've got to try it. And then after lunch, your friend runs to the mall and picks up a bottle for herself, and she loves it and tells her friends, and the love just keeps going.
Or you take a picture of that beloved shampoo and post it on your social media feed and rave about how much you love it, and tag Aveda, and now all your friends and family know you love it and they might want to try it.
And if Aveda shares your post, all of their customers and people who love their products will know how much someone loves this cherry almond shampoo and they might want to try it and share it as well, and it goes on and on.
All at once the impact you've had on that cherry almond shampoo is staggering. You've shared a product you love with people you care about, who trust your opinion, and they'll be more likely to take a look at it and they might buy it and try it and love it, and share it with the people closest to them.
Sharing Comes Naturally
It's a very natural part of life to want to share something you found and love, with the people in your life. And if they go try it and love it too, bonus! And if you go beyond just the circle of people who you interact with and who live around you, and take it to the internet, the bigger the impact becomes.
Sharing the things we love with the people in our lives is one of the most thoughtful and powerful ways to spread the word about things. Whether it's a new show you love on tv or netflix, or products you love, or causes you believe in.
You have a lot of power in sharing and influencing the people around you.
Demands on Your Attention
It's a very unique and powerful time of life and in business.
It's also a time that there are so many pleads for your attention, and so many shares and likes that they all kind of get stacked on top of each other. Do you ever feel like that?
Sometimes I need a break, honestly, from social media, because I feel like I'm being sold to over nad over and over again from some of the accounts I follow. And it gets tiring and starts to feel disingenuous.
With so many people and businesses, it's honestly hard to keep track of all of them. When you follow 600 accounts, you might only see maybe 1% of them and the rest simply just get lost in a sea of posts and emails.
If you can imagine, for example, the sheer number of skin care brands out there, that no one has ever heard of before, that have wonderful products, but you don't even know they exist.
How would we ever find all these independent skin care brands, were it not for people sharing with each other? I find out about new skin care brands all the time from our customers, and these are brands they love, that I have never heard of before.
And like I just mentioned, it feels like brands are trying to grab my attention all the time, whether through email, social media or tv.
And the competition to get your attention keeps getting stronger and stronger.
Standing out in the Stadium
I'm a visual person, so picture this -
Imagine a single consumer standing on the field in a packed stadium and everyone in the stands represents different brands, and all of those brands are jumping up and down and waving their hands for this one person's attention.
As the consumer standing on the field, how on earth can you focus on even one brand, or even distinguish the other thousands of brands from each other, who are all jumping and down, waving their hands at you, desperate for your attention?
Sometimes it can feel overwhelming just being a consumer.
And on the other side, as a small business owner
I often feel like one of those thousands of brands in the stands, jumping and hollering and even bringing pom poms so maybe I will stand out enough among the sea of other businesses for this one person to see me. It feels nearly next to impossible sometimes.
And yet, as hard as it can be to find a way to connect with more people who can benefit from our washcloths, I still try to do everything I can to spread the word. But the truth is, I just can't do it alone and I really need your help. And I have a feeling, many of your favorite small businesses are probably feeling the same way.
We have so many wonderful, kind, amazing Fairface Washcloths customers! Many have told me they tell their friends and family about our washcloths, and I am so grateful for that.
Some customers have told me they buy our washcloths to give as gifts, some have told their family about our washcloths and now their entire extended family buys them, others buy them for their friends and family, I have a customer who buys our Dual washcloths to put in her skin care baskets that she sells at Christmas.
I also have customers who have told me they tell everyone about our washcloths and others who have shared our products on their social media pages and share our posts and we are so grateful to all of you!
We continue to work hard ourselves to spread the word and reach new customers we can help, by posting on social media, writing blog posts, and sending emails from time to time...
Invisible Threats to your Favorite Small Businesses
But here's what's happening, that you may not know. In addition to working our way out of the economical challenges associated with a world-wide pandemic, for all of us, changes to internet algorithms and social media sites, that can hurt our reach, are happening all the time.
Some of these changes are small adjustments and other times they are big shift. Some want you to spend ad money, so they limit your post reach, and others, like Google, are trying to make improvements to the way it indexes information but if you haven't formatted your blog posts a certain way, it may drop your posts off the map.
All of these ongoing changes have made it harder for people to find us, compared to how they used to find us over the last 11 years, especially organically through our blog posts.
Sometimes it really does feel like I'm sitting in the nose bleed section of a stadium full of 100,000 seats, and I'm jumping up and down, waving my arms, hoping to be seen by the people who need our products, along with the other thousands of businesses.
So that's where you come in.
The Power within YOU
You are gracious, powerful people, who have the ability to support the brands you love by sharing about them within your circle of friends and family.
And I'm not asking you to spend money, I'm simply asking you to share. It would help us to sustain our small business as well as helping us to reach people who can benefit from our washcloths, which is what we strive for.
It would really mean a lot to me if you would help us spread the word about our washcloths. And in order to make it easier for you, I've come up with a few ideas that will help make sharing even easier. And you can also use these tips for your other favorite small businesses!
6 Ways to Help Spread the Word about Fairface Washcloths (and your other favorite small businesses) without spending a dime
1. Share our Instagram posts @FairfaceWashcloths to your Instagram feed
It's as easy as clicking the little share symbol and clicking "add to your Instagram story". And there it is. It will now be seen by the people who follow you.
2. Share our Facebook posts to your Facebook feed, @FairfaceWashcloths
Again, it's as easy as clicking Share and posting it to your feed.
3. Create and share your own photos and post about our products, on Instagram and Facebook (and tag us @FairfaceWashcloths)
I know this takes a little more time, but it is a great way to share your favorite products with your friends and family. And by tagging us, we can see your posts too and thank you for it!
4. Send an email to your friends and family about your favorite products
And include Fairface Washcloths! You can even include helpful links to our
and
FairfaceWashcloths.com website.
This can be especially helpful around birthdays or holidays!
5. Tell your friends and family about our washcloths, in person
Imagine that! ;)
6. Share our Podcast with someone who might benefit from it.
I'm not sure where you're listening right now, but you can find the Fairface Podcast on Apple Podcasts, iTunes and most of the popular podcast channels.
7. *BONUS IDEA: Give Fairface Washcloths as a personal gift.
*This is a bonus because it does involve money. Fairface Washcloths really make great gifts. My sister loves to give them to her daughter's teachers, and they make wonderful gifts for moms, dads, sisters, brothers, grandparents, in-laws and friends, you name it!
They are also wonderful additions to skin care baskets or skin care sets if you like to create those and give them as gifts.
Thank you for taking the time to share and spread the word!
These are just a few of the ways you can help us spread the word about Fairface Washcloths, so we can continue to help other people who can benefit from our products, and help them to find us.
If you can find some time to help spread the word, with one of these ideas? We would appreciate it more than you know. We cannot do it without you.
We want to be able to continue bringing you the best washcloths for sensitive skin, and this will really help our small business during this challenging economic time and time of so many changes.
If you have already been sharing about us, THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I am so grateful for you!
We love you and so appreciate you helping us spread the word so we can help other people find us.
We'll help share other skin care brands you love!
If you have favorite skin care brands, please let me know and I will give them a shout-out! And if there is a brand you'd like me to have on our podcast, let me know, I would love to reach out to them! The more we share with each other, the more we can help each other.
If you have any questions about what I've talked about today, please feel free to reach out! You can easily find me on Instagram @FairfaceWashcloths or send me an email Shannon @ FairfaceWashcloths.com and I promise I will respond.
That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening and for being here supporting us and our efforts! I really, really do appreciate you! And I will see you next time!
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