Supporting small businesses goes way beyond just spending money.

With social media there are so many things you can do to help. I will write this from a photographers perspective but you can apply so many of these tips to other small businesses.

(I will be using images from our beach and camping vacation because

I’ts not often I get to share them on my website)

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Purchase Gift Certificates

This really works for any type of photographer or small business. For example if you are going to a bridal shower ask in advance who they hired as their photographer so you can purchase a gift card to help pay for their wedding photos or an album after the wedding. This could apply this to maternity photos, engagement pictures, couples sessions, newborn photos, even boudoir. This also applies to everyone else in the event industry. Florists are one a lot of people don’t think of. Send flowers to a friend for no reason.

Leave Reviews

Take some time to leave review. Google, Yelp, and Facebook are all places that you can leave reviews. This is free and does not cost you anything. Just make sure that you are not leaving reviews for people you have not ever worked with. Fake reviews are just shitty. Be genuine and talk about things like your experience or final product. This speaks volumes for boudoir because most of the time images cant be shared and that’s perfectly ok but leaving some kind words will help others deciding on booking.

Tag me!

Tagging can be done on Facebook but also on Instagram. There are multiple ways to tag on Instagram and if you can do both that is AMAZING! Tagging a businesses name in the comments helps because first we see the image, then we read the caption, then we click anyone that is tagged. Then we decide if we want to follow or creep on the person or business that is tagged. We all do it lol. So tagging in the caption is HUGE. Take it one step further and tag the image.

Before you post you can also tag a person or business in the image. The benefit to this is it will show up in their tagged photo so other people can get to what others are sharing about them. So before you post you can add the location and tag people. If you want to go back and add tags you can. You find the photo you want to tag, hit edit, and look in left hand corner of an image is a little person icon. Click it and tag them anywhere in the photo.

Sharing is caring

Share buttons are amazing to small business. Like example this blog post. If you see it on facebook hit the share button! More people reading and looking at a website the better. Share photos, share blogs, share anything a small business posts!

You can share their posts to your story on instagram. Just click the little arrow and as long as its a public post you should be able to click add this to your story.

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Give them a shout out.

So this is similar to reviews, and sharing but can mean so much to a small business. SHOUT THEM OUT. This means intentionally just type up a post talking about the owner of the business, the service, the products. Whatever your heart desires. Tag their name, business page, or even website. This will drive traffic to their business. So if you really really loved your family photos because the phtographer was patient and fun POST ABOUT IT and add a picture.

Drop a comment

This one is sooooo easy for literally anyone to do for a small business. Comment a GIF, an emoji, words of encouragement or compliments. When people comment on posts it helps with all the algorithms and stuff to see that others might want to see the post so they can comment. It basically boosts it. Tag friends as well in the comments. This goes for Facebook and Instagram.

Refer your friends.

This one is huge! Word of mouth is one of the best ways to support a small business. I run a photobooth business and I am always so surprised when I see so many friends at weddings, bridal showers, company parties and more and we never received an inquiry for the event. I get it if you are attending an event not the ones planning so it would be weird to randomly suggest us but sometimes small businesses need help. If you know someone that can use a service that a small business provides do your best to bring it up and maybe even TAG them in the posts a small business makes like… “girl this would be so cool for your wedding” BAM!

Photographers work extremely hard much like other small business owners. These are ideas you can do from your couch. They can be applied to any small business. I hope as you read this you go show some love to some of you favorite small business owners. They will appreciate it so much. Thank you!

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