The Power of Social Local Campaigns

The Power of Social Local Campaigns

Reminding the community about the importance of shopping locally

We live in a time when the convenience of online shopping supersedes the importance of supporting small businesses. To remind the community about the importance of shopping locally, we partnered with the Temecula Valley Chamber of Commerce and Riverside County to initiate and promote a Shop Local campaign through social media. The campaign aims to revitalize the loyalty and pride residents hold for their hometowns by highlighting local and small businesses. An effective Shop Local campaign offers endless opportunities to get reacquainted with your community. Our team utilized various social media platforms, as well as billboard, print and radio advertising to bring awareness to local and small businesses in Temecula Valley. By engaging community support through social media, this campaign has found success in promoting discovery and connection to local businesses.

Finding local and small businesses can be challenging, even for local residents. We know the power that social media has in promoting new discoveries through geotagging, using hashtags, and connecting with other popular online communities, so our team implemented a strategy to put these tools to use. For Temecula Valley, we leaned into the use of hashtags like #DineLocal and #ShopLocal, among others that many people already use as reference points for discovering new places to eat and shop. We also implemented tagging the locations of businesses and the city of Temecula in order to open another avenue for discovery. To coincide with the social campaign, our team designed billboards and print ads for local publications. Additionally, we developed targeted radio commercial ads in order to reach an audience that may not use social media. We shared educational content, statistics, and information about local businesses to encourage community members to reevaluate how they spend their dollar and keep local businesses top of mind when choosing where to spend it. Social media has been especially instrumental in carrying this campaign and we have seen exponential growth through these mediums.

Engaging Community Support

Social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook have evolved into resources similar to Yelp or Google. These platforms are searchable and allow for new discoveries and connections that weren’t possible a decade ago. By incorporating strategies to connect the community to local businesses, we found great success through online communities and print ads. By extending the reach to pre-existing communities on Facebook and Instagram, we were able to generate a community of locals who love Temecula and love to learn about new local spots to support. With the help of the Temecula Valley Chamber of Commerce, we garnered more than 1,000 followers organically on Instagram and reached more than 96,000 people on Facebook through localized paid advertising in just a few months. In addition, we have extended our reach beyond Temecula, with the support of Riverside County, in the hopes that this will motivate and inspire other local communities to support small businesses and continue to Shop Local. We are excited to see how these online communities will continue to grow and impact the local community in the upcoming months.