Shopping locally has always been encouraged. However, communities are now encouraging locals to support small businesses with dedicated days such as “Small Business Saturdays” or recognizing National Small Business Week. With social media, you see the #shoplocal movement now more than ever.
Shopping locally is a great way for people to create relationships in their neighborhoods and support the local economy, all while building a more vibrant and unified society. To make shopping local even easier, the platform Nextdoor has created a hyperlocal social networking service for neighborhoods. This application has been influential in giving local businesses a large, easy, accessible platform to promote themselves.
Globally, Nextdoor already has over 275,000 neighborhoods on its platform. Each of these showcases the neighbors, businesses, nonprofits, public agencies, and large brands in the area. The platform's goal is to create trustworthy relationships between the businesses and neighbors, which will hopefully lead to a loyal customer base.
The first step to gaining awareness for your business is to create a free Nextdoor business page. This allows the businesses to communicate directly with neighbors who comment or message them. Once the business establishes a page, they can purchase local deals and advertise to neighbors. It’s free to post up to twice a month.
Once you’ve created a business page, you have the ability to view comments your business is tagged in. One of the most frequently used features on the application is recommendations. These are a big reason why people utilize this platform, with 76% of members saying they've been influenced by a recommendation on Nextdoor.
Wondering who can claim a business page? Anyone offering a service or selling a good qualifies to create a business page. Nextdoor is encouraging even the smallest of businesses to create a profile and begin establishing a local online presence for themselves.