Hyperlocal Social Media Marketing for the Mom and Pop Shops

Your mother and father have achieved their dream of opening a bed and breakfast. You think it’s absolutely divine, but you seem to be the only guest. You finally convinced them that an Instagram page could help drum up some business. They trust your idea, and now you have to make good on your promise. That led you here. You’re looking up hyperlocal social media marketing. Fortunately, you don’t have to look anywhere else. We’ve broken down what sounds like a technical concept into bite-sized pieces.

Social media platforms are famous for making the world smaller. However, sometimes your world is small enough already and needs no resizing. Your target audience is in full view. Your community pastor, kindergarten teacher, and beloved dog walker make it. You just need the right hyperlocal marketing strategies to get them to your business. Potential customers could also be people visiting, looking for the best in the town. You want them to find you with your social media marketing strategy.

This isn’t your usual social media strategy, either. Every hyperlocal marketing campaign will be unique because every hometown is unique. We can tell you all about hyperlocal targeting, but you’ll have to add the finishing touches to community engagement. Are you ready? Let’s get started!

What Is Hyperlocal Social Media Marketing? 

Hyperlocal marketing is a fancy expression for something relatively simple. We can use a real-life scenario to help illustrate it. You may want to find the nearest thrift store. You hop on your favorite search engine and punch in “thrift stores near me.” You just performed a hyperlocal search without even thinking about it. Of course, the search engine will have to know your location to know what is near to you. The results you see are the results the site creators optimized the most for the searches.

Don’t Think Big — Think Small

Yes, you read that correctly. Decrease the scale that you have in mind. This kind of strategy doesn’t focus on the potential followers on the other side of the world. No. It hones in on the immediate bubble around a user. What good is it to have adoring fans halfway across the world? It may be better to have highly loyal followers in the immediate vicinity.

The concentration on a defined local area could be as wide as a city. It could also be as small as a few streets. Just think of a radius that wouldn’t be out of the way of a potential customer. The bubble may include a comfortable driving distance from the business location. The location in question could depend on how easy it is to travel around the city. The aim is to increase in-person sales, not online ones.

The Brands That Can Use Hyperlocal Marketing

There really is no limit to the type of business that can use this type of marketing. Think of businesses that you have to be at to use physically. This could include hotels or Airbnb. Think of businesses where being in person is just more convenient. For example, some people still prefer to try on clothes at a clothing store. Similarly, they prefer to pick out their produce at the supermarket. Some prefer to sit and dine in a restaurant’s ambiance rather than get takeout.

Hyperlocal marketing strategies should help you show up in searches that pinpoint a specific location. Then, they should guarantee more traffic to your business. When done right, customers in the area should automatically think of you in association with a particular product.

A Good Local Marketing Strategy Could Be Good for You 

If you’ve been reading Plixi articles for a while, you have some growth ideas in mind. Do you know how to adjust these tips for hyperlocal marketing? If not, we can help you with that. We have gone ahead and configured some tips for your local marketing strategy.

Use Better Hashtags

Hashtags should be an essential part of your growth plan. They’re like a special language only Instagram understands. What you need to do is use hashtags that are specific to your location. Think about a tourist visiting your hometown in New York. You want them to come to your family-owned cafe. What would they type into Instagram’s search bar? You have to make sure it’s a hashtag attached to your post. They may type:

• #newyorkcafespots
• #bestcafesinnewyork
• #coffeeinnewyork
• #authenticnewyorkcafe
• #bestcoffeeinqueens
• #boutiquenewyorkcoffeeshop
• #bronxcafe
• #familyownednycafe

You can get even more specific to your location with your hashtags. Generic hashtags like #coffeeshop or #cafe won’t get you the local customers you need. A person on the other side of the world may search for those hashtags. They likely aren’t coming to the area where you’re located. You want the customers in the area that would stop by. Include your locations in your hashtags in some way.

Tag Your Location

This one should be a no-brainer. Of course, you tag the location of your business. People search for actual locations on Instagram as well. Make sure your content shows up when they do. How do you do this? When you’re uploading a photo, tag a location as well. If they are in a particular area, they familiarize themselves with the local businesses. They will know beforehand what to expect, and they will know what the building looks like.

This will also encourage them to geotag their location when they come to visit as well. This way, more people will be able to see your business as an option.

Engages With Other Local Businesses

Part of letting businesses know you exist is showing up in the comment section of other businesses. There could be other businesses in a related industry that have a high engagement rate. You could capitalize on that by commenting on their posts. That way, their followers will notice.

You could even take it a step further by sharing the content. They may feel moved to share your content as well.

Why You Will Like This Social Media Marketing Strategy

With this type of marketing strategy, you should have the door to your businesses swinging! It may not seem to be the most ambitious way to grow a page. Still, it will garner the results you need. Let’s discuss some features we think you’ll like:

It’s Ideal for the Service Industry

Have you ever fallen in love with the work of a hairstylist? Did they patent a whole new way to style hair? Maybe it was a makeup artist who did the cut and crease like no one else. When you look deeply at their IG page, you see that they are nowhere near you. You truly ask yourself if it’s worth flying out someone to do your hair. Little do you know, there is a business 15 minutes away that can comparable work! Unfortunately, they haven’t optimized their hyperlocal marketing. They may never show up on your radar.

Some industries have human skills as the product. You can’t just slap shipping and handling onto that. They may not be so flexible, and your best bet is to find the service in your area.

More Likelihood of Income

When someone wants to know the nearest business to them, they are likely in a hurry to spend. A tourist could be on the hunt for a great restaurant for dinner or shop to buy a last-minute souvenir. The fact that they don’t want to spend much time traveling suggests that they are willing to shell out cash. Online, people can browse for weeks with the same items in the cart. An in-person customer in the area has more intentionality.

It Could Be Less Competition

Boba tea is getting very popular. If someone were to search #bobatea or #bubbletea on Instagram, they’d get a flood of responses. However, there are very few places in, say, Jamaica that sell it. If business owners were to use #boboteainjamaica, potential customers would find them so much easier. There is less competition with a more specific hashtag. 

Save Money on Instagram Ads

If you focus on the people in your vicinity, you can save money on ads. Yes, you’d love someone in another continent to follow and add to your social proof. Unfortunately, what follows may never convert to the cash you need. Keeping the location of your target audience small can save you tremendously in marketing costs.

Here Are Some Big Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

Being a small fish in a huge pond can be daunting. Imagine feeling inspired to open up a coffee shop business with your family recipe. Can you survive with sharks like Starbucks everywhere? This could be tricky but not impossible. You just need some social media marketing tips for small businesses. We have some hyperlocal marketing strategies that will make some waves in the market.

Collaborate With Other Businesses

There have to be other ambitious creators in your area. They could be big or small, what matters is that they are local as well. Instagram allows creators to collaborate on their posts. The Post or reel will show up on both Instagram pages. This gives each business access to the other’s follower base. Sharing on Instagram Stories will also heighten the likelihood of a new user seeing it. Make sure that your values are similar to avoid awkward run-ins down the line.

Host Giveaways

Let’s follow up on that last tip. Instead of just making a joint post, make the post a contest or giveaway. Giveaways prove themselves to be engagement generators. You can ask entrants to like, comment, share, and follow every page involved.

The best part is that you likely won’t have to worry about shipping the gift. If only local businesses take part in the giveaway, you can ask the winner(s) to collect. This is a great way to bring more people to your store.

Use User-Generated Content

Smaller businesses may not benefit from the goodwill that big brands do. To gain people’s trust, start to share some reviews from users. Incentivize sharing reviews to get people to speak their minds. This is user-generated content.

Potential customers may love seeing the faces of their neighbors they know and trust. It’s like advertising using word of mouth with the permanence of an Instagram post. If they don’t trust your business, they may trust their favorite teacher or mail carrier!

Plixi Has Local Business Social Media Marketing Tactics That You Need To Know

Executing local business social media marketing is not the same as the average page. The potential customer base can be tiny. Finding them using the usual means can be tedious or discouraging. Locating them on social media could be like finding a needle in a haystack. Your local business may not have the resources of the other businesses in the market. The intensive social media research and reporting needed is not easy to grasp. It may be expensive to hire a professional for a small business to get off its feet.

It’s going to be hard to do all of that with the reputation to back up your name. Do you know who has a good reputation, though? Plixi does. Plixi helps clients with IG accounts of all sizes and locations. We have a surefire method of getting the results you need. It helps that we have the tools to get the job done professionally. We have a propriety AI targeting algorithm that any large IG would love. In addition to that, we have an in-house platform for Instagram influencers. Your business won’t be sacrificing anything with us. We will treat your business with the respect that it deserves. Our individualized assistance will help you find your followers. You don’t have to tackle hyperlocal social media marketing alone. Start growing and gaining Instagram followers today!