Content published by ShopBayOfQuinte.ca - 888-430-7467 in Bay Of Quinte, Ontario, Canada

In the light of current events, the services that ShopBayofQuinte.ca and its community partners offer, have become even more important. This is not a sales pitch. We are writing to build awareness. We ask that you take a few minutes to read and review what we have to offer the communities within the Bay of Quinte and Central Hastings region.

Social media has now become synonymous with digital marketing, going hand-in-hand with most – if not all – digital campaigns. However, social media is far from static and what worked a few months ago may not get you the same good results now. More true today, then even four weeks ago. Niche communities such as ShopBayofQuinte and its community partners are perfect examples of the evolution of social media marketing.
Habits change, platforms evolve, and new platforms come into existence. All of this influences how people use and react to social media marketing, as well as how small businesses are able to reach their audience.
Many newer platforms, like ShopBayofQuinte use an established community to grow their own it is one of the oldest Growth Hacks out there.We refer to it as “Piggybacking”: Airbnb did it with Craigslist, Instagram with Facebook. To establish our community we use similar methods. But, we also have a distinct advantage over all of these sites. Every post, webpage, marketplace item, coupon etc, are indexed in Google on our sites. Meaning that Google bots or “spiders” , search out our information and then sort it to its relevance. The more times that Google indexes your information and rates its importance, as well as how long consumers stay on and return to this site increase our ranking in Google search results. Link building is also another factor in Google ranking factors. By having every local business, non profits and municipal government link into our site we are building something very powerful locally. So, the more businesses that join and use the site regularly actually assists their peers, agencies and communities. All of this works by doing what small businesses are already doing; posting to social media.
The larger social media platforms have become too big. They have so many users that content has to be filtered by algorithms. My own Facebook feed this morning had not even one business show up organically.
Presently, 70% of Instagram posts aren’t seen.
In 2016, organic reach on Facebook decreased by a whooping 52% percent. [*] In 2017, it decreased by another 20%! [*And by the Fall of 2019 another 20%, at least if not more.
Less reach yields less ROI from marketing campaigns, which makes it very unattractive for small businesses to invest into (organic) social media.
In return, paid advertising on social networks has become more expensive and the price is continuing to climb up. The attention on big social networks might still be underpriced but higher advertising cost and lower organic reach set the bar too high for small businesses to use them as growth channels. Hoping that by paying $10 for the possiblity of having 1000 people see your one post becomes very expensive when the results are not near what the reality exposes.

For consumers, the big social media platforms have become too crowded and invasive. For small businesses, they don’t provide enough reach, engagement and “virality” anymore. So using these platforms often creates a big disconnect between small businesses and its consumers. In the wake of the COVID19 outbreak, many communities started Facebook groups. The problem with these groups is that they lack consumer involvement. Yes, we as small business owners are also consumers, but when you speak with people outside of the small business community they are lacking the same knowledge or awareness of what is available in our community. They are still relying on word of mouth. Amazon hired 100K+ workers to meet demand. Walmart has pick up dates for groceries two weeks in advance. We have small businesses worried about paying their rent next month. The pandemic has brought the focus back to LOCAL, and what it has to offer. Now is the time for small businesses to bridge the gap and connect with consumers where they are looking; search engines.
ShopBayofQuinte and its community partner sites have tried to right what the bigger sites are doing wrong:

Focused on one topic: community growth both economically and socially
More engagement: no algorithm means no one business monopolizes the newsfeed, every entry is seen in chronological order
Less invasive, consumers find this site when they are looking to buy.
Less competitive, your only competition is local. No big box or online giants.

Habits change, platforms evolve, and new platforms come into existence. All of this influences how people use and react to social media marketing, as well as how small businesses are able to reach their audience.
It is more important than ever before for small businesses to understand and stay ahead of the curve when it comes to social media.
ShopBayofQuinte is trying to bring the communities together in a digital ecosystem. There is no cost for everyone to join. We have always and will continue to offer a free business profile to every side hustle, home based business, small business, non profit and local municipal partner in our region. During the pandemic we are offering a COVID19 designated newsfeed, and a free value package to all in the Quinte and Central Hastings region. (That is a $50/month value for free.) It allows small business to obtain an e-commerce platform, e gift certificates and email for free. Every business is able to set up themselves and can be operational in minutes not days or weeks.

Attached please watch our short overview of all of the tools we offer small businesses in our region:

Side note:
If the BIA’s. Economic Developments and all other agencies had their business directories powered by ShopBayofQuinte/ShopCentralHastings., all businesses would be able to update their community profile and it would be simultaneously updated on the business directory. This offers great value to our municipal partners.

Attached please find testimonials from three local businesses that use our services.