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We all post dutifully, but what actually gets customers commenting? Here, six mom-and-pops share their most successful posts.
You don’t have to be an influencer to get attention on social media, and your posts don’t need to rack up a million views in order to make a difference to your bottom line. For small businesses, what counts as “viral” is all relative. The key is engagement, or getting your customers sharing, liking and thinking about your business. So how do you make that happen? Here, six mom-and-pops share their social media success stories.
1. Authentic lo-fi vibes
“My company teaches improv and sketch classes, runs camps, and does live comedy shows. Once, we had a professional filmmaker make a video about the company. It’s great, and people like it — but here’s the thing: There’s another video that an ex-student did, and it’s gotten more response than anything I’ve ever posted! She’s a sophomore in college, and it’s so personal and adorable. I think it’s because she knows me, and her video reflects the reality of the program.” — Kristin Henn, owner
2. Relatable family history
“We’re sisters who own a Midwest-themed apparel company, and have always been into storytelling about why we do what we do. Anytime we post a throwback picture of our parents, we get insane comments and traction. They were homecoming king and queen at Southwestern High School in Wisconsin in 1973. So every fall we share this photo of our dad crowning our mom on the football field. People see that and they’re like, ‘Oh, wow,’ because so many Midwest girls have similar stories. And when I think about what sets us apart, it’s that we’re relatable, and that’s why people want to buy from us.” — Marissa Hoffmann and Marah Odgers, owners
3. Tapping the cultural conversation
“We run a used bookstore. In 2021, we did our first Banned Books Week, where we found whatever banned books we could and put them out. We always try to stay neutral in whatever we do publicly, but we love all books — and they started banning things we used to read, like To Kill a Mockingbird. When we posted about our second one in 2022 on Facebook, there was quite a bit of debate in the comments — like, The Great Gatsby? Why is that one banned? But every year we do it, the posts get a lot of interaction. People are appreciative that we’re standing up to it.”— Socorro Gardner, owner, and her daughter Monica Gardner, director
4. The chef’s inspiring backstory
“I run three soul food restaurants in New York City with Chef Charles Gabriel. In this video, I tell how Charles went from picking cotton in Charlotte to selling chicken on a table in Harlem to his own brick-and-mortar — and, after we got together, expanded to three locations. I’m trying to create that warm, safe feeling, like when you come home and your family is sitting at the table eating — you walk in and it’s, ‘Hey baby, how you doing? You hungry?’ I didn’t have that as a child, and I guess people didn’t have that either. I feel like it’s a go-getter, ’cause everybody wants the same thing. We all want love.” — Chef Quie Slobert, COO and co-owner with Chef Charles Gabriel
5. Educational SEO content
“We repair watches and clocks, and our YouTube channel does pretty well. But one of our videos has over a million views. The title is the hook: ‘The #1 Most Harmful Mistake People Make With A Citizen Eco-Drive Watch.’ So if you own one, you’d want to know. Our video titles are SEO-optimized; we make content about repairing watches, a blog on the history of the brand, and videos and podcasts on the same topic. All that at once gives us the domain authority that Google’s looking for — and because of that, they push out our name.” — Jared Foster, co-owner with his wife, Annette Foster
6. Riding the cultural wave
“I own a custom hat shop in Nashville. Whenever there are major events in the city, we try to create social media that’ll grab visitors’ attention. For example, when country star Morgan Wallen was playing a local concert, one of our teammates had an idea of doing our own version of the ‘Morgan Wallen walkout.’ If you don’t know it, Morgan starts every concert by walking out to the stage with someone famous from the city he’s in. It’s a thing. So we did our version with our staff on TikTok. It had over a million views. And for a small business in Nashville, we had the most epic weekend with a four- to five-hour wait list the entire time. It blew us out of the water!” — Alex Samuels, owner
