ThumbStopper Donates Social Advertising Costs and Services to Local Businesses for Small Business Saturday

ThumbStopper-Donates-Advertising-Costs-and-Services-to-Local-Businesses-for-Small-Business-Saturday

[November 20, 2020 – Tampa, Fl] ThumbStopper®, a Tampa-based SaaS firm specializing in connecting brands with their retailers through intelligent social media syndication, understands the challenges facing independently owned businesses who typically rely on foot traffic to drive revenue. With thousands of small retailers across the country connected through their software solutions, the team at ThumbStopper connects with small business clients daily and has heard the struggle from their clients directly.

“In our day-to-day conversations with our retailers, we’ve heard their concerns about business slowing and changing since the start of the pandemic,” notes Carissa Mastry, Vice President of Operations at ThumbStopper. “It’s hard to hear from some of our clients about the challenges they’re facing, but it’s heartening to learn about how they’ve continued to adapt to the ever-changing retail landscape. Our retailers truly are a resilient bunch and are often overlooked as a major driver of our economy, especially in the face of the Amazons and Walmarts of the world, who don’t have the same awareness and inventory-related challenges that small independent businesses face.”

That’s why, in support of Small Business Saturday, ThumbStopper will be donating their social advertising expertise to a select group of retailers to increase their exposure to potential customers in the weeks approaching the holidays.

Beginning in mid-November, ThumbStopper will provide four retailers chosen at random with $500 worth advertising spend on Facebook and Instagram, including digital ad buying, campaign management, and reporting. Not only will the selected retailers benefit from their ad costs being covered by the team at ThumbStopper, but they will also benefit from the deep expertise in delivering high-quality ad units designed to drive website traffic, in-store traffic, conversions, and ultimately sales.

I was thrilled to learn about this opportunity from ThumbStopper. It shows me that they really care about small businesses like mine. We’re excited to see the results from our campaign and we’re truly grateful for the support.
James Griffith, Kawasaki Yamaha of Reno

“The holiday season is one of the busiest times of year for retailers, but this year the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to suppress sales at many brick-and-mortar stores,” said Matthew Brown, CEO of ThumbStopper. “Online sales are more important than ever, so donating advertising costs and our services creates great synergy between our organizational and philanthropic values and goals.”

Applying advanced audiencing, creative asset-building, and data collection techniques, ThumbStopper provides an unmatched digital advertising experience, creating awareness and sales for businesses during the holidays. ThumbStopper campaigns deliver results vastly surpassing industry averages, allowing customers to spend less while getting more.

“I was thrilled to learn about this opportunity from ThumbStopper. It shows me that they really care about small businesses like mine. We’re excited to see the results from our campaign and we’re truly grateful for the support.” said James Griffith, owner of Kawasaki Yamaha of Reno.

As retailer selection and set up progresses, ThumbStopper will be updating this page with more details on retailers and outcomes from their efforts.

[Updated December 4, 2020 – Tampa, Fl]

ThumbStopper Donates Social Advertising Costs and Services to Local Businesses for Small Business Saturday

At Redwood Harley-Davidson®, they’re not just proud Harley-Davidson® dealers, they’re also riders. They serve the Eureka, CA area, offering new and pre-owned bikes. Their on-site team includes sales, financing, service, and parts departments.

For their campaign, we are utilizing their inventory feed to run Facebook Inventory Ads in their local area. Inventory ads show a carousel of various bikes to prospects who are most likely to turn into a lead for their dealership. We are also leveraging the native Lead Ad unit, so when a prospect sees a bike they like, they can submit their information to the team at Redwood Harley-Davidson for follow-up without ever leaving Facebook’s environment.

February 2021 Update: The Redwood Harley Davidson Inventory Campaign performed well– considering their small market and audience size–generating 8 Leads through the On-Facebook Lead Form. The ad was shown 28,900 times (Impressions) to over 6,000 Unique Users. Those users then clicked on the ad 302 times to visit various inventory pages on the Redwood Harley website. For engagement, the ad received 44 Post Reactions, 2 Comments, and 1 Post Save.

February 2021 Update: The Dedham Bike Holiday Gift Guide campaign performed very well, yielding 287 Unique Clicks back to their website’s holiday gift guide. The Click-Through Rate was above average, at 2.06%. Their ad garnered nearly 16,000 Impressions to over 10,000 Unique Users. Dedham Bike owner Matt Donovan had this to say about their results: “We were pleasantly surprised by the number of visitors to our Holiday Gift Guide and would definitely participate in another paid promotion in the future.”

Merz Farm Equipment, Inc. is a family-owned one-stop shop for farm equipment. They have over 60 years of experience in the agricultural machinery industry and are a proud Grasshopper dealer, among other brands. Located in Southeast Nebraska, they cover a four state area, including Northwest Missouri, Southwest Iowa & Northeast Kansas.

For their campaign, we are promoting their Grasshopper line of snow implements to a local audience that consists of their Facebook page fans and a 1% lookalike audience of those fans. The ad unit features a carousel of snow implements, allowing Facebook’s algorithm to optimize the order of products shown. The campaign is focused on lead generation, utilizing Facebook’s Lead Ad. We have added qualifying questions to the lead forms to maximize qualified form fills.

February 2021 Update: The Merz Farm Equipment Grasshopper Snow Implements Awareness Campaign ran just before the holidays to drive awareness for the snow implements that owners can add to their existing Grasshopper mowers. When considering the audience was very niche–shown to current Grasshopper owners–the campaign achieved strong results to drive awareness for Merz Farm Equipment. The ad received over 33,000 Impressions to nearly 10,000 Unique Users. Those users then clicked on the ad nearly 200 times to visit and learn more about snow implements for their mowers. In terms of engagement, the ad was well-received, with 23 Post Reactions, 1 Comment, 2 Post Saves, and 2 Post Shares.

Kawasaki Yamaha of Reno has been in business for over 20 years and through their highly trained staff and customer-first policy, they plan on being around for a lot longer. They offer one of the largest selections of Kawasaki vehicles and Yamaha WaveRunners in Reno, NV and surrounding areas, and have a matching parts and accessories department to back it up.

For their campaign, we are utilizing their full inventory feed to run Facebook Inventory Ads to their pixel audience, Facebook page fans, and a 1% lookalike of their page fans. The campaign is optimized for lead form submissions utilizing Facebook’s Lead Ad unit. We’ve added qualifying questions that the dealership can use for an improved customer outreach experience, such as Do you have a trade-in? and When is the best time to contact you?

February 2021 Update: The Kawasaki Yamaha of Reno Inventory Campaign focused on showing their inventory selection to qualified users in their city. The campaign generated 22 leads through the custom On-Facebook Lead Form. The ad UNIT was clicked on 466 times, with a Click-Through Rate of 1.81%. In terms of engagement, the ad received 33 Reactions, 2 Comments, and 1 Post Save. Owner James Griffith said of the ad, “I was thrilled to learn about this opportunity from ThumbStopper. It shows me that they really care about small businesses like mine. We’re very happy with the results of the campaign and we’re truly grateful for the support.”

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Key Points:

Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns.

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible.

Text

Use plain language that’s easy to understand
Avoid text in all caps
Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Use color contrast checkers to make sure low-vision people can see images
Try not to completely rely on color to show contrast
Add alternative text on each social platform

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business.

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

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