Social media boosts reach when targeted to active groups of small businesses
This post is the first in a four-part “Journey to Impact” series sharing lessons from a recent Strive Community evaluation on the digital channels and strategies that have been most effective at reaching and engaging small businesses in their journey to growth and greater resilience.
Article by Chelsea Horváth, MEL Consultant at Strive Community
Brian, a 28-year-old chef in Nairobi, learned about MESH, the first online community for entrepreneurs in the informal community, through a post on their sister brand Shujaaz Inc’s Facebook page. The page boasts over 2.2 million followers thanks to Shujaaz’s longstanding (14+ years) relationship with its young “hustla” audience. Seeing this page’s robust and active followers, MESH decided to leverage this community to encourage young entrepreneurs to sign up to their app.
Since then, MESH has been a source of inspiration and support for Brian. Through the platform, he can connect with and learn from other existing and aspiring young small business owners. It’s also where he got the idea for his side hustle: a fresh fruit and juice stall. In the future, he hopes to set up his own juice bar or restaurant. In the meantime, he’s watching videos about financial management on the MESH app, learning from his MESHer mentors, and asking questions in MESH discussion groups. Brian’s experience illustrates one of Strive Community’s lessons learned from our recent evaluation: One of the most effective ways to reach small businesses with digital tools and solutions is through existing, active small business communities on social media.¹
Social media is a part of many small business owners’ daily lives, but with so much content out there, it’s hard to grab people’s attention. Strive Community’s implementation partners have tested two different strategies on social media, with very different effects.
The first strategy placed ads and content on social media in a non-targeted approach, which used paid advertising, promoted content through posts, and hoped that this content got picked up by the algorithm. Unfortunately, this strategy didn’t work out so well. The conversion rate was really low; only about 4.5% of Facebook users who saw a piece of Strive Community content on their screens actually paused to read or watch the video. In contrast, when partners took a targeted approach and placed Strive content in existing, active communities of small businesses, like Shujaaz’s Facebook groups, 76% of group members went on to read, watch, or engage with a post. Brian’s story is a great example of this.
The second strategy involved using social media micro-influencers to reach small businesses. We don’t mean influencers with millions of followers, but those with smaller, active followings. Shujaaz used this strategy effectively. Working with influencers who closely resembled typical MESHers led to significant increases in signups on MESH (check out this blog post for more on influencers). For example, Carolynne Wambui, a young digital creator and influencer on Instagram with 13,000 followers, self-shot a video promoting a Unilever gig opportunity on MESH, which led to 4,500 young people viewing the gig opportunity.
With these lessons in mind for future programs, whenever Strive Community content or digital solutions are promoted or shared on social media, it will be placed in existing, active small business communities. For example, in our new Latin America program, Hoob Marketing is promoting Strive’s e-commerce training material in active, small business Facebook groups, including those for women- and black-owned small businesses, such as Dotsy, Clube da Borborleta, and Kilombu. This program aims to make use of the organic accrued social capital, reach, and trust in these groups to distribute and drive engagement with relevant training content that supports the growth of these small businesses.²
Read part two of this blog series to learn more about how Strive Community is engaging small businesses with content through dedicated learning channels and trusted small business communities.
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¹ We define reach as the number of small businesses that viewed content or were introduced to solutions with impact potential through our programs.
² We define engagement as the number of small businesses that tried or participated in content or solutions with impact potential through our programs.
