#ShopShareSupport and WIN prizes worth over £500
If there’s one positive thing to emerge this year, it’s that many more people are realising how important small independent businesses are to their towns and cities.
If you’re keen to support your local businesses, or if you’re a small business looking for ways to encourage more people to #ShopShareSupport, here are our suggestions:
#ShopLocal
What we’re doing
- Encouraging members and followers to shop local 📣
We regularly encourage members, email subscribers and followers to think about their purchasing decisions. Some examples are of how we highlight small businesses are: our features about members, our solidarity initiatives and our recent directory of Black-owned businesses. - Encouraging Tideans to shop local ☕🎁
Those of us working here at Tide believe small businesses are vital to both the economy and the UK’s culture. So we don’t just work for Tide, we live by these values too. Here are some examples of what we’re doing:- George in Marketing (no-one’s quite sure what his job title is but he’s quite senior, so he tells us) gets his caffeine fix from his local independent cafe Southpaw rather than chains. (Often he splurges on a bagel too, rather than making something himself at home.) ☕🥯
- Ali, our Social Media Manager, doesn’t shop online to get her crime fiction fix – instead, she goes to @claphambooks in South West London. 🔪📚
- Tide’s community manager Val has stepped away from the lockdown temptation of online shopping to go to small independent shops. This way, she’s discovered new areas of her city and enjoyed the more personal experience of meeting makers and shopkeepers. 🏪
- Since she started working for Tide, writer Sooze has bought gifts only from independent shops. A lockdown ‘pub kit’ for her father from Purity brewery, a gift voucher for a team challenge from The Feminist Shop, books and cards from Magma Books – all fab small companies. 🎁
What you can do
- Review your personal spending 🏠📄🔍
As well as being more careful how much you spend, you might also decide to be more mindful about where you spend. This could be small steps such as buying your newspaper from an independent shop and not a chain, or more radical decisions like not shopping at a supermarket for an entire year. (An friend of our writer Sooze did this. #kudos 👍🏾) - Review your business purchasing 🏢📄🔍
You might already support fellow entrepreneurs locally but have you considered switching suppliers to somewhere more local? If you usually source outside the UK, could you choose a UK-based manufacturer instead? If this would mean a price increase, you could explain your decision to customers and ask that they in turn will continue to support you. - Continue to Eat Out to Help Out 🍴🥃
This Government scheme has now finished but you can still continue the ethos of the scheme – choose to go out on quieter days in the earlier part of the week to support your local independent hospitality venues.
#ShareWidely
What we’re doing
- #ShopShareSupport competition ✨
We’re encouraging you to shop local and support fellow entrepreneurs by running this competition on Instagram. One entrant will win six months’ FREE Tide Cashback Plus membership (worth £59.99 a month!) and £150 added to your Tide account.
The competition closes on 18 October 2020. Read the full T&Cs »
To enter, here’s what to do:- Use your Tide card at a local shop or service
- Take a photo showing what you bought, alongside your Tide card
- Share the photo on your Instagram story or feed.
In the caption:
– tag the independent shop or service
– tag @tidebanking
– use the hashtag #ShopShareSupport
- Sharing posts about Tide members 👨🏾🤝👨🏻👨🏻🤝👨🏻👩🏼🤝🧑🏾👩🏻🤝🧑🏻
We exist to help you so we love to share posts about your companies on our social networks. We regularly post features about Tide members and share offers from members to give your companies wider exposure. If you’d like to feature in our posts, DM to tell us what you have to offer. Here are some examples: - Sharing success stories 🎉
We love to hear from you and share your success stories to inspire other business owners. Whether you’ve launched a company after being made redundant (like Tide member Haydon Mort) or seen increased sales, let us know and we’ll share your success.
What you can do
- Tell your networks 📣
Bought something or had great service from a small business? Share with your networks. Take a photo if possible, post about it on your social media, tagging the business. Tag Tide too to enter our competition. - Leave a review 💻⭐
When you’ve had good service, don’t keep it to yourself. As well as sharing with your networks, you could take a few minutes to leave a positive review on Google, Trustpilot, TripAdvisor or other appropriate review site.
#SupportSMEs
What we’re doing
- Offering FREE business accounts 📱💳
With Tide, you only pay for what you need. We offer different memberships – with prices that start from free of charge – so your account can grow alongside your business. Recently we’ve launched our Plus Cashback membership so you can earn cashback rewards. - Hosting FREE Masterclasses 🎧
Our online Masterclasses are FREE and open to everyone. We gather experts (often Tide members) on topics vital to small businesses owners and ask them the most important questions. You’ll take away ideas you can put into action straightaway.
View and sign up for upcoming events at tide.co/events
Listen again to previous Masterclasses at our blog. Here are just a few: - Posting FREE business tips 🤓
Our blog is full of useful posts on topics tailored for our members. Learn about marketing, branding, tax, AI, productivity and more. Dive in now and take a look: tide.co/blog - Making financial admin easier ⛓
Your Tide account can sync with many of the most commonly used accounting software systems, like QuickBooks and Xero. It’s a handy time-saver – your transaction feed can go straight to your accountant so you can get back to doing what you love.
Tide | Accounting integrations » - Building features for you 🛠
We’re constantly improving our app and building new features by listening to what you need.
For example, we recently relaunched our Invoicing feature. All the improvements were requested by members: add a payment date, add your own logo, edit the email message, mark as paid, and more. To take a look, open your Tide app or log into Tide on the web.
What you can do
- Support with your money 💷💳
Make a pledge. For example, to support your local hospitality entrepreneurs by buying a few coffees a week at a local cafe. You could make a pledge privately, or you could post about what you promise to do on your social networks. - Support with your words 💻📝
Make a commitment, for example to leave positive reviews for three small businesses this month, and state your promise on your social media. - Support with your time ⌚
Grow your network of local fellow small business owners. There’s strength in numbers, for example, when you need to negotiate with your local council. If you’ve been in business a while, you could be a mentor to someone younger or inexperienced who’s working for themselves for the first time. Even if your business doesn’t seem similar, you still have much in common. You could talk about, for example: how to negotiate prices, where to advertise, how to chase up leads, data protection and more.
Have your say
How will you be taking part in #ShopShareSupport? We’re keen to hear from you – get in touch with us on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
Photo by Valentine Hutchings © Tide 2020
