Three years ago, the Rhode Island Foundation’s Jessica David identified a void in the local shopping scene – there was no central platform connecting small Rhode Island businesses with the public.
Days before Small Business Saturday 2014, she and the foundation launched “an online directory” called Buy Local Rhode Island, because at the time “most small businesses did not have a web presence,” she said.
Today, she added, Buy Local is “a campaign to promote the positive impact of buying local on Rhode Island’s economy and community … and to encourage consumers to think about their role in the local economy.”
While the foundation would not share yearly web-traffic data for the site, it did say there was a boost in holiday-shopping traffic in 2017. And over three years, it says the #BuyLocalRI hashtag has been used more than 12,000 times.
Liz M. Tanner, newly named director of business regulation at the R.I. Executive Office of Commerce, knows it’s difficult for businesses to self-market. However, she added, associations might have a better chance.
“If there’s a grassroots effort and a lot of people are involved, that community does better,” she said, but “some wax and wane [in success] depending on the ability of leadership to be involved” in marketing.
Many Providence-based business associations are fighting to make time for online promotion.
Five-year-old Wickenden Area Merchants Association launched an online presence in 2014 with small profiles of business owners. Today, the website has taken a backseat to WAMA’s Facebook profile, where the majority of its community-building takes place, said Vincent Scorziello, WAMA president and co-owner of Providence’s Campus Fine Wines.
Scorziello said he chose Facebook because it’s free and used almost universally. But, he said, it still requires constant maintenance.
“Businesses on the street are small, sometimes single-owner shops. Nobody has … time to devote to social media beyond their own store,” he said.
Yet, he said, “If you don’t use social media … you cease to exist.”
WAMA’s online presence is meant to “drive traffic to the street,” he said, adding he doesn’t measure the profile’s effectiveness more than what Facebook reports.
Rod Burkett, Providence Community Library regional librarian coordinator, launched SouthPVD.org in March 2017 because he felt the city’s South Side was lacking a community voice. It was not initially geared to business connections but is looking to increase commerce-related traffic with the Elmwood Avenue Business and Community Association, said Burkett.
His colleague, Stephanie Shea, PCL digital-services coordinator, said SouthPVD.org had 6,000 total hits by December. She’d like to see that increase, but “staff time to spend focused on [SouthPVD.org]” is limited.
Kristen Adamo, vice president of marketing and communications at the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, has been identifying, mapping and linking websites to a soon-to-launch GoProvidence.com collection.
Focusing on tourists and traveling journalists, Adamo stressed the importance of a one-stop-shop style resource where users can learn about multiple businesses in one relatively small geographic area, rather than bouncing from one end of the city to another.
“You don’t go to New York City and just go to Times Square,” she said. “Providence should be the same.”