If you’ve been around here for long enough, you know how much I love and encourage supporting small businesses. I’m a small business owner, myself. I have 2 shops on Etsy (letterhappy and happytatts), I’ve dabbled in boutique fashion with the linden closet, and of course, I blog right here.

You might think that the only way to support a small biz is with your hard earned dolla dolla bills y’all, but I’m here to tell you that some of the most incredible support you can offer any small biz will cost you LITERALLY NOTHING. That’s right. Not a single penny.

Like and comment on their Instagram posts

This is by far one of the absolute best ways to help out your favorite small biz. A few years ago, when Instagram switched from a chronological feed to an algorithm-based feed, “engagement” became the new buzzword, especially for businesses. Now, instead of showing you the most recent posts, Instagram shows you the posts it thinks you’re most likely to engage with (like, comment, save, etc.) which is primarily based on how you (and others) have engaged with the account in the past. I’ll come back to the (and others) part in a minute.

That’s why, even if they have a smaller follower count, you tend to always see posts by your friends and family towards the top of your feed - because you have personal connections with them and you’ve probably interacted with their past posts more than you’ve interacted with a small biz, blogger, or celebrity.

Now back to the (and others). Instagram doesn’t just look at YOUR individual engagement with a post, it also takes into account the overall engagement a post has received. Without getting too technical and math-y on you, the larger the engagement percentage is (how many times a post has been seen vs. how many times it’s been interacted with), the more Instagram believes it should be shown more widely. If an algorithm robot could think real human thoughts, it would think “Hmm.. a bunch of people have liked and commented on this post. It must be good content. I should show it to more people!” But it can’t. So it probably just thinks “1000110100101111001”. Yeah, okay, I’m stopping now.

All that to say.. LIKING AND COMMENTING IS V IMPORTANT AND IT HELPS YOUR FAVORITE SMALL BUSINESS SHOW UP IN MORE PEOPLE’S FEEDS.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Bonus! Tag a friend! This falls under commenting, obviously. If you tag a friend that you think will like the small biz’s content or product, it can help spread the love, therefore gaining them more likes, more comments, and even more potential follows!

Save their Instagram posts

You can also SAVE a post, which gives a bit of an algorithm boost as well. Not only is it great for the small biz, but it allows you to come directly back to a post later, which is great if you want to remember a gift idea for a loved one’s birthday without scrolling back through tons of posts.

Simply tap the little double pointed flag (underneath the photo to the right) and it will save automatically.

Pro tip: if you like to organize your saves so you can refer to them by category, you’ll just want to hold down on the flag icon until the collections option comes up at the bottom of the screen. You can select a collection you’ve already created, or start a new one by tapping the + sign.

Pin something from their website/shop

If you have a Pinterest account, you can easily pin something from your favorite small biz’s website or shop. Most websites (including this one, hint hint!) have an option to pin photos if you hover over the photo with your cursor. If you use Chrome, you can download an extension that will let you pin from anywhere, even if the website itself doesn’t offer the option. The power of Pinterest is unlike any other social media site, in that a pin can have an unlimited life as it gets pinned and repinned, rather than an Instagram or Facebook post that’s visibility lasts for 1-2 days at most.

Swipe up through Instagram Stories or respond with a DM

If your favorite small biz has 10K+ followers on Instagram, chances are they’re utilizing the “swipe up” feature to promote products or blog posts. It may not seem like much, but remember that “engagement” buzzword I mentioned above? Swipe ups count as engagement, too, and every little bit helps, even if you’re not planning on shopping right then.

And when I say “respond with a DM”, it doesn’t always have to be a detailed question or a deep conversation (although I, for one, always GLADLY welcome those kinds of DMs, as I’m sure most biz owners do)! I absolutely love the “Quick Reactions” feature, which allows you to simply pick an emoji to respond with. Added bonus: this can also help a biz owner know exactly what resonated with you, and they can use that to their advantage when creating future content!

Share a post to your own Instagram story

Ever noticed the little paper airplane icon next to the like and comment buttons on Instagram? This lets you send any Instagram post to a friend OR share it directly to your stories, essentially promoting it to your network of followers. It just takes a few seconds, and it introduces the small biz to a bunch of new people who trust you to give honest and good recommendations.

Pro tip: when you do this, be sure to include the biz’s handle on your Instagram Story slide by either typing it in as text (starting with the “@” will bring up suggestions at the bottom of the screen) or using the tag feature found by clicking the little square smiley face button at the top and adding it as a sticker. Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t give the biz a notification if you simply share the post, but they WILL be able to see it if you tag them!

See?! Easy peasy! Each one of these ideas take less than a minute each and cost absolutely nothing! But I can assure you, they will absolutely make a small biz owner’s day! Thank YOU for always supporting MY small biz, and I encourage you to go out there and support as many as possible by spreading the (free!) love!