In the days of olde, a town crier was an important player in spreading community news. They alerted the townspeople to distress and times of celebration and delivered general community announcements. Today, many call those people influencers. I call them a VIP—or Vocally Important Person. Love them or hate them, consider pairing with one because they can help move the needle in your business. Finding the person in your area that is creating strong community content can be an excellent form of word-of-mouth advertising at a lower cost, with very high engagement.

Find Your Local VIPs

In my area, there are numerous community creators. I wasn’t exactly sure who I wanted to reach out to, so I made a list of people I thought I might want to talk to, and checked to see if any of them had a history with our shop. If they did, I watched their pages to see if their ethics matched ours, and if their content sounded like us in any way. I wanted to make sure we aligned with the creators I was going to approach so our integrity was upheld. Once I found a few in our database, and I confirmed they had consistently created content over the long term, I reached out. My message was simple and honest: We are looking to partner with a local creator for a service trade and social content. Two reached out, and we got to work.

Build an Authentic Partnership

I went in knowing what I was willing to offer in trade for content. I assumed they were trying to build engagement for their page, and I was looking for voices to spread our name, so I asked for sharing opportunities. I would comment on and share their community posts, and in return, they would share the posts I ask them to share. They agreed, and it’s been a great partnership. I also really love that it is an authentic partnership, and they were already guests of ours, so they are never lying about visiting and loving our shop. We proudly moved them to VIP status, and because we value the role they play in our business, we also sent them shirts, a gift bag of goodies, and two oil changes a year for agreeing to help. This relationship has now gone on for quite some time, and their social media support is wonderful for driving additional foot traffic our way.

Let Them Spread the Word

Look around you. There are vocal resources all around that can move your name through communities and connect you to fresh faces. Social media holds a lot of power, and your social strategy can be executed in many different ways. You can beat your head against the wall by tossing money at the marketing circus that is Google, Meta, and AI, or you can lean into the people who are organically moving news across the community. The town crier never left; they just got better technology and a larger audience. Go find them.