Shop local. Even for your advertising needs.
Michael DeLeon’s column in this month’s edition of the Pulse details many reasons why shopping local benefits the local community. It keeps the dollars circulating among locally owned small businesses, retaining more of that money in town, which helps multiple small businesses and provides more to local parks and infrastructure and charities, rather than sending it to out-of-state (or out-of-country) organizations to benefit their executives and shareholders.
It seems ironic how many area businesses proclaim a version of the “Shop Local” message and then turn around and push people to Facebook, spend money with Facebook and make Facebook the biggest part of their marketing plan.
That is not really how one correctly shops local.
Do that if you want to, but call it what it is: shopping with a massive, multi-billion-dollar global surveillance and data-harvesting Big-Brother-type mega-conglomerate that pushes a certain political agenda and conducts psychological experiments with its users while gathering as much information about their lives, location and schedule as possible.
I get the feeling that Facebook as an organization doesn’t care very much about supporting local Murfreesboro culture and businesses, improving our parks, sponsoring local ball teams and 5Ks and sharing community event information freely without implementing some sort of algorithm throttling back the number of people who can receive that information until the machine gets paid.
The social media network has made it abundantly clear that it advocates certain political agendas and suppresses others. Additionally, it remains quite actively engaged in the surveillance and manipulation of its millions and millions of users (with their consent of course . . . you read the terms and conditions you approved, right?). Is that what your small business wants to support with your marketing budget?
And, as The Social Network documentary put it so well, how many organizations and industries call those who engage with them “users”? Drugs and software, and those two industries grow increasingly similar.
Those who have Facebook pages and read the content are not the clients. They are the product!
Yes, clearly the Pulse charges our advertisers to reach the eyes—and eventually the spending habits—of those in our audience who enjoy reading the Pulse each month.
We try to take a more friendly, neighborly, voluntary approach, though. Pick up a copy of the Pulse at one of the fine local restaurants or other establishments who carry copies each month, if you choose to grab one (for free!). We won’t make you agree to any terms and conditions. You can choose which page of the Pulse you want to start reading! You may have noticed that just because you like or follow a social media page, that doesn’t necessarily mean you will see updates from that Facebook page.
Read the Pulse for as long as you want. Close the paper, come back to it later. Facebook won’t remove the content, or bury it under other content they would prefer you to view.
Quite often the Pulse team hears something to the effect of “our business doesn’t need to advertise in your paper, we have a Facebook page.”
Okay. A million people’s grandmothers have a Facebook page, but that doesn’t mean that they are running successful businesses.
Give your advertising dollars to the social media networks if you want and if it benefits your business, but be mindful about repeating the Shop Local motto while doing so.
Thanks once again to all who do choose to support the Pulse and use the publication to help promote their businesses. Your investment impacts not only the Pulse in a positive way, but many other local businesses and individuals as well.
