At the beginning of this year, I had an idea that I made into a resolution — I designed 30 Days of Local Praise as a way to spotlight a new locally owned Birmingham business every day for a month. I wanted to share my favorite local shops and restaurants with my friends, and I wanted to get in the habit of promoting local businesses whenever I could — but mostly, I wanted to create something that other people could have fun with as well. Thirty Days of Local Praise was never supposed to be just a Carrie Rollwagen resolution — I wanted the whole city to participate (and many of you guys did!).
So I’m so happy to see that INBirmingham has decided to get in on the action and encourage their followers to participate in 30 Days of Local Praise this month. What do you have to do to participate? Just post positive things about your favorite local businesses on social media and hashtag your posts #localpraise. That’s it! I also did a positive online review (Yelp and Google, mostly) for the local businesses I liked during the month, and that process was extremely rewarding too, so if you want to take #localpraise the extra mile, I’d say that was definitely worth it.
Here’s a little more about 30 Days of Local Praise from my first blog about it:
If we have a good experience at a shop or restaurant, we usually don’t think about leaving a review or posting about it on social media. We came, we saw, we bought (or ate, or drank, or whatever). What more is there to say? But when we have a bad time — when we feel ignored or our food is cold or a bartender is rude — we need to let off steam, and that’s when we’re a lot more likely to get online and leave a review.
I wrote the Localist Book (hashtag #localistbook, while we’re at it) to focus attention on local businesses, and I’m on my book tour now to do the same thing, so it’s fun to see the localist torch is still being carried in Birmingham while I’m gone. I’ll be posting my #localpraise too, of course, but my locally-owned businesses will be mostly from out of state since I’m on the road most of this month — but I’m excited to see what you come up with back in Birmingham!
Carrie Rollwagen is author of The Localist: Think Independent, Buy Local and Reclaim the American Dream, creator of 30 Days of Local Praise and co-founder of Church Street Coffee & Books. Find her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @crollwagen.