Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) now make up 99.9% of the overall US business landscape, with an estimated 32.5M SMBs nationwide. Despite this, not all owners have been able to access crucial resources and the New Majority - women, people of color, LBTQIA+, entrepreneurs with disabilities, and military-connected - have been deeply impacted by this. Since its inception in 2017, the Hello Alice team has been dedicated to bringing access to capital, resources, and guidance to entrepreneurs and recently hit a milestone of 1M owners on their platform. When thinking about how they could support small business owners during the Super Bowl, working with TikTok on a partnership was a no-brainer. A recent survey of approximately 7,000 small business owners found that 58% believed the platform was having a positive impact on their business.
Small businesses don’t often have the funds to benefit from a television ad during the Super Bowl. In an effort to further support and bring awareness to small business owners, Hello Alice created the #SmallBizBigGame Giveaway with a chance for an owner to receive $2,000 in TikTok Ad Credits, and guidance from the TikTok team on setting up their ads. All owners had to do was create their own commercial and post before February 14, 2022 with the appropriate hashtag, #SmallBizBigGame.
At Hello Alice, we are committed to leveling the playing field for entrepreneurs and meeting and supporting small business owners where they are. Sometimes that means helping to unlock funding opportunities and learning resources, and other times, it’s about creating opportunities for them to be celebrated, feel connected to a supportive community, tell their inspiring stories, and have their presence boosted to a world that should know about them.
As Super Bowl buzz began in January 2022, we reflected on the countless entrepreneurs that could delight millions by sharing their stories in engaging Super Bowl commercials if not hindered by advertising costs. And so, we dreamed up an opportunity for the small business owners in our community to create their own commercials and share them on a platform that aims to level the playing field when it comes to exposure – TikTok. We additionally reached out to TikTok and asked them to match our giveaway amount and offer expert support so that we could offer the recipient of our Small Biz, Big Game Giveaway a $2,000 TikTok ad credit and personalized guidance from a TikTok expert on how best to use the ad budget to promote their commercial and grow their business.
The road from idea to execution was just a few short weeks, so we encountered what so many small business owners encounter when trying to seize an opportunity– lack of resources and time. But in the spirit of small business, we worked with what we had, embraced the rawness of TikTok, and rallied our team. For us, it was far more important to hustle and bring the opportunity and support to life, than to deliver a perfectly polished campaign. Moving quickly and with a scrappy mindset, just like the small business owners in our community, our team put together a fun TikTok commercial of our own, as well as trend-driven TikToks to promote the giveaway on the platform. Efforts were further supported by promotional mentions on other social media outlets, in marketing emails, and live-event mentions during the time period. We additionally created a terms and conditions page on HelloAlice.com where owners could learn more about the giveaway.
The full ask of small business owners was to follow Hello Alice on TikTok, share their own commercial and use #SmallBizBigGame before the deadline.
Through this campaign, we were able to unite dreamers and boost their big ideas, share stories, and remind more than a million people that the small business community is powerful, relentless in their pursuits, and more than deserving of national exposure.
The objective of this campaign was to tell the stories of inspiring small business owners, encourage entrepreneurs to engage on TikTok to promote their businesses, and further help one small business owner optimize the promotions, all while building community and sharing the power of small business. Based on the data and heartwarming responses from the small business owners involved and the community that supports them, this was all successfully accomplished.
Hashtag Views: 1.4 Million
Total Commercials Submitted by Small Business Owners: 91
Total Plays: 1,215,127
Total Likes: 77,427
