{"id":19,"date":"2025-05-02T08:10:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T08:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/2025\/05\/02\/create-customer-experiences-online-like-open-the-shop-with-me-videos-and-in-person-like-silent-book-club\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T08:10:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T08:10:19","slug":"create-customer-experiences-online-like-open-the-shop-with-me-videos-and-in-person-like-silent-book-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/2025\/05\/02\/create-customer-experiences-online-like-open-the-shop-with-me-videos-and-in-person-like-silent-book-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Create customer experiences online like Open the Shop With Me videos, and in person, like Silent Book Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When Kathleen Minogue of Crowdfund Better mentioned Common Ground Coffee and Market to me, I found their Instagram feed was full of stealable ideas for small business social media marketing. We first talked about how they let customers know about changes to their hours. They\u2019re in Boise, Idaho, which I realize is not a small [\u2026]<\/p>\n<p>When Kathleen Minogue of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crowdfundbetter.com\/\">Crowdfund Better<\/a> mentioned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/commongroundcoffeeandmarket\/\">Common Ground Coffee and Market to me<\/a>, I found their Instagram feed was full of stealable ideas for small business social media marketing.<\/p>\n<p>We first talked about how they <a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2025\/03\/how-to-let-customers-know-when-changing-your-business-hours.html\">let customers know about changes to their hours<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re in Boise, Idaho, which I realize is not a small town. I promise I wouldn&#8217;t share ideas unless they also worked for small town businesses.<\/p>\n<h3>These ideas are perfect for coffee shops, gaming businesses and other third places where people gather and hang out.<\/h3>\n<p>Any small town business could copy their<strong> &#8220;Open the shop with me&#8221; video, or their post of staff members as a group.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15640\" style=\"width: 613px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/commongroundcoffeeandmarket\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15640\" class=\"wp-image-15640 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-grid-603x800.png\" alt=\"A screenshot of the Common Ground Coffee and Market Instagram feed, showing four images, a group of people with valentine hearts, a group of staff members, one person facing the camera for an explainer video, and one video with text that says &quot;open the shop with me&quot;\" width=\"603\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-grid-603x800.png 603w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-grid-226x300.png 226w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-grid-768x1019.png 768w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-grid.png 904w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 603px) 100vw, 603px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-15640\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steal this idea: do an &#8220;open the shop with me&#8221; video! Image from Common Ground Coffee and Market, Boise, Idaho, Instagram.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<h3>Partner with other groups and businesses, even in small ways.<\/h3>\n<p>You don&#8217;t have to come up with, organize and then staff every event. Start looking for other clubs, groups, people and other businesses you can partner with. What do people like to do in your town, for fun or activities? Try tapping into those folks to help create experiences inside your business.<\/p>\n<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15639\" style=\"font-size: 16px;\" src=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-event-sign-733x800.png\" alt=\"A chalkboard sign outside Common Ground Coffee and Market says, &quot;This week in the shop: Wednesday Wise Ones with Workshop, Thursday Silent Book Club with The Lit Room, Saturday Spring Zine Gathering with High Desert Coven.&quot;\" width=\"733\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-event-sign-733x800.png 733w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-event-sign-275x300.png 275w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-event-sign-768x838.png 768w, https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Common-Ground-Coffee-and-Market-event-sign.png 1100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 733px) 100vw, 733px\" \/><\/h3>\n<p>Notice how each of these events is in partnership with another local group or business. Image from Common Ground Coffee and Market, Boise, Idaho, Instagram.<\/p>\n<h3>Another idea to steal: SILENT book club.<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;d love to join someone&#8217;s silent book club! And how easy would it be to make one?<\/p>\n<p>In another photo, the Common Ground folks showed a pile of books on the table to kick things off. Just bring some of your own used or To Be Read pile from home, grab some used books from the library sale, or just ask around!<\/p>\n<p>No rules. Just read.<\/p>\n<h1>Need more coffee shop and gathering place ideas?<\/h1>\n<p>Check out these past idea-fests:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2019\/05\/crowdsourced-ideas-for-coffee-shops-and-other-third-places.html\">Crowdsourced ideas for coffee shops and other third places<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2017\/10\/build-business-mini-events.html\">Build your business with mini-events<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/get-updates.html\">Subscribe to SmallBizSurvival<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Kathleen Minogue of Crowdfund Better mentioned Common Ground Coffee and Market to me, I found their Instagram feed was full of stealable ideas for small business social media marketing. We first talked about how they let customers know about changes to their hours. They\u2019re in Boise, Idaho, which I realize is not a small [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-income"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/homeincome.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}