• The #smallbusinesschallenge has been spreading across social media, with small businesses reapingpositive results.
• For the challenge, small business owners post images of their products and anyone who is interested can request a link to the website in the comment section.
• Small business owners told Business Insider Australia they have managed to secure orders through the challenge.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Small business owners in Australia have been jumping on the #smallbusinesschallenge trend.

As part of the challenge, business owners post a series or four or five images related to their products or services. From there, they ask anyone who is interested to ask for a link to their website in the comments.

The hashtag has been spreading across Facebook groups in Australia and internationally, and is being used as a way to support small businesses through the COVID-19 recession.

Wendy van den Hoogen, founder of Wenders Noosa, joined in on the trend after seeing a friend from the US use the hashtag. Her business makes personalised, handmade wood creations such as welcome signs and name signs.

Van den Hoogen posted products from her business on a local Sunshine Coast Facebook group and managed to get 12 orders in a couple of days. It was a major jump after having an average of one order a week.

She also found that she got a lot of interaction from potential customers.

“I got a lot of people asking me for a link,” van den Hoogen told Business Insider Australia. “I liked it because you’d have personal contacts straight away and you can inquire what they really like or any changes that they need.”

For van den Hoogen, this challenge was a big difference compared to simply posting a link to her website and hoping someone will purchase from it. She also noticed more people heading to her website.

“My website got visited a lot more,” she said. “I had 50 or 60 reactions asking for my link and the first day I had 100 visitors on my website.”

Jaclyn Kelly, owner of Wattle, Fodder and Vine also decided to take part in the trend, posting a series of images from her gift box business on the Marketplace Sunshine Coast Facebook group.

“I’ve had lots of people add their businesses below in the comments and I’ve also had quite a few likes,” she told Business Insider Australia. “I’ve had a few people asked me the price of my boxes.”

So far, Kelly had had eight people reach out asking for a link to her business but is still waiting to see if anyone will make a purchase.

Nonetheless, Kelly sees the challenge as a positive as she finds advertising “quite expensive.”

“I tend to do a lot of marketplace advertising purely because as a small business, advertising is quite expensive,” she said. “And this is just a way to get some free advertising.

“Any way I can get my products out there is great.”

Manjir Ghosh, Founder and CEO of cushion cover business Tika Collections described receiving “many positive responses” as well as more likes and enquiries about her products after participating in the challenge.

“My followers have increased on Instagram and more people have liked my page on Facebook,” Ghosh told Business Insider Australia via email. “I have also had three big orders and have loved connecting with more people.”

Ghosh found out about the challenge on Facebook and believes it’s a great initiative for small businesses, especially following the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Given the current situation we are all facing, it is important now more than ever for small businesses to support each other, as we are all in this together,” she said.

“In this time of hardship, it is so important to promote local Australian businesses, and help revive the Australian economy. Hence, I instantly joined the challenge, to help spread awareness of small businesses and show my support to all those others spreading their passions.”

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