Keeping it Local Campaign Boosts Activity for San Leandro Businesses

In December, 2020, the City of San Leandro launched a social media campaign in partnership with the San Leandro Chamber of Commerce’s Keeping it Local SL program. Over the past 6 months, the program has spotlighted over 50 local businesses, bringing customers to support them during the pandemic. The campaign was designed in three parts.

For the first part, the City partnered with local marketing business Blue Arris to film and photograph over 40 local businesses and share their stories on San Leandro Next’s social media. The posts have been seen by thousands of people, drawing attention to San Leandro’s rich and diverse local business community and driving local spending.

To date Blue Arris has produced 18 videos and 87 photo shares for local businesses. The videos have been the most impactful, with over 45,000 people seeing the posts and over 8,000 viewing the videos. The top videos were for Mama Lupe’s and Noodles Pho Me, who each had over 10,000 people see the posts. The top photo was for Rubiano’s, whose post was seen by over 4,500 people. Click HERE to watch the Facebook video highlighting Mama Lupe’s in the Washington Manor neighborhood!

The second part of the campaign encouraged local residents to shop locally, take photos of their activity, and share on social media, utilizing the tags #KeepItLocalSL and #DineOutSL. The two most influential participants will each receive a $100 gift card, to also be spent locally.

The winners of the gift cards are San Leandro residents Jennifer Silva and Myra Reyes. Silva won the prize for the most posts shared, with 12 total posts engaging over 250 people. Reyes won the prize for the most impactful post, which highlighted new Downtown arrival Yomie’s Rice x Yogurt, and reached over 1,600 people!

The program has boosted activity for businesses and here’s what some of them have to say:

“Since the video was posted traffic to our website has nearly tripled and we’ve been getting orders from new clients almost every day.” — Michael Kakoullis, Luke’s Grill

“The video provided us with much needed exposure as many San Leandro residents didn’t know our story or that we were open for virtual classes.” — Felipa Ortiz, Pallen’s Martial Arts

“Thank you so much for shining the light on the shop and helping us attract locals!”– Myra Reyes, DuckFace Boba

The third part of the campaign is an upcoming Social Media Guide designed by Blue Arris to help businesses market themselves online. This guide will be issued and distributed to businesses upon request and free of charge once completed.

For more information about the program, contact us at slnext@sanleandro.org.