#like there's a clear order. first come first served. the first person can waive the taxi and let someone else go

[marveldeliversusps]

Prompt: New Hobby

Thanks for the prompt and political advocacy, @queenoftherandomword​! Hope you like it!

Prompt: Looks like somone has a new hobby

Pairing: Stucky, shrunkyclunks, background Sam/Nat

Rating: M

Art by @inflomora-art​. I’m obsessed with this pic. 

Steve heard a knock and rushed to the door. It was around three PM and his postal worker, Bucky, would be dropping off the mail soon. On days when he wasn’t too busy, Bucky would stick around and chat with Steve for a few minutes. Those were the best days.

Mailman Bucky was beyond hot. He had a cleft chin with a bit of softness under it, wrinkles from smiling and sparkling grey eyes. He was so beautiful he even made the dumb postal worker hat look good.

When Steve pulled the door open, he found Natasha standing there expectantly. He tried to close the door but she put her foot inside the house. He set his shoulder against the door so she could push her way in.

“Nice to see you, Steve.”

Steve took a steadying breath in. He loved Natasha and looked forward to being around her. Since he’d retired from the superhero business and given the shield to Sam, time with Nat had been in short supply. However, she was perceptive and insatiably curious. If she was around when Bucky arrived, she’d sniff out Steve’s secret crush right away. Or find the numerous unopened boxes in his bedroom that he didn’t want to explain.

“Natasha,” he said.

“That’s all?”

Steve held tight onto the door. A moment of confusion or indecision would be just enough for her to elbow her way inside. This is why he needed more non-spy friends.

“Nice to see you, as always.”

Natasha rolled her eyes so dramatically her eyelashes fluttered. “What you mean to say is I’m sorry that I stood you and Sam up for our lunch date at Hot Lips pizza today, and that you two had to wait for forty-five minutes, and I can’t believe I didn’t respond to your text messages.”

Steve closed his eyes in embarrassment. “I totally forgot. I’m sorry, Nat.”

“It’s alright, Steve,” Natasha said, brushing non-existent lint from Steve’s shoulder. “I know you have other commitments. Maybe we could hang out now?”

Steve did want to spend time with her, just not for another hour when there was no risk of her meeting Bucky. Since getting together, Sam and Natasha were both happier, more fluid and less locked into decades-long patterns, but it certainly made Steve’s life more difficult. Their attempts at teasing him or caretaking were coordinated and ruthless. Loving, but ruthless.

“Now’s not a good time,” Steve said. “How about Friday you and Sam come over for a movie night?”

Natasha smiled sweetly, all her deadly angles covered by softness. She squeezed Steve’s hand gently, then dug her fingers into his wrist, making him yelp and stumble backward. As soon as Steve faltered, she charged inside and started looking around the living room. When Steve subtly positioned himself between her and the stairs to his bedroom, Natasha clocked his actions immediately. She slipped past his outstretched hands and hustled upstairs.

“Goddammit, Nat!”

Once she entered Steve’s bedroom, Natasha stopped abruptly and looked at all the unopened boxes lining the walls. “Huh.”

Steve nearly slammed into her back in his rush to beat her to the bedroom and had to grab onto the doorframe to stop himself. Natasha tilted her head to the side as if she was trying to solve a puzzle.

“What were you expecting?” Steve said.

Natasha’s brows furrowed. “I don’t know. A hot man or woman. A sex dungeon. Porn. Not a million boxes from…” she picked one up and squinted at it. “REI? What the hell, Steve?”

Steve opened and closed his mouth, not quite ready to tell the truth. The first package had been an actual order, a new pair of running shoes from an outdoor store he discovered. But then when Bucky had delivered them, REI (Recreation Equipment Inc) was apparently his favorite store, and it had given them something to chat about.

Steve had taken to buying gear from there once a week and planned his schedule to be home with the packages arrived, just so he could talk with Bucky. He’d even been working up the courage to suggest a hike together.

“I checked all the rooms downstairs,” Sam said out of nowhere.

Steve’s shoulders slumped. Of course, Sam and Natasha would be working together. They never went on ops alone anymore. Not since she was captured by AIM, and Sam leveled three blocks of downtown Mobile, Alabama to save her.

Steve should have never suggested Nat ask Sam out. Or introduced them. Or joined the Avengers.  

“Nice to see you,” Steve quipped.

Sam winked at him, the cheeky asshole. He knew Steve couldn’t stay mad at him long. “Not my fault,” Sam said, as he walked into the room. “You ditched us. And if you had just told Tasha what you were hiding--”

“I can have secrets,” Steve said petulantly.

Meanwhile, Natasha was walking around the room and shaking boxes. They all had the REI logo on the side: Sustainable Gear Built to Last. She retrieved a knife from her boot, ripped open a box and pulled out a 9.8mm Dry-Core climbing rope. It was bright yellow with red x’s on it, and Steve had picked it because he liked the design. “Is this for an outside sex dungeon?”

“Stop thinking everything is about sex!” Steve snapped. Sam raised an eyebrow at him, and Steve immediately felt bad. Before he could apologize to Natasha, she waived him off. Sam sat down on Steve’s bed and pulled out his own knife. He never used to have a million knives on him, probably Natasha’s influence.

“Do people know Captain America sneaks into people’s houses with knives?” Steve said.

Sam shrugged and carefully opened a package. “People don’t know a damn thing about me I don’t want them to know, because my girlfriend is a badass.”

A paranoid badass, Steve thought. But he had the self-preservation to keep that to himself.

Sam pulled out a Lavender Harness with yellow daisies stitched to the side. “Petzl Luna Harness,” he read off the side. “Steve, this is a woman’s harness.”

Steve crossed his arms, because he had aced his Women’s Studies class, thank you very much. “All the harnesses for women were pink and had flowers on them, and I thought that was very gender essentialist of them, so I bought it for myself in protest.”

“I’m sure they heard you loud and clear,” Sam said dryly.

They slowly unpacked all of Steve’s packages: another harness, two more ropes, a crash pad, carabiners, and several metal things Steve didn’t know the name of. After each item, Natasha looked at Steve expectantly, and he steadily denied that it was for a sex dungeon.

Next came a Marmot 1 person tent, that Steve would have to curl up in sideways to fit, a backpack, and a head lamp. He had more things he needed, but he wanted to spread the orders out.

“Why didn’t you open any of this stuff?” Sam said.

Exhausted with their questions, Steve flopped dramatically onto the floor, and he didn’t need to look up to know Sam and Natasha were doing synchronized eye rolls. “I don’t know how to use it yet!” Most of it he’d selected because he liked the colors or the philosophy of the companies. He had no idea if all the gear even all worked together. “It’s outdoor gear because my mailman likes to rock climb, and he’s hot, and I want to climb him like a tree.”

Natasha grinned triumphantly, and proclaimed, “So this is about sex!”

Steve didn’t respond, just slowly banged his head on the floor. Maybe if he blacked out they would leave him alone.

“Well, well,” Sam said.

“Don’t do that,” Steve snapped.  

“Looks like someone has a new hobby.”

Natasha leaned against Sam and giggled. It was so damn cute that Steve couldn’t decide if he wanted to wrap them in Christmas paper or throw them outside.

He almost missed the knock at the door.

“Steve,” Bucky called in. “Your door was left open. Just wanted to make sure everything’s okay.”

Steve shot an annoyed look at Sam who grinned unrepentantly. “Barton’s watching the entrance.” Steve should've guessed that, too. He half expected them to turn into a throuple any day now.

Natasha ignored them again, moving lightning fast to charge downstairs.

“Steve,” Bucky called again. “Hi,” he said, presumably when he saw Natasha. “Just checking in. I have a package for Steve.”

“I’m sure you do,” Natasha said meaningfully as she took the box from Bucky.

Steve made a racket in his haste to prevent Natasha from saying anything more embarrassing and landed at the door framing breathing heavily with a wild look in his eyes. Natasha, naturally, looked calm and composed.

“You must be Bucky,” Natasha said, extending her dainty hand. “Steve can’t stop talking about you.”

Steve’s cheeks immediately flamed hot, and the only saving grace was that Bucky’s cheeks pinked up adorably, too.

“Oh.” Bucky didn't elaborate further even though Steve really, really wanted him to. Was that a good oh or a bad oh? An oh or an /oh/?

Before Steve could follow up, Sam came up behind him and clapped an arm on his shoulder.

“Captain America!” Bucky exclaimed when he saw Sam. Oh no, no no no no, Steve thought. “You’re my hero! I mean, I’m an adult so not like hero hero, but it’s. Whew. It’s an honor.”

Sam grinned that warm, gap toothed smile that made old ladies weak in the knees, and he shook Bucky’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Did you serve?”

Bucky nodded, shrugging his shoulders shyly. “Yeah, two tours and all that, and you know, the post office is the number one employer of vets, so I’m here doing this. Helps to have the arm.” He pointed at his black and gold prosthetic.  Thanks for promoting that program by the way.”

Steve didn’t pout, but his inner toddler was stamping his foot. He only got a few minutes to talk to Bucky each week, and Sam was hogging all his time.

Natasha had magicked some popcorn out of nowhere, there hadn’t been any in Steve’s cupboard, and was obnoxiously monching it and watching the three of them. Knowing her, she’d probably known all of this was going to happen and brought the popcorn along as a prop.

“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Bucky said to Sam, “but could I get a picture?”

Sam nodded, turning to Steve with a shit eating grin. “Steve, would you mind taking a pic of us?”

Steve took Bucky’s camera. He stepped on Sam’s foot while he arranged them for the photo, because he had called dibs on Bucky, and Sam already had Natasha. “You know . . . I’ve been retired for a while.” Because if Sam could play the Captain America card, so could he. Bucky had never brought it up, so perhaps he hadn’t recognized him.

Bucky smiled softly. “I know, Steve.”

Oh, well. That was a different thing entirely. Bucky had known who Steve was all along and had never made him feel uncomfortable about it. Steve smiled back at him and took the picture.

Once they were done, Natasha leaned toward Bucky. “Tell me, Bucky, how long have you and Steve been getting to know one another.”

Steve was 100% sure that was her code for sex dungeon activities, which, what in the hell did she and Sam get up to in their free time? Nevermind, he didn’t want to know.

They didn’t call Steve the greatest strategist of his time for nothing. He subtly scooted over, forcing Natasha to lean back.

“We’ve only recently become friends,” Steve said. The blood rushed to his cheeks again when he realized what he’d said. Bucky probably had to be friendly with everyone while he was working, that didn’t mean he and Steve were friends. “I mean, I think we are.”

The sides of Bucky’s eyes crinkled adorably as he grinned. “Yeah, we’re friends, Steve.” He paused and glanced at Sam and Natasha before settling back on Steve. “Actually,” Bucky rubbed the back of his neck, making his terrible round hat fall forward. He righted it quickly and said, “I was wondering if you’d like to go climbing this Saturday. I could show you the cool spots with not too many people, and--”

“Steve doesn’t know how to climb,” Natasha said around another mouthful of popcorn. “You should take me and Sam along to teach him. And Clint, too. Maybe Tony would want to come.”

By the grace of all that was good and holy, Sam had mercy and pulled Natasha away from the door whispering, “Stop cockblocking my best friend.”

Once Nat and Sam were out of earshot, Steve met Bucky’s eyes and grimaced. “I was looking for new hobbies, and when I ordered shoes you brought up climbing, and like an idiot I said I liked it too. because you are so handsome, and my brain turned into mush, and then I just didn’t want to stop talking to you.”

“I know,” Bucky said interrupting Steve’s rambling. His eyes sparkled as he grinned. “You once called a grigri a carabiner.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Exactly.” Bucky stepped closer, his expression turning mischievous. Steve could never, ever let him and Natasha become friends. “Wanna go on a date with me?” He was so close now, Steve could pick out the flecks of silver and black in his grey eyes.

Steve got lost staring until he realized Bucky had been waiting too long for a response. He didn’t seem to mind, his smile only getting wider.

“I really do want to learn to rock climb,” Steve blurted out to stop himself from saying something ridiculous like, please fuck me in your uniform.

Bucky tilted his chin back and laughed, mesmerizing Steve with the movement of his throat.

“How about we do both?” Bucky said, laughter dying down as he scooted closer.

Steve leaned down and said, “I’d like that,” against Bucky’s lips, the moment before they kissed. Distantly, he heard the sounds of Natasha and Sam cheering, but he blocked them out in favor of gripping Bucky’s hip and pulling their bodies flush against one another.

“The man has to work,” Sam called out. “Don’t get freaky and delay the mail.”

Bucky pulled back and patted Steve’s shoulder. “See you soon, Stevie.”

After he left, Steve collapsed on the couch next to Sam, heady with the experience, until a sudden realization left him cold.

“I forgot to get his number.”

Sam waved him off, and pointed at the kitchen where Nat was rifling through Steve’s cabinets. “Don’t worry. Tasha has it already.”

Steve groaned. Of course she did. And if by some chance she didn’t, Steve could always order another box from REI.

---

Learn more about Marvel Delivers USPS here! 

[blades-of-justice]

the beginning: A Leo and Lacy fic. part 1

The rain fell in thick undulating sheets as it slid down the glass pane. Lacy sat with her back to living room, watching the city slowly darken under the ominous cloud cover as it spread its shadow over the horizon.Her eyes searched the evening skyline and she bit back the lump rising in her throat. A sadness that seemed to visit her nightly for the past few months, and in retrospect she knew where the feeling was coming from. Leonardo and his brothers had entered her life almost a year ago. Their family welcomed her, their father had taken to her immediately and she to him, as he provided a nurturing father figure she didn’t know she craved.

As their friendship grew, so did their adventures; Most of them involving her by pure coincidence or the fact that Lacy was too stubborn to be told what to do namely “stay here”.

However, it was the adventuring that led her to this current state of heartache. As she accompanied the team more often now she was seeing so much more of their personalities. She and Leo tended to butt heads quite a bit, though she would be lying to herself if she said she did not enjoy the challenge he presented.  It was in those moments she saw him for the leader he was, when he would make the tough decisions, give the unpopular order, and follow through with his promises that she realized she was falling in love with him.  And therein lies the problem.

The last few months she had been going to meet them, her heart would skip a beat when she saw their silhouettes on the roof top. She constantly fumbled her words and backed down from her opinions in fear of outing her feelings, until finally she decided it was best if she sat some of the adventures out for a while. That decision was made almost two weeks ago. She had seen very little of her reptilian friends since, with only the occasional skyping or text messaging.

————

“Duuuude”! Mikey’s voice rang out in the lair. His hands running over his game controller with masterful speed.

“What the hell, Mikey? Its too early for you to be yelling at your stupid games”. Donnie shot back as he emerged from his room, yawning and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

“ok. First off, its not stupid… you are”. Mikey huffed out indignantly. “Second, it’s already 9:45, bruh. You are usually up way before this.  And third, I’m playing my game this early because my morning coffee dates with a certain beautiful brunette have been abruptly cancelled”. Mikey replied laying his gaze heavily on Leo.

Sighing in deep irritation, Leo looked up from his morning paper, “We’ve been over this, Mikey. Lacy made the decision to remove herself from the potential harm that could befall her. She is a grown woman and therefor she can make her own choices. I had nothing to do with that”.

“Uh-Huh”. Mikey replied with dry sarcasm.

“And what is that supposed to mean”? Leo glared in disbelief.

“hmm? Oh nothing, bro. nothing. *cough* liar *cough*”

“ok Mikey, let’s get this over with once and for all. You obviously blame me for this, so out with it. Why”?

“Duh, bro…. of course he blames you” Raph chimed in as he entered the living area and headed for the kitchen. “ ’xcuse me Don-Don, I need the coffee more than you today”. He gruffed and he passed between Donatello and the kitchen door.

“Oh and what the hell does that mean? Has everyone lost their minds”? Leo barked out, turning to follow Raph with his eyes.

“Ahem, that’s mind… singular, Leo. You see you used a plural with ‘Everyone’ so you don’t have to pluralize..”

“Shut it, Donnie. Now what the…” taking a deep breath to compose himself, Leo started again. “Now, can someone please explain to me what is going on here”?

The other three terrapins looked from one another, an exchange in silent conversation through sharp expressions.

“What IS it”! Leo demanded.

“ok look, Leo", Raph began. “Lacy was one of us, she has guts, she’s smart.. nimble little minx too, and she kind of completed a part of our daily lives we never knew we were missing. And it seems to some of us”, he looked pointedly at Michelangelo, who quickly returned to stare at his paused game, “that she started pulling away about two weeks ago, when you started coming down on her for little things. She seemed to have lost her nerve, or.. or confidence, or whatever the hell you call it. Donnie?”

“he’s right, you know…. And it is confidence, Raph you’re right.” Donnie added before throwing a nod in Raph’s direction.

“WHAT!” Leo practically squaked out, as he now found himself standing to face his brothers, his morning paper now abandoned. “I did no such thing. I mean she was taking unnecessary risks and I did call her on those now and again… but, but I..”

“Dude… its bad” Mikey rejoined the conversation looking between his middle two brothers.

“what’s Bad? What.. I am totally lost here, guys”. Leo said raising his hands in frustration and letting them drop lifelessly at his side.

“Dude, throw a turtle a bone” Mikey chirped out.

“it’s a dog, Mike. You throw a dog a… oh what’s the use” the agitated lanky turtle shot out before turning to Leo. “Look, we don’t have all morning. Or at least I don’t. We know you like her Leo. Just get over yourself and admit it. The evidence is clear. She did not do anything out of the ordinary; she was taking the same calculated risks she always has. You’ve just become more protective of her and you kind of turned into a dick”… he turned towards the kitchen, this time it was his turn to push past Raph.

“Whoooh! Snap, yo. And THAT is why Donnie doesn’t get to talk before his morning coffee.” Mikey jovially interjected.

“ok, wait.. that’s just not true” Leo stated.

“No, it is dude. We never ask Donnie questions before his Coffee”, Mikey responded.

“NO, not that… would you just” Leo put a hand up in gesture to quiet the younger loud mouth as he pointedly turned and followed after his genius brother.

After several heated exchanges in the kitchen, Leo found it best to excuse himself from the situation and head to the Dojo for a long meditation session. “No practice today. I’ll tell Dad.” He informed them angrily, waiving his hand dismissively as he exited the kitchen.

After Leo disappeared into another room of the lair, presumably to talk to their father the three remaining brothers looked from one another in stunned silence.

“Ye~aaaah”?! Mikey all but shouted. “We gotta get him riled up more often”.

Donnie and Raph both turned to look at Mikey, a scowl painted their facial features.

“ok, bruh. I get why he’s scowling” Mikey said pointing at Raph, “but what’s up with you”? he directed his inquiry to Donatello.

With a sigh he began, “Michelangelo, don’t you understand? Nothing shakes Leo”. He waited for a minute to see if understanding would don his brother’s face…. Waiting… waiting… *sigh* “but this did”…

“Oh shit…”

“Yeah Mikey, Oh shit”, Raph said a little more on the concerned side, but still a his normal sarcasm.

——————–

As night fell Lacy began turning on cozy ambient lights around her small apartment.  She made her way to her tiny kitchen and began to pull out the makings for a single dinner. Half way through she decided she wasn’t hungry enough for the trouble and put everything back. Instead, rummaging through her freezer she pulled out a frozen dinner she had stored in there for god knows how long. She snorted at herself when she read the box, “single serve seven cheese pizza”.

With deep regret she placed the box as instructed, into the microwave.  While waiting for the meager meal to finish nuking, she opened the cabinet above the stove and pulled down a half empty bottle of red wine. Hopping up onto the counter top, she pulled and twisted the cork free from the neck of her beverage. Turning her head to look over her shoulder she peered out the kitchen window, which lead to her fire escape. A pang twisting in her heart at the memories of meeting one or all of her large reptilian friends in this very location. As she contemplated her current emotional state, she shrugged and drank straight from the bottle itself; Just as she finished taking a long pull from the wine the microwave rang out its notification that her dinner was done.

She slid off the counter and crossed the small space to retrieve her dinner, cursing quietly as she burned her fingers removing it from the microwave oven. Lacy placed the pizza on the table in the corner of the room, her back now to the window she was just searching for answers through. She stared at the pizza incredulously, taking another large swallow from her wine.

“Pig headed Asshole”. She said to herself in a furiously, a sorrowful pain in her chest.

“I know”. Came a quiet voice from behind her

Lacy almost jumped out of her skin, with a shriek she turned to see Leo standing in front of her oven.

“God Damnit, Leo!” she spat out before she could stop herself. “what… what are you doing here? I told you I was not going on anymore patrols for a while.” She said trying to regain her composure and sound more neutral to the situation, even as her traitorous hear beat furiously against her chest.

Leo took a tentative step forward, reaching one hand out towards the small female before him. “Lacy..” he began, “did I … did I do something to offend you, or make you feel unwelcome in our family”? he asked politely, a genuine look of concern on his face, as he lowered his hand when she did not move.

Of course he had to look concerned, he had to look strong and devout in his feelings; Goddamn him!

Lacy felt her hands began to shake and she slid them behind her back before engaging in conversation with the large turtle in front of her.

“Why would you ask that Leo?” she opened with

“I’ve been thinking, meditating all day on whether to come here or not. I want to know if you felt… feel as though I pushed you away.” His icy blue eyes never leaving her gaze but obviously searching her for clues.

“Leo, … I just felt things were getting a little strained is all. We were having, I was having difficulty following some of your more strict guidelines. I mean it was obvious you didn’t think I was cut out for the longer patrols”. She stated pointedly.

“that’s not… I didn’t think you couldn’t. – its not about that. You were taking too many risks. I couldn’t let you put yourself in that kind of danger without expressing my concerns”. He snapped back.

“Your concerns, because you think I’m one of the weak innocents you and your brothers are out protecting”? Her eyes hardened with each passing second.

“No Lacy…”

There was a long uncomfortable pause, which Lacy took full advantage of with a long swig from the wine bottle.

“what is tha-… give me that” Leo said snatching the bottle from her hand. “Really, this is how you’re dealing with this”? he asked exasperatedly.

“Dealing with what, exactly”? She shot back.

“Urrrh… you are infuriating” he all but roared. “I’m trying to get some answers and you’re not participating in the conversation. I want to know why you left.”

“Why? I mean why do you care so much. Is it because you will have one less person to lord over, to push and pull…”

“we miss having you around. The guys” he started but Lacy cut him off, the wine beginning to take over some of her better judgements.

“Oh don’t you bring them into this, you tell me why YOU came here tonight. It’s sure as fuck not because they sent you”! she exclaimed in a hasty, slightly raised voice.

“you’re drunk” he said, staring at her.

“you’re the one holding the wine bottle” she said facetiously.

“now you’re just being contrary. You’re trying to bate me into a pointless argument” He said with frustration laced with a tone of authority.

“you’re trying to bate me into a pointless argu..” Lacy began in a mocking tone, “I’m not bating you. YOU came here remember, Leo? You came here”.

“What are you so upset about. What do you think you’re going to find at the bottom of this bottle that you won’t find from actual conversation.  Drinking isn’t going to solve anything. It’s just making it harder for you to communicate”.

“Not true. Drinking makes it easier to communicate”. Lacey fired back in a tipsy voice.

“oh right… Ok. Prove it” Leo shot back sarcastically. “Tell me something you find easier to do while DRUNK”.

“No. I don’t have to prove anything.” Lacy argued.

“Cause you can’t.” Leo countered.

“Oh you’re so smug, aren’t you, honor boy? Think you’re right? Well you’re not!”

“Honor boy, where is that even coming from? You’re changing the subject because you know I’m right.”

“Uuuurrrrr! You always think you’re right! You’re not this time now drop it!”

“No. You wanna act like this is helping. So show me Lacy, how’s this bottle helping? Tell me something you can’t when you’re sober.”

“No.”

“Yes!”

“NO! “

“CAUSE YOU CAN’T!”

“FUCK! I love you, okay”…. Lacy blurted out.

Leo stood frozen for a moment, eyes wide with shock, heart pounding. Without moving his gaze from Lacy he lifted the bottle of wine to his lips and drank from it.

Quirking an eye brow, Lacy watched as Leo lowered the bottle from his mouth, licking the lingering wine from his lips and swallowing. “so… alcohol doesn’t help anything, huh?” she questioned him with an air of sarcasm

@veiled-tigerlily

[cliftonsteen]

COVID-19: What Coffee Farmers Want You to Know

It’s only been a few months since COVID-19 was first officially identified. Since then it’s rapidly spread around the world, changing the way that millions of people live and millions of businesses operate.

The coffee supply chain hasn’t been spared from this fallout. Government-mandated Stay At Home and social distancing orders mean that millions of coffee shops around the world have been forced to close their doors to the public. As a result, the sale of brewed, roast, and green coffee have been affected.

Here’s how the Coronavirus has impacted the coffee supply chain, what can be done to weather the uncertainty surrounding it, and how consumers can play their part in helping everyone from producers to roasters deal with the crisis.

You may also like Closing The Knowledge Gap Between Specialty Café & Farm

Credit: Nicole Motteux

It’s a Trickle-Down Effect 

As of April 9th, 2.6 billion – or roughly a third of the world’s population – has been placed on lockdown or in quarantine. This means that a significant amount of cafés, restaurants, and places that serve coffee can no longer prepare and sell it directly to customers – or can only do so by following strict social distancing measures. 

As a result, these businesses are buying less roasted coffee than usual, which has led to the roasters supplying them slowing down production and purchasing fewer beans for roasting. Karl Wienhold, Director of the Colombian Farmers’ Collective and Exporter Cedro Alto, reveals that some roasters don’t want to be stuck with stale stock if sales are down. If they over-purchase coffee now, it could result in them getting stuck with old crops. It means that many are reducing purchase commitments to decrease their risk and plan to buy more should they need it later.

Karl points out that while a green coffee’s lifespan and popularity with roasters will depend on its quality and how it’s stored, processed, dried and handled, it can be hard to sell green coffee that’s been in storage for even 4-5 months. It means that the importers who’d usually supply these roasters could be stuck with stock they can’t sell. This will put their coffee exporters under financial pressure, as importers and roasters will be reducing or delaying their purchasing commitments or purchasing and reserving less coffee altogether.

For smaller exporters, this can be a huge blow. Without prompt payments and adequate cash flow, financing even one container can be too expensive, regardless of whether they’re exporting to an importer or roaster. When exporters can’t purchase their usual amounts of coffee or are left in a financial lurch, the producers they work with will be affected. If many producers can’t sell their crops to those who’d usually buy them, they’ll no longer have a market for their coffee. 

Rafael Silva is the Owner of Sicafe, an exporter and producer in El Salvador. He understands that the Coronavirus putting more pressure on an already stressed group. “Producers, both big and small, work hard all year to produce and process a crop that’s only sold one time a year. They do this dealing with many difficulties, [like]… rainfall, drought, cold and hot weather, hail, storms, wind… [a] reduced workforce due to migration to cities or outside the country, scarcity of resources… coffee prices falling… So now, producers around the world are wondering if they’ll be able to sell their crop or not, and if they do, at what prices?”

Credit: De la Montaña Café

Exchange Rates Impact Incomes

COVID-19 could impact the exchange rate and C price, which will directly affect producers, exporters, and international buyers. Daniel Velasquez is the Founder of Campesino Coffee, an exporter based in Colombia. He reveals that current conditions “make it difficult for a small exporter to buy at a high price right now [as they] risk a weaker dollar, and most likely a lower coffee price when it comes time to sell.”

Karl explains that if an exporter buys coffee in one currency but sells it later in another, they could have to deal with a fluctuation in the value of their purchase currency versus the value of the currency they’re selling in, if unhedged. Since the currencies of many producing countries have weakened against the US dollar (the currency in which coffee is traded), exporters are paying producers more in local currencies than they did a month ago. This means that if the exporter gets paid in US dollars after conditions have normalised and local currencies have strengthened against the US dollar, the exporter could face a loss.

Daniel adds, “Closing [fixed price] forward contracts can help alleviate some of the risks, but with the uncertainty, roasters are hesitant to [do so]. This is… difficult for smaller exporters or farmers who export directly and don’t have the bank relationships to be able to lock forwards for currency exchange rates. Brazil is looking to have a very productive harvest, but the virus is expected to peak during its harvest time. This volatility adds to the confusion and uncertainty.”

Coffee farmers and those working on their farms are likely receiving the brunt of this change, which will be compounded by the fact that most already face significant challenges when it comes to coffee production.

Credit: Ana Valencia

Shipping Delays Are Leading to Penalties

Many producers and traders are dealing with their coffees being stuck at the country’s port, unable to move due to closed borders and other restrictions being imposed regarding trade between countries. Additional delays could lead to the coffee ageing, and as Rafael mentions, if a ship or container is detained at port, it will incur penalties, with the incoterms determining who’s responsible for paying these penalties.

The Keys to the Shop podcast recently interviewed green coffee importer Ally Coffee’s COO Ricardo Pereira on how COVID-19 is impacting the business’s coffee supply chain. He revealed that they’re currently focusing on helping producers who have coffee that’s processed, dry milled, and ready to be shipped get their coffee out of origin as soon as possible.

It’s something that all parties involved need to consider, as it will impact exporters, importers, shipping companies, and those who work on these ships. Rafael mentions that “Both importers and exporters have to do their due diligence and investigate… route options for their containers. Shipping companies have to be a lot more careful about their workers; there are several ships that have been detained due to the crew testing positive for the virus.”

Maintaining good relationships with the ports and those involved in shipping can help here. Daniel has witnessed some ports and ocean-liners working with clients to waive fees and rerouting shipments free of charge if required. “Fortunately, this situation has also brought the good out [in] people and companies.”

Credit: Paulo Henrique

Delayed Payments Mean Less Cash Flow

For coffee producing farms, delayed payments and shipping from buyers mean less cash in pocket. Some producers like Rafael are already racing the repercussions and are taking on significant risk. “[In] Central America, we’re seeing the effects of the crisis right now. We’ve barely finished picking coffee and this is the time when we usually start selling and preparing our coffees for exports. Because of the Coronavirus, most buyers and importers have shut down, suspended their buying for now or declined orders. We as producers are scared, we have 100% of the risk at hand now.”

It’s something that could impact producers and farm workers long after the COVID-19 crisis is over, as many depend on harvest sales to meet their immediate and future personal and production-related needs. As Rafael says, “Producers depend on these sales to be able to pay their loans, work the farms, pay all farm and mill collaborators…[and]… provide food for their families, to live, to eat. What happens to all farmers and the people that depend on them for income for the rest of the year?”

It’s something that the rest of the supply chain can’t ignore, as if producers can’t keep producing coffee, the entire supply chain will suffer. Rafael points out that “without producers, all exporters, importers, roasters and coffee shops can’t exist. If producers are left out of the equation, the domino effect will start taking its effect on the rest of the chain”.

Because producers have the most to lose, Karl emphasises that supply chain members need to find a way to minimise their exposure to risk while also before being aware of where the risk is being passed to, as a roaster will pass it to an importer, who will pass it to an exporter, who will pass it to the producer.

Specialty Lots Sold at Commercial Prices

Some producers are finding that they aren’t able to sell their coffee, as their usual buyers are delaying payments or cancelling commitments. Daniel explains that this could mean that “the farmer will have to sell their coffee to a co-operative for a lower market price. The reduction in demand that is expected for the second and third quarters will also have an effect on the quantity of coffee being purchased at specialty coffee prices.” 

According to Karl, some micro lot quality coffee might need to be sold at regional prices if there’s no demand for it, and that the premiums usually paid for high-end specialty coffee could suffer. This may mean lower prices and less demand for natural and honey processed coffees as well as low-yielding varieties. A struggle to sell these lots while they’re fresh and worthy of a price premium might result in lower prices later on – when and if the coffee gets sold.

Another side effect of roasters reducing their costs is that some might cut back on their social responsibility and sustainability projects involving producers and their farms. With no clear end in sight for COVID-19, this could only resume next year. Daniel says, “[Campesinos Specialty Coffee] was getting ready to launch [its] coffee school in May, with international invites, local and state government involvement… This has come to a temporary halt for obvious reasons. Although the school will be able to function as planned with the funding that has already been allocated, any future projects will have to be put on hold until the world gets back on its feet.”

Credit: Angie Molina

Credit Is (More) Expensive at Origin

Another consequence of a money shortage is that producers might struggle to meet their financial obligations to banks and lenders now and in the future, as many producers rely on future sales commitments to guarantee their income for the year. Many producers are already in significant debt due to fluctuating prices, unpredictable farming conditions, and other uncertainties. According to Karl, when supply commitments are difficult to come by, this passes on a large risk premium to farmers. 

Martin Mayorga is Founder of Mayorga Organics and in a recent podcast episode on how the Coronavirus is impacting producers, he says that many banks aren’t assisting farmers in their predicament and that some social lenders are starting to request that farmers pay them back for loans they have received. 

While access to additional funding might help tide producers over, this isn’t always available or comes with exorbitant interest rates for farmers in producing countries. In Rafael’s experience, “farm credits are usually [between] 6% and 9%. There is [access to] credit right now for [those needing] quick cash.. [but]… with a 12% rate against a mortgage”. 

While the financial challenges being faced by producers are significant, Ricardo believes that most governments are aware of what is happening and that producing countries are watching each other and are aware of what’s going on. 

Farm Workers Are Unable to Work

Coffee pickers are a critical, yet marginalised part of the coffee supply chain. COVID-19 has resulted in many being unable or unwilling to cross borders to work, which means that some coffee could rot before it’s picked, or that the harvest’s overall quality could deteriorate before picking. Martin explains that because of this, many farmworkers won’t be able to get the income they live on – as most travel from community to community, living from harvest to harvest.

Ricardo says that many producers are struggling to attract pickers as people are being told to stay home and are afraid of leaving the house. He mentions that he knows one producer that usually has 400 workers at peak harvest, but now only has 150 people to do their work. 

For the producers who already have farmworkers on their farms, it becomes an issue of managing their needs at a time when there might not be work to do on the farm itself. Al Lopez is the Owner of Finca Terrerito in Honduras, which is a business that specialises in direct trade. In his case, the workers he employs can’t go home to Guatemala as the borders have been closed. This means he has to house, feed, and keep them busy when there’s no work, which can be challenging.

A possible solution to this could be encouraging local governments to employ local workers in their respective countries to work on coffee farms without having to cross borders. Daniel says, “Pickers don’t want to leave home and risk getting infected … local governments don’t want pickers from other regions coming into their regions potentially carrying the virus. This has prompted some local governments to start campaigns to hire locals to pick coffee, offering guaranteed medical coverage against the virus and other subsidies.”

Credit: Virginia Coffee Roasters

What Can We do to Support Producers?

While there are no doubt many innovative solutions that could help members of the supply chain deal with their challenges, only one solution will benefit everyone and keep the coffee supply chain functioning. Consumers need to keep buying and drinking coffee. With no clear end in sight to the lockdowns that are slowing the spread of the Coronavirus, this means encouraging people to safely and responsibly enjoy specialty coffee at home.

Doing this will allow green coffee buyers to keep up with their existing and future purchasing commitments and share some of the risks that producers have taken on. And when roasters experience an increase in sales due to increased home consumption of their coffee, they could allocate extra price premiums to producers – which is something that will benefit everyone. 

For Al, developing direct trade relationships and passing on premiums to farmers will help them better and maintain their farms, which will help them better their coffee. 

Rafael has a similar opinion. “Some roasters [ask] if they can find an NGO to support [to] have a positive impact in the face of adversity, but the answer is simpler. Just maintain your relationships with your producers and suppliers, and pay price premiums to go direct to the producer. Wherever possible, ask for transparency beyond FOB.”

He adds, “Price is always negotiable. Talk with your producers and seek a happy medium for all. Be straightforward and transparent about quantities [as] this way producers can seek other options if you are not committing to all coffees they are offering you. The best thing roasters can do is not to leave producers with coffees in their warehouses.”

Credit: Nathaniel Soque

Conclusion

The coffee supply chain has undoubtedly been impacted by the fallout of COVID-19. This has had a significant effect on those producing and picking the coffee, as they remain most vulnerable. As Karl tells me, they’re the shock absorbers of the supply chain. However, everyone is being influenced by the uncertainty it’s created.

With certain members of the coffee supply chain already under significant pressure, it’s up to everyone to work within their means and do what they can to alleviate the pressure being placed on the entire supply chain.

Max Perez is a producer and President of the Cooperativa La Hermosa in Guatemala and tells me that the majority of roasters are completing their contractual obligations and only a small minority are cancelling them – which is a good sign.

As long as this continues happening – and consumers keep playing their part by enjoying coffee – the coffee industry will be able to keep moving forward with as little disruption as possible. 

Enjoyed this? Then Read How To Support Your Local Roaster During Social Distancing

Written by Janice Kanniah. Featured photo credit: Paulo Henrique

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COVID-19: What Coffee Farmers Want You to Know published first on https://espressoexpertweb.weebly.com/

[constructionaccounting]

0339: 10 Hidden Construction Contract Traps And How To Avoid Them

This Podcast Is Episode Number 0339, And It Will Be About 10 Hidden Construction Contract Traps And How To Avoid Them

A new contractor meets an experienced customer, and money changes hands and not the way you expect it.

  Typically, this is what happens when you first get started: You bid on a project, and you are the low bidder. You are given the client's standard contract, which contains the client's favorite set of commercial terms and conditions, to sign as a condition of getting the project. You close and sign the contract because you don't want to ask for changes in the terms or consult your construction attorney. You put the signed contract in your bottom desk drawer and pray hard nothing will happen during the project that will cause you ever to have to reread the contract.

  Before it is too late, consider these traps to look out for:

1. Poorly defined scopes of work create claims and disputes.

2. The completion schedule is too short and exposes you to monetary damages for failure to finish on time.

3. Payment terms put you in never-ending negative cash flow by loaning the customer money at 0% and borrowing on your credit cards at 24%.

4. The customer keeps 5%-10% of the contract price as retention for up to a year or more after the entire project is finished, which could be all your profit in the project.

5. Indemnity clauses could make you financially responsible for bodily injury and property damage claims caused by customer negligence.

6. Indemnity clauses could make you pay the customer's attorney fees and costs.

7. Your insurance company may be required to provide additional insured coverage for the project giving the customer free insurance and full access to the policy coverage and limits.

8. Often the term and coverage of the warranty are beyond reasonable industry standards.

9. Dispute resolution clauses that require arbitration first and then litigation, probably the two worst ways ever invented to resolve disputes.

10. The client's pre-printed final waiver of lien document (necessary for the contractor to receive final payment) waives all contractor's rights to recover unpaid extra work and to pursue any claims that arose during the project.

Ways to avoid contract traps:

Your Construction Attorney - is your friend and ally and can save you a lot of grief. Most contracts are easy to read and understand.

Scope of Work - Description in the contract is of crucial importance and a well-defined scope of work with details that outlines specific action to be performed by you, the contractor. The scope of work needs also to define work that is excluded and all work to be done by others, including the owner, which may interface with the contractor's scope of work. Never worry about too much detail; that detail will significantly help with the avoidance or resolution of claims and disputes that may arise out of the scope of work.

Schedule And Gantt Chart - Make sure you have enough time in the schedule to perform the scope of work. Every minute spent developing your Work-Breakdown-Structure (WBS) is worth an hour or more in the time needed to do the job.

    Add Contingency To Your Schedule - Minor delays, weather, equipment problems, etc. always happen. Do not expect the customer to be sympathetic and allow more time for delays. It is imperative if the contract has liquidated money penalty damages for late completion.

Payment Terms - Should need to add positive cash flow. Get cash coming in early and often. Paid when Paid and paid if paid terms are ridiculous, and we recommend not signing them ever! Clients who want these types of payment terms all have access to plenty of money and can pay you. Remember, cash is king!

Retention - Instead of retention being withheld from your progress payment invoices, consider providing a warranty guaranty instead, but check with your construction attorney first! 

Indemnities - Can open the door to your cash reserves and everything you own, be careful! Indemnities typically cover claims for bodily injury, death of person, and property damage. The broad and intermediate form indemnities may require you to pay for bodily injury, death and property damage claims caused by the client, and you could be liable for the customer's attorney's fees and costs. Indemnity in contracts can be a dangerous risk transfer if enforced in a court of law could bankrupt your company for something you didn't do. Again your construction attorney is the person to ask, and don't be afraid to walk away from a project. Three types of indemnities: 

Broad Form: A comprehensive form indemnity contractually obligates you, the contractor, to be responsible for claims arising out of any amount of the client's negligence, including his sole negligence. The 100% indemnity.

Intermediate Form: An intermediate form indemnity contractually obligates you, the contractor, to be responsible for claims arising out of the client's negligence, excluding only those claims arising out of the client's sole negligence — the 99.9% indemnity.

Limited Form: A limited form of indemnity contractually obligates both the contractor and the client to be responsible only to the extent they are negligent for a claim.

Additionally Insured - Is a typical requirement in a contract that means something like: "Contractor will name the customer as an additional insured on his General Liability Insurance policy." Understand that when you name your customer as an additional insured to your general liability insurance policy (bodily injury and property damage coverage), he receives full access to the policy monetary limits and coverage provided by the policy at no cost, FREE, $0.00! The customer may also collect the legal defense of a claim because of your general liability policy for FREE!

Warranty - Is a good thing because it shows your commitment to stand behind your work and fix or replace defective parts or workmanship. Standing behind your work with a good warranty will give you an excellent reputation. However, warranties don't have to go on forever, and you don't need to marry the project; one year is about right, and perhaps you could offer extended warranties as well. Your warranty should exclude things like normal wear and tear, corrosion, improper usage, etc. Make sure your warranty is specific as to what it includes and excludes, when it starts and when it ends.

Dispute Resolution - Well defined and documented dispute resolution clause in all your contracts that outlines the process to try and resolve disputes with negotiation as the starting place and if negotiation fails, then mediation. If that will not work, provide for a senior executive in each organization to try and resolve the dispute. If all else fails, arbitration or litigation is the end, and both parties will lose.

Lien Waiver - Do not ever give a lien waiver in advance of the check clearing the bank. All 50 states have lien laws that provide contractors with some limited protection against customers that refuse to pay. Make sure your construction attorney reviews the original contract looking for the customer's final lien wavier that could be hidden deep in the contract documents. Some final lien waivers also waive your rights to collect outstanding change orders or bodily injury or property damage claims against your employees or property caused by the negligence of the customer, so be careful.

In conclusion

We recommend seeking the advice of a qualified construction attorney to put together a contract that fits your specific needs. Your contracts need a well-defined scope of work, clear payment terms, a reasonable schedule, and a proper change order clause. No work should ever be performed based on verbal agreements. Get everything in writing, always, no exceptions.

About The Author:

Randal DeHart, PMP, QPA is the co-founder of Business Consulting And Accounting in Lynnwood Washington. He is the leading expert in outsourced construction bookkeeping and accounting services for small construction companies across the USA. He is experienced as a Contractor, Project Management Professional, Construction Accountant, Intuit ProAdvisor, and QuickBooks For Contractors Expert. This combination of experience and skill sets provides a unique perspective that allows him to see the world through the eyes of a contractor, Project Manager, Accountant, and Construction Accountant. This quadruple understanding is what sets him apart from other Intuit ProAdvisors and accountants to the benefit of all of the construction contractors he serves across the USA. Visit http://www.fasteasyaccounting.com/randal-dehart/ to learn more.

Our Co-Founder Randal DeHart - Is a Certified PMP (Project Management Professional) with several years of construction project management experience. His expertise is construction accounting systems engineering and process development. His exhaustive study of several leading experts including the work of Dr. W. Edward Deming, Michael Gerber, Walter A. Shewhart, James Lewis and dozens of others was the foundation upon which our Construction Bookkeeping System is based and continues to evolve and improve. Check out our Contractor Success Map Podcast on iTunes. 

Check out this episode about Contractors Marketing - Accounting - Production (M.A.P.)!

[leliadahms7841-blog]

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[maritzaerwin]

How Has COVID-19 Changed the Nursing Career?

COVID-19 has transformed virtually every aspect of life on a global scale. As you might expect, few industries have been hit as hard as the healthcare field. Whether you’re considering a career in nursing or you just want to understand how the heroes on the frontlines are holding up, it’s important to stay aware of what’s happening behind the scenes.

While the duties of a nurse have never been for the faint of heart, it’s very clear that nurses in 2020 are dealing with a myriad of new challenges. At the same time, this is an excellent opportunity for anyone considering a nursing career to dive in and learn valuable lessons that can only be fully instilled through first-hand experience.

Read on for an in-depth look at how the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has impacted the nursing career.

Demand for Nurses Skyrockets

It’s no secret that hospitals have been overwhelmed. While social distancing has helped to flatten the curve, most healthcare facilities simply weren’t (and still aren’t) equipped to handle the massive influx of patients.

Unsurprisingly, nursing is one of the most common medical careers in demand. Before the pandemic, there was already concern about a growing shortage of nurses. Naturally, the pandemic has compounded these worries.

According to the American Nurses Association, over 500,000 long-serving nurses are expected to retire by 2022. Additionally, the average age of RNs is on the rise, shifting from an average age of 42.7 years old in 2000 to 44.6 years old in 2010.

Because of these changing dynamics, as well as the increased access to public healthcare, it’s expected that there will be more than 100,000 nursing jobs open per year by 2022 — significantly more than any other profession.

Of course, these figures don’t take the COVID-19 crisis into account. In some areas — New York City, for example — hospitals have been hit so hard that they’ve requested that retired nurses return to work. Similarly, executive orders have been passed allowing nursing students to work before their official graduation or certification.

Practice Agreements Are Temporarily Waived

Due to the aforementioned shortage of nurses, nurses in some states have had their practice agreements waived, allowing them to perform duties that may have previously required doctor supervision or additional certification. These changes may also allow for more prescriptive authority.

According to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, as of May 26, 2020, 22 states have already modified their practice agreement requirements. It’s a logical step during the pandemic, as it simply doesn’t make sense for red tape to hinder critical duties, especially when every second count.

While removing restrictions may seem like a potentially dangerous decision, the reality is that most of these nurses have attended school for years and are fully trained and well-versed in their new duties. Although there may be challenges along the way, it has become abundantly clear that these brave professionals are ready to meet them head-on.

Pay Skyrockets

While the vast majority of essential workers have yet to receive hazard pay, nurses are seeing a boost in wages, thanks to crisis pay. As the name implies, crisis pay refers to increased wages due to a crisis that requires personnel to work in dangerous conditions or for more hours than usual. 

Additionally, many nurses are now performing more in-depth duties and taking on more responsibilities, so it makes sense that they would be compensated accordingly. This may not be the promotion they were waiting for, but at least there’s a silver lining. Positions that may have taken years to obtain are now much more attainable.

Equipment Shortages Continue

Just like any other profession, nurses need to prepare for the coronavirus at work. One of the biggest challenges medical personnel is facing is a lack of critical PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, strategies have been implemented to optimize, prioritize, and conserve essential equipment, including the following: 

N95 respirators.

Face masks.

Eye protection.

Gloves.

Isolation gowns.

Respirators.

Ventilators.

Telehealth & Private Nursing Grows in Popularity

Modern technology has played a vital role in keeping hospitals from becoming overcrowded. Not everyone needs to be seen in-person, especially for an initial diagnosis. Even those who have been confirmed to have COVID-19 may not require hospitalization until symptoms become severe and a patient needs to use a ventilator.

Most people can treat COVID-19 symptoms at home, just like having the flu or a cold. To reserve limited hospital space for those who need intensive care, many medical professionals have started offering virtual appointments via webcam interactions. It makes sense, as many appointments don’t require physical touch, medications, or equipment.

Beyond reducing surges that could overwhelm hospitals, telehealth is important because it reaches people who aren’t able to see a doctor.

For example, someone who lives in a rural area may find that connecting with a doctor online is significantly easier than driving hours to a potentially overcrowded hospital. Additionally, people who are handicapped may prefer the convenience that telehealth offers.

For these same reasons, many individuals and families are also turning to private duty nurses for personalized, at-home care. Whether a patient is recovering from surgery or contained in their home for other reasons, private duty nurses bring medical care directly to the patient.

Not only do telehealth and private duty nurses help people at home, but it helps ease the burden on the medical system as the pandemic takes place. Because the symptoms of COVID-19 can resemble a common cold or flu, it’s understandable that people may be anxious if they feel even slightly under the weather. The problem is that the majority of those fears are unfounded.

If every person who felt sick went to the hospital for a diagnosis, it would be impossible to treat those who do, in fact, have COVID-19. Telehealth and private duty nursing allow worried people to gain peace of mind or determine if they need to seek treatment while staying at home and without overwhelming the system.

Nurses Get a Boost in the Public Eye

Public perception of nurses has always been positive — these are the people who work tirelessly to keep our loved ones safe and healthy, after all — but this crisis has cast a glaring spotlight on the true selflessness of the job.

It’s no surprise that people all over the world are gaining a new appreciation for the heroes working on the frontlines, not just in the healthcare industry, but in all industries that have been forced to remain open to retain at least a small semblance of normalcy in these unprecedented times.

COVID-19 has reshaped many aspects of society, and, in many cases, those changes are going to be permanent. The majority of these changes aren’t ideal, but there are positive outcomes. Nurses are finally getting their long-overdue credit. While these men and women don’t do it for the glory, they deserve every bit of praise they get — now and in the future.

Mental Health Suffers

Despite the glowing praise for healthcare professionals, they’re not immune to the severe mental and emotional trauma that comes with being on the frontlines of a global pandemic. Nurses are human beings, and it’s not surprising that they would be experiencing feelings of anxiety and fear about their own safety, as well as the health of their patients.

The pandemic has affected everyone in some way or another, but nurses truly are at the forefront of the crisis. Not only are they the most at risk of getting the virus, but they’re seeing the damage the virus can do first-hand.

If you ask any nurse, they’ll tell you that even one casualty is devastating – there’s a feeling of guilt that can be very difficult, if not impossible, to escape.

Beyond the emotional toll of fearing for one’s own life and lamenting the struggles of others, many nurses are frustrated because of a lack of PPE and testing. Handling a global health crisis is already a huge burden, but attempting to navigate these uncharted territories without the proper tools and protocol is creating unprecedented levels of stress.

Job Seekers Still Seek Nursing Positions

Because COVID-19 has caused an economic crisis in addition to a health crisis, plenty of people are seeking new business opportunities amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, you can’t just apply to become a nurse and then get hired the next day, but this pandemic is inspiring a lot of people to pursue careers in the healthcare industry.

It speaks to the human spirit that people are still interested in becoming nurses — despite the turmoil surrounding the industry — so they can help others in this difficult time and in the future. Anyone who has ever felt a call to make a difference in the world has an opportunity to join the ranks of heroes who have become the backbone of society.

If you want a serious crash course on all that being a nurse entails, there’s never been a better time to sign up. On average, nursing assistant programs take 4-12 weeks to complete and become certified, so it’s not too late to join the heroes on the frontlines.

Beyond noble intentions, there are plenty of practical reasons to seek a career in nursing. The current crisis pay is extremely attractive, although you’re going to be earning it. No matter what happens, a nursing job is one of the most stable positions out there — you’ll always have job opportunities available.

It’s worth noting that although many folks are pursuing medical careers, there will probably be a major shortage of nurses in the near and distant future.

There’s no denying the toll that the crisis is taking on nurses, and many of them will want to retire for good when all is said and done. Additionally, many nurses may realize that the healthcare industry just isn’t for them, and there’s absolutely no shame in that. It takes a special kind of fortitude that most people just don’t possess to deal with such strife day after day.

Medical Professionals Fight Misinformation

The internet is an incredible resource, but it can also be detrimental. Because of misinformation online, medical professionals have been forced into educator positions, in addition to their usual duties. As it becomes increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction, doctors, nurses, and specialists must become even more vigilant to combat the spread of harmful, false information.

This aspect of a nurse’s job often goes overlooked. Medical professionals aren’t just treating people; they’re providing the critical information required to make informed decisions. Nurses have realized that they need to be 100% confident in their knowledge so they don’t accidentally contribute to the spread of misleading information, and in some cases, outright lies.

Medical Professionals Continue to Adapt

Nurses have always been quick to meet new challenges, and this crisis has made that abundantly clear. However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to be able to adapt by the second has become a much more essential skill. It’s easy to get comfortable in any position, and for many medical professionals, this pandemic has been a wake-up call.

Even when this pandemic is over, it will serve as a permanent reminder that nothing is set in stone. In the blink of an eye, life can change dramatically. Moving forward, there’s little doubt that nurses will always be on the lookout for the next big crisis so humanity isn’t blindsided again.

The existential impact of COVID-19 remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that it will directly affect the mindsets of medical workers, not to mention hospital protocol and planning. This pandemic will serve as a valuable lesson that will inspire important changes in how hospitals prepare for and cope with large-scale health crises.

The Nursing Career Remains Steadfast

Nurses are some of the most resilient people out there. All of these changes to the industry are daunting, but it’s important to note that the industry has also remained stable in many ways. All over the world, medical professionals have proven that even a major catastrophe will not stand in their way. When obstacles arise, solutions are found.

Although the outcome of the pandemic remains uncertain, one thing is for sure: The courageous women and men at the frontlines will continue to sacrifice their safety for society, and they’re owed a massive debt of gratitude that can never truly be paid. No matter how much the nursing career evolves, there will always be heroes willing to sign up. Keep them in your thoughts, and let them know they’re appreciated.

The post How Has COVID-19 Changed the Nursing Career? appeared first on CareerMetis.com.

How Has COVID-19 Changed the Nursing Career? published first on https://skillsireweb.tumblr.com/

[bigyack-com]

Abortion by Telemedicine: A Growing Option as Access to Clinics Wanes

Ashley Dale was grateful she could end her pregnancy at home.As her 3-year-old daughter played nearby, she spoke by video from her living room in Hawaii with Dr. Bliss Kaneshiro, an obstetrician-gynecologist, who was a 200-mile plane ride away in Honolulu. The doctor explained that two medicines that would be mailed to Ms. Dale would halt her pregnancy and cause a miscarriage.“Does it sound like what you want to do in terms of terminating the pregnancy?” Dr. Kaneshiro asked gently. Ms. Dale, who said she would love to have another baby, had wrestled with the decision, but circumstances involving an estranged boyfriend had made the choice clear: “It does,” she replied.Now, the coronavirus pandemic is catapulting demand for telemedicine abortion to a new level, with much of the nation under strict stay-at-home advisories and as several states, including Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, have sought to suspend access to surgical abortions during the crisis.The telemedicine program that Ms. Dale participated in has been allowed to operate as a research study for several years under a special arrangement with the Food and Drug Administration. It allows women seeking abortions to have video consultations with certified doctors and then receive abortion pills by mail to take on their own.Over the past year, the program, called TelAbortion, has expanded from serving five states to serving 13, adding two of those — Illinois and Maryland — as the coronavirus crisis exploded. Not including those new states, about twice as many women had abortions through the program in March and April as in January and February.To accommodate women during the pandemic, TelAbortion is “working to expand to new states as fast as possible,” said Dr. Elizabeth Raymond, senior medical associate at Gynuity Health Projects, which runs the program. It is also hearing from more women in neighboring states seeking to cross state lines so TelAbortion can serve them.As of April 22, TelAbortion had mailed a total of 841 packages containing abortion pills and confirmed 611 completed abortions, Dr. Raymond said. Another 216 participants were either still in the follow-up process or have not been in contact to confirm their results. The program’s growth is significant enough that Republican senators recently introduced a bill to ban telemedicine abortion.The F.D.A., which has allowed TelAbortion to continue operating during the Trump administration, declined to answer questions from The New York Times about the program.The F.D.A. rules, however, do not specify that providers must see patients in person, so some clinics have begun allowing women to come in for video consultations with certified doctors based elsewhere. TelAbortion goes further, offering telemedicine consultations to women at home (or anywhere), mailing them pills and following up after women take them.In interviews, seven women who terminated pregnancies through TelAbortion described the conflicting emotions and intricate logistics that can accompany a decision to have an abortion, and their reasons for choosing to do it through telemedicine.Ms. Dale, a single mother, was about to start a job at a storage center when she became pregnant last year. She would have had to fly to Honolulu, incurring expenses for travel and child care.“The alternative would be to wait for a doctor to come to my island in three weeks,” Ms. Dale, 35, told Dr. Kaneshiro during her consultation, which she allowed a Times reporter to observe. By then, she would be too pregnant for a medication abortion.But many TelAbortion patients live near clinics. Shiloh Kirby, 24, of Denver, who said she had become pregnant after being raped at a party, chose TelAbortion for convenience and privacy. She conducted her video consultation while sitting in her car in the parking lot of the hardware store where she worked.Dawn, 30, a divorced mother of two who asked to be identified only by her first name, was terrified that the debilitating postpartum depression she experienced after her children’s births would return if she continued her pregnancy. And she worried protesters at her local Planned Parenthood in Salem, Ore., might recognize her.“I just don’t want to deal with that ridicule,” she said.

Expanding across the country

Based on state laws governing telemedicine and abortion, Dr. Raymond estimated TelAbortion might be legal in slightly over half of the states, including some conservative ones. It now serves Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington.The doctors (and nurses or midwives in some states) who do TelAbortion’s video consultations must be licensed in states where medication is mailed, but do not have to practice there. Likewise, patients do not have to live in the states that TelAbortion serves; they just have to be in one of them during the videoconference and provide an address there — that of a friend, relative, even a motel or post office — to which pills can be shipped.“We have had patients who cross state lines in order to receive TelAbortions,” Dr. Raymond said. More are expected to do so during the pandemic. This month, a woman from Texas drove 10 hours in snowy weather to New Mexico, where she stayed in a motel for her videoconference and to receive the pills.The organization that provides TelAbortion services in Georgia, carafem, has expanded recently to Maryland and Illinois, and it is running digital ads that are expected to reach women in some nearby states like Missouri and Ohio, which have more abortion restrictions, said Melissa Grant, carafem’s chief operations officer.In May, shortly after Georgia’s governor signed one of the country’s strictest abortion laws (which is now being challenged in court), Lee, 37, who lives near Atlanta, discovered she was seven weeks pregnant.Lee, who asked to be identified only by a shortened version of her first name, said the pregnancy had shocked her because she took birth control pills regularly. She decided to terminate the pregnancy because she had recently cut ties with her boyfriend after he was arrested on drug charges, she said.She kept her decision from her family members, who she said were strongly against abortion. And she feared protesters would castigate her if she visited an abortion clinic.“No one goes through life saying, ‘I’m going to grow up and get an abortion,’” Lee said. “So you’re already struggling with that and then to have someone tell you that you’re going to hell or that you’re killing babies, it’s horrible.”She found carafem, and videoconferenced in her office at lunchtime with a doctor in another state.During such consultations, doctors explain that most women do not experience discomfort from mifepristone, which blocks a hormone necessary for pregnancy to develop. Cramping and bleeding, resembling a heavy period, occur after the expulsion of fetal tissue caused by the second drug, misoprostol, which is taken up to 48 hours later. After several hours, bleeding dwindles but might continue for two weeks. In rare cases, women can develop fevers, infections or extensive bleeding requiring medical attention.Lee received a package marked only with her name and address; it contained the pills, tea bags, peppermints, maxipads, prescription ibuprofen and nausea medication.“Just everything you could need,” she said. “It was so comforting.”TelAbortion reports that of the 611 completed abortions documented through April 22, most were accomplished with only the pills and without complications. In 26 cases, aspiration was performed to finish the termination.Dr. Raymond said 46 women went to emergency rooms or urgent care centers with issues that appear just as likely to have occurred if the women had followed the common practice of visiting abortion clinics for consultations, taking the first medication there and the second at home. Two women went before receiving the pills and two before taking them, either because of morning sickness or because they thought they were miscarrying. Fifteen ended up needing no medical treatment. Some were given medicine for pain or nausea.Three were hospitalized, all successfully treated: two women had excessive bleeding, and another had a seizure after an aspiration, Dr. Raymond said.Eleven women decided not to have abortions and did not take the pills they were sent. Another woman continued her pregnancy after the medication failed, as did another after vomiting the mifepristone. Sixteen women have undergone two telabortions, Dr. Raymond said.Of the women The Times interviewed, only Dawn, who said she has anxiety, called the 24-hour TelAbortion line for emotional support.“It was after I took the pills,” Dawn said. “I felt like my body, my hormones essentially crashed. And because I suffer from mental health issues, just everything was just kind of out of whack and I started really panicking bad. I called the nurse and she just sat on the phone with me.”

Complex decisions

TelAbortion typically charges $200 to $375 for consultations and pills. Women must also pay for an ultrasound and lab tests, obtained from any provider. During the coronavirus pandemic, TelAbortion may waive its requirement for an ultrasound to gauge the gestational age of the pregnancy if women are unable to visit a doctor to obtain one, Dr. Raymond said. In some states, some or all of the costs are covered by private insurance or Medicaid. For women facing financial hardship, like Ms. Kirby in Denver, the program taps abortion grant networks.Some patients said the teleconsultations helped them navigate the complex feelings that abortion can evoke.Leigh, a 28-year-old construction inspector in Denver, who asked to be identified only by her middle name, said she considered herself “totally pro-life.”But, she said, she also has depression, which became so severe after she had a baby two years ago that she sometimes felt suicidal. Doctors, she said, “didn’t trust me alone with my baby.”Last March, after discovering she was pregnant and consulting her fiancé, she called Planned Parenthood. “I said, ‘I don’t want to be this person, but I need to abort this pregnancy,’” Leigh said.She chose the TelAbortion option. After taking the first medication, she attended a previously scheduled photo shoot for engagement pictures with her fiancé, then took the second medication that evening.Conducting her follow-up call from a field on a job site, Leigh told the doctor, Kristina Tocce, medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, that she felt compelled to abort “no matter how much I hate myself.”When she sees a baby now, she says she still sometimes wonders, “‘Did I make the wrong choice?’”“I wanted to keep my baby, but I just couldn’t,” she said.During Ms. Dale’s videoconference in Hawaii, Dr. Kaneshiro spoke calmly.“It is pretty normal to pass some blood clots that maybe are even the size of a quarter,” she said.“I’m prepared because I actually had a miscarriage last year at four months along,” Ms. Dale replied.“This will not be that bad — I mean, at this stage of pregnancy, the actual embryo is smaller than the size of a grain of rice,” Dr. Kaneshiro said. “It’s very unlikely to see anything that’s recognizable as a pregnancy.”“OK, that’s good,” said Ms. Dale, then eight and a half weeks pregnant.“It doesn’t affect future pregnancies, so it doesn’t have any long-term effects,” Dr. Kaneshiro said.“OK, that was one of my questions, thank you,” Ms. Dale said.“Mommy, mommy!” called her daughter, Sophia, bouncing into the living room from a bedroom filled with Legos and a pop-up castle.“She’s beautiful,” Dr. Kaneshiro said.Ms. Dale’s consultation and lab tests were covered by Hawaii public assistance. The pills, which cost her $135, arrived by certified mail. She placed them on a table near two pregnancy ultrasound photos.“OK, this is happening,” Ms. Dale said she told herself. “I’m doing this.”Her reasons partly involved disagreements with her estranged boyfriend, the father of Sophia, now 4. Their strained relationship made Ms. Dale believe she would have to raise their second child alone.“I’ve got a beautiful daughter and I’d really love to have another one,” she said. “But it’s just not feasible for my sanity, and I feel like I’d basically be guaranteeing us to live in poverty.”On the back of an ultrasound picture, she wrote: “Never forget why you had to make the hard decision to let this baby go.” She swallowed the pill.She had Sophia stay at her mother’s house and took the other tablets, which she said felt like chalk in her mouth. To distract from seven hours of cramping and heavy bleeding, she watched back-to-back “Matrix” movies.“It’s not like it was easy,” she reflected later, “but at the same time it’s pretty clearly the right choice.” Read the full article

[isearchgoood]

How Your Local Business Can Be a Helper

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers

This quote is one I find myself turning to frequently these days as a local SEO. It calls to mind my irreplaceable neighborhood grocer. On my last essential run to their store, they not only shared a stashed 4-pack of bath tissue with me, but also stocked their market with local distillery-produced hand sanitizer which I was warned will reek of bourbon, but will get the job done.

When times are hard, finding helpers comes as such a relief. Even the smallest acts that a local business does to support physical and mental health can be events customers remember for years to come.

While none of us gets to live in Mister Rogers’ idealized neighborhood, the adaptations I’m seeing local businesses and organizations make to sustain communities during COVID-19 are a meaningful expression of caring worthy of his humanitarian vision. Almost any brand, large or small, has the chance to be a good neighbor. Please use the following industry and platform examples to spark local business creativity when it’s needed most so that brands you care about can stay helpfully productive during the public health emergency.

Inspirational local business pivots and plans

Everyone at Moz is full of admiration for the way different industries are responding in a time that’s not business-as-usual. My thanks to the many teammates who contributed to this roundup of examples we’ve been personally encountering, and we hope you’ll find an actionable path for your business here.

Food and hospitality

1. From fancy to fundamental, famed Seattle restaurant Canlis quickly transitioned from fine dining to offering drive-thru bagels, family meal delivery, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes from local farms.

2. From pizza place to pantry, multiple restaurants and caterers are putting their supply chain to work for their customers. California Pizza Kitchen is delivering meal kits and pantry staples as a pop-up market.

3. Caterers with big hearts like Kay Catering asked parents whose schoolchildren she normally feeds whether they’d be willing to donate unused lunch fees so her company could cook for families in need. Through the generosity of these parents, Kay Kim is now serving dinner to the residents at the Sand Point Public Housing Center at Magnuson Park as part of Seattle Public Schools’ overall effort to feed its students.

4. Pike Place Market on your doorstep is the offering of Savor Seattle, which has shifted from offering tasting tours to aggregating the iconic products of an entire marketplace for home delivery and curbside pickup.

5. To keep grocery shelves stocked, Santa Rosa, California food manufacturer Amy’s Kitchen has ramped up production by erecting tent kitchens with social distancing so that the company’s canned soups can be produced in greater quantities. Meanwhile, distilleries across the country have converted operations to manufacture of hand sanitizer.

6. Community-support agriculture may well see a boom with the appeal of boxes of fresh, local foods delivered to your door, allowing customers to entirely forego trips to grocery stores. Farm stands have become extra precious community resources. Role models like Heron Pond Farm in New Hampshire are accepting SNAP payments and providing discounts to SNAP shoppers.

7. Caring for our most vulnerable community members, grocery stores large and small are setting senior shopping hours. Raley’s is offering curbside pickup of $20 “Senior Essential Bags” filled with fresh and dry goods. Kroger-owned stores are donating $3 million to deploy groceries to food-insecure communities via their Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program.

8. Looking to the future, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieg has launched SaveOurFaves.com, an San Francisco Bay Area directory of restaurants hosting the purchase of gift cards to keep cherished eating spots afloat. These gift cards, meant to be used later, are in the nature of a small business loan.

9. Serving up support for displaced restaurant workers, Food Network star and restaurateur Guy Fieri has created a relief fund.This Bay Area celebrity has repeatedly come to the rescue in disasters, cooking for impacted communities, and now, offering $500 in cash to unemployed restaurant employees on a first-come, first-served basis.

10. Hotels are housing health care workers in need of lodging, with some 6,500 properties participating in the Hotels for Hope initiative nationwide. Meanwhile, in San Francisco alone, more than 30 hotels have offered housing for homeless Americans in response to local and state government requests.

Home services

1. Contractors put safety first by implementing new sanitary protocols when making home visits. Roto-Rooter is doing an outstanding job of explaining how plumbers will wear protective equipment, practice social distancing, and use disinfectant. They are also publishing how-to videos for simple home plumbing and offering advice regarding sanitary products. HVAC brand Vaughan Comfort Services created this section of their website to explain their enhanced safety measures.

2. Cleaning services are making tough decisions about whether to remain operational. Some, like Molly Maid, are still cleaning residences while implementing increased safety practices, but others are diversifying into the commercial cleaning space, cleaning offices that are temporarily empty. Meanwhile, professional biohazard cleaning services like Aftermath are creating new pages on their websites to describe their in-demand practices for disinfecting impacted properties.

3. Computer repair services are adapting, where state regulations allow, to 100% mobile operations and are fixing issues over the phone where possible. One independent shop, DreamNet Computers, created this page to explain how they are sanitizing devices being picked up or dropped off, and how they can repair some computers remotely if they can connect to the Internet.

4. The landscaping services market is haphazard at the moment, with some professionals concerned that state-by-state regulations are not clear enough for their industry, while others are embracing virtual meetings and 3D modeling with the thought that people working from home will now be more invested in having livable outdoor spaces.

Professional and instructional services

1. Much of medicine has become telemedicine and therapy has become teletherapy, barring cases which require direct one-on-one contact. Practitioners able to navigate privacy regulations can still provide vital patient support. Bridges Therapy & Wellness Center of Fairfax, Virginia is just one example of a practice putting online appointment availability front and center on its website. Check out how the telehealth platform PatientPop has quickly pivoted their roll out for medical clients.

2. Movement, meditation, and multiple forms of self-care have made a quick transition online. Religious institutions are putting their services on the web, from Pope Francis celebrating Mass at the Vatican, to Ann Arbor’s Temple Beth Emeth observing virtual Shabbat and the Imams of the Islamic Center of America broadcasting live, daily lectures from Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve found Indigenous invitations to prayer for healing especially moving in these times. Meanwhile, dance studio Dance Church has thousands of folks boogying to their livestreams, and yoga, martial arts, fine arts, and music instructors have shifted to both public and private online sessions. Check out the business support being offered by Your Yoga Alliance to instructors needing to transition operations.

3. Banks and financial institutions are responding by offering various forms of relief including deferring or waiving fees, and providing some forms of mortgage assistance. With concerns over ATM contamination, some advisors in the financial industry are suggesting customers bring their own sanitizer, gloves, and a stylus to transactions.

4. Realtors can manage most meetings virtually, and thanks to technology like Kleard and Immoviewer, buyers can get a very good idea of what properties look like and even handle closings online. However, it’s vital to follow state and local regulations regarding home showings.

5. The National Association of Bar Executives offers abundant guidance for legal professionals via their pandemic preparedness resource. They are hosting roundtables, publishing lists of tech vendors appropriate to the industry, and highlighting government and philanthropic news.

6. Personal care professionals may be struggling most, with hair stylists, manicurists, massage therapists, and related practitioners having no way to replicate their work via the Internet. Kaleidoscope Salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee held a fundraiser offering a prize of a full year of hair services in order to meet its payroll during its closure. Professionals seeking to maintain client relationships during this pause in business can head to YouTube, like R’s Just Hair Salon’s chief hairstylist Ruchi Sawhney, to demo do-it-yourself beauty tips. Stay-at-home orders are making it harder for people to access personal care products. If your salon has inventory, consider curbside pick-up of health and beauty supply kits, as is being offered by Sally Beauty.

Retail

1. Retail is taking a hard hit, and there’s no gainsaying this, but vendors who can transition at least part of their operations to e-commerce selling may be able to remain operational simply because the demand is so high now for home delivery. If you are sitting on unsold inventory and are having trouble imagining how to sell it, check out eBay, which recently announced that it is waiving seller fees to help retailers get their products onto the web for sale.

2. Major clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed their stores, but continue to sell online. Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has stated that the fewest employee furloughs have been in their digital operations, and that they hope to start bringing workers back on through a staggered process in the future. Meanwhile, smaller basic clothing retailers like the Vermont Country Store have temporarily shuttered their premises, but are continuing to ship with the proviso that an overload of orders has slowed down shipping speeds.

3. Electronics retailers are finding their product lines in high demand as all of us seek ways to conduct more of life online. T-Mobile stores may be closed, but they are offering free two-day shipping and have published a whole new section of service resources during the health emergency. Best Buy is offering contactless curbside pickup and delivery. Batteries Plus Bulbs has remained largely operational and is supplying the medical field with essential technology, while also offering curbside pickup to retail customers.

4. Plant nurseries are finding themselves inundated with customers eager to plant food crops in any gardening space they have. In my state of California, agricultural businesses are considered essential. Many nurseries and garden supply shops remain open, but — like the San Francisco Bay Area Sloat Nursery chain — are taking steps to limit the number of customers allowed in at a time, and also offer curbside pickup and delivery. Nurseries should be growing as many veggie starts and stocking as much vegetable seed as possible right now.

5. Home Improvement and hardware stores offering free delivery, like Home Depot, and free curbside pickup, like Ace Hardware, have a good chance of weathering this storm so long as customers can afford to improve their dwellings, in which they are now spending so much more of their time. In a related category, large home furnishings brands like Crate & Barrel are selling online and have their design consultants working from home with clients via phone and web chat.

6. Auto dealers have embraced tech to keep car sales moving. Toyota’s SmartPath tool takes customers from inventory search, to applying for a line of credit, to the point where a vehicle can be delivered to your home. I’ve noticed several dealerships deferring first-month payments to stimulate purchases. Meanwhile, General Motors has begun producing ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana facility and face masks at its plant in Warren, Michigan.

Where to publicize what you’re doing

Once you’ve determined how your business can best pivot to continue serving the public, you’ll want to update your website to ensure you’re communicating your offerings. You should also update your local business listings, as described in the last edition of my column. Beyond this, here is an example-filled list of resources for maximizing publicity:

Blogs

About a decade ago, local SEO experts were strongly promoting the idea of creating hyperlocal blogs to engage communities. Bloggers who were up to the challenge now have platforms in place through which the most recent and useful information can be quickly communicated to neighbors, as in this excellent example of the West Seattle Blog. If your community lacks a hyperlocal resource like this, your business could be of great help in creating one now. If such a blog is already in place, see if your business can contribute content.

Hyperlocal business association sites

If you don’t want to go it alone in creating a blog, joining with others in a local business association like the West Seattle Junction or Chamber of Commerce will enable many hands to lighten the work. Community hubs like this one are publishing vital information including PSAs, updates on which businesses offer delivery and pickup, and highlighting local merchants. If your neighborhood has platforms like these, contact them to see how you can contribute content. If no such resources exist, contact your neighboring business owners to discuss what you can create together.

Facebook

If you aren’t in a position to build a hyperlocal website or blog right now, Facebook may be your next best option. The Yurok Tribe of California is inspiring in their use of Facebook for continuous dialog with their community. Many tribes are role-modeling how to support one another, and particularly the most vulnerable, in these times. The above example shows how one tribe is phoning its elders and has created a hotline to ensure they’re receiving vital services. I came across another example in which a tribe’s Facebook post instructed elders to hang something red in their windows if they needed any help from younger members of the community. Now is a good time to double down on Facebook with any supportive information your local business can broadcast. Of note, Facebook is offering $100 million in small business cash grants and ad credits.

Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a particularly lively community hub and this is a very good time to join it as a business. It should go without saying that publishing anything that could seem self-serving would be a poor choice. Instead, take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated in the above example of a neighborhood converting their Little Free Library into a mini dry goods pantry, or this independent restaurant using Nextdoor to offer a discount to anyone in their industry who may have lost their local job. This is a good, ready-do-go platform for outreach to your community.

Twitter

Check out how the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton is using Twitter to promote virtual local events and a new directory they’re building on their website specifically highlighting operational local businesses. The instantaneous communication capacity of Twitter is a resource your company should consider right now, even if you haven’t done much tweeting in the past. Follow and share the content of other local businesses to create a stronger community with timely messaging for the public.

Instagram

Instagram is proving extremely helpful in alerting communities to offerings and changes, as in this example of a Richland, Washington cookie cutter manufacturer transitioning operations to produce face shields for medical personnel, and providing DIY instructions for anyone with access to a 3D printer.

Radio

This excellent Los Angeles Times article by Randy Lewis reminds us of how radio remains a strong resource even for those in our community who lack Internet access. People are tuning the dials for hyperlocal information about the availability of resources, for comfort, and hope. If your business is doing something that would help local customers, consider calling into the nearest radio station to share your story. Obviously, avoid being overly-promotional, and do consider whether this might be a good time to invest a little more in formal radio advertising.

Newspapers

Almost any town with a newspaper is printing abundant information about community resources right now, including lists of operational companies like this one in the Marin Independent Journal. Reach out with your news and volunteer to be interviewed to spread the word about how your business is serving the community. These unstructured citations from trusted online news outlets can help local searchers find your business and even boost your rankings. Consider paid news ad spots as well, if it’s in your budget.

Local television and video media

I thought this multi-location appliance company, Airport Home Appliances, did an excellent job with their local TV ad spot regarding their current operations, which they also posted to YouTube. Your audience is mainly homebound now, and Nielsen finds that local TV is becoming the preferred choice for accessing news and information in the United States. If it’s in your budget, even a basic local television ad could reach many customers at this time. If now isn’t a good time for your brand to invest, get something up on YouTube and embed it on your website.

Local, regional, or industry podcasts

If your area or business category is lucky enough to have a good podcast, reaching out to the podcaster to share what your business is doing could help you broadcast your offering to a wider audience. Check out this episode of the Tennessee Farm Table (theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head), in which podcaster Amy Campbell gives a running list of Appalachian businesses providing local food to residents. Whether you simply get mentioned or take the next step of being interviewed by a podcaster, this medium is one to embrace. And, if your area has no local podcast, think about launching one to create a more connected community.

Being the helpers

Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Image Credit: Wally Gobetz.

I hope you’ve seen something in this article that could help support your local brand’s goals to sustain itself in the coming months. A commonality across all the examples I’ve reviewed of COVID-19 business adjustments is that regular, open communication with customers to understand and meet their needs is simply essential right now. Your customers’ stated requests are your best playbook for this unscripted moment.

It’s my heartfelt wish that you’ll see the fruits of today’s extraordinary efforts in tomorrow’s customer loyalty. My teammate, Dr. Pete, recently shared an article with me in which the author described how Marks & Spencer’s provision of clothing during Great Britain's World War II textile rationing earned decades of devoted patronage because customers felt the retailer had “been there” for them when it mattered.

Being there at the present may mean transitioning some operations online, onto street curbs and parking lots, or into delivery vans, and how you communicate availability matters more than ever before. I’m inspired by seeing the ingenuity and kindness of the “helpers” Fred Rogers spoke of, in community after community.

There’s no denying that this is a challenging time for local search marketing, and yet, at the same time, local promotional skills have never been more critical. Take a second to imagine our communities if we were still limited to once-a-year phone book updates of business information, and I think you’ll quickly see just how vital a resource the local Internet has become.

Can you be a helper today? Please, comment about your own business, your clients’ brands, or any company in your town that you’re seeing make a special endeavor to serve communities. Your story could spark a new idea for a local business owner to keep a neighborhood or even an entire city afloat. Thanks for being a helper.

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[daynamartinez22]

How Your Local Business Can Be a Helper

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers

This quote is one I find myself turning to frequently these days as a local SEO. It calls to mind my irreplaceable neighborhood grocer. On my last essential run to their store, they not only shared a stashed 4-pack of bath tissue with me, but also stocked their market with local distillery-produced hand sanitizer which I was warned will reek of bourbon, but will get the job done.

When times are hard, finding helpers comes as such a relief. Even the smallest acts that a local business does to support physical and mental health can be events customers remember for years to come.

While none of us gets to live in Mister Rogers’ idealized neighborhood, the adaptations I’m seeing local businesses and organizations make to sustain communities during COVID-19 are a meaningful expression of caring worthy of his humanitarian vision. Almost any brand, large or small, has the chance to be a good neighbor. Please use the following industry and platform examples to spark local business creativity when it’s needed most so that brands you care about can stay helpfully productive during the public health emergency.

Inspirational local business pivots and plans

Everyone at Moz is full of admiration for the way different industries are responding in a time that’s not business-as-usual. My thanks to the many teammates who contributed to this roundup of examples we’ve been personally encountering, and we hope you’ll find an actionable path for your business here.

Food and hospitality

1. From fancy to fundamental, famed Seattle restaurant Canlis quickly transitioned from fine dining to offering drive-thru bagels, family meal delivery, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes from local farms.

2. From pizza place to pantry, multiple restaurants and caterers are putting their supply chain to work for their customers. California Pizza Kitchen is delivering meal kits and pantry staples as a pop-up market.

3. Caterers with big hearts like Kay Catering asked parents whose schoolchildren she normally feeds whether they’d be willing to donate unused lunch fees so her company could cook for families in need. Through the generosity of these parents, Kay Kim is now serving dinner to the residents at the Sand Point Public Housing Center at Magnuson Park as part of Seattle Public Schools’ overall effort to feed its students.

4. Pike Place Market on your doorstep is the offering of Savor Seattle, which has shifted from offering tasting tours to aggregating the iconic products of an entire marketplace for home delivery and curbside pickup.

5. To keep grocery shelves stocked, Santa Rosa, California food manufacturer Amy’s Kitchen has ramped up production by erecting tent kitchens with social distancing so that the company’s canned soups can be produced in greater quantities. Meanwhile, distilleries across the country have converted operations to manufacture of hand sanitizer.

6. Community-support agriculture may well see a boom with the appeal of boxes of fresh, local foods delivered to your door, allowing customers to entirely forego trips to grocery stores. Farm stands have become extra precious community resources. Role models like Heron Pond Farm in New Hampshire are accepting SNAP payments and providing discounts to SNAP shoppers.

7. Caring for our most vulnerable community members, grocery stores large and small are setting senior shopping hours. Raley’s is offering curbside pickup of $20 “Senior Essential Bags” filled with fresh and dry goods. Kroger-owned stores are donating $3 million to deploy groceries to food-insecure communities via their Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program.

8. Looking to the future, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieg has launched SaveOurFaves.com, a San Francisco Bay Area directory of restaurants hosting the purchase of gift cards to keep cherished eating spots afloat. These gift cards, meant to be used later, are in the nature of a small business loan.

9. Serving up support for displaced restaurant workers, Food Network star and restaurateur Guy Fieri has created a relief fund. This Bay Area celebrity has repeatedly come to the rescue in disasters, cooking for impacted communities, and now, offering $500 in cash to unemployed restaurant employees on a first-come, first-served basis.

10. Hotels are housing health care workers in need of lodging, with some 6,500 properties participating in the Hotels for Hope initiative nationwide. Meanwhile, in San Francisco alone, more than 30 hotels have offered housing for homeless Americans in response to local and state government requests.

Home services

1. Contractors put safety first by implementing new sanitary protocols when making home visits. Roto-Rooter is doing an outstanding job of explaining how plumbers will wear protective equipment, practice social distancing, and use disinfectant. They are also publishing how-to videos for simple home plumbing and offering advice regarding sanitary products. HVAC brand Vaughan Comfort Services created this section of their website to explain their enhanced safety measures.

2. Cleaning services are making tough decisions about whether to remain operational. Some, like Molly Maid, are still cleaning residences while implementing increased safety practices, but others are diversifying into the commercial cleaning space, cleaning offices that are temporarily empty. Meanwhile, professional biohazard cleaning services like Aftermath are creating new pages on their websites to describe their in-demand practices for disinfecting impacted properties.

3. Computer repair services are adapting, where state regulations allow, to 100% mobile operations and are fixing issues over the phone where possible. One independent shop, DreamNet Computers, created this page to explain how they are sanitizing devices being picked up or dropped off, and how they can repair some computers remotely if they can connect to the Internet.

4. The landscaping services market is haphazard at the moment, with some professionals concerned that state-by-state regulations are not clear enough for their industry, while others are embracing virtual meetings and 3D modeling with the thought that people working from home will now be more invested in having livable outdoor spaces.

Professional and instructional services

1. Much of medicine has become telemedicine and therapy has become teletherapy, barring cases which require direct one-on-one contact. Practitioners able to navigate privacy regulations can still provide vital patient support. Bridges Therapy & Wellness Center of Fairfax, Virginia is just one example of a practice putting online appointment availability front and center on its website. Check out how the telehealth platform PatientPop has quickly pivoted their roll out for medical clients.

2. Movement, meditation, and multiple forms of self-care have made a quick transition online. Religious institutions are putting their services on the web, from Pope Francis celebrating Mass at the Vatican, to Ann Arbor’s Temple Beth Emeth observing virtual Shabbat and the Imams of the Islamic Center of America broadcasting live, daily lectures from Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve found Indigenous invitations to prayer for healing especially moving in these times. Meanwhile, dance studio Dance Church has thousands of folks boogying to their livestreams, and yoga, martial arts, fine arts, and music instructors have shifted to both public and private online sessions. Check out the business support being offered by Your Yoga Alliance to instructors needing to transition operations.

3. Banks and financial institutions are responding by offering various forms of relief including deferring or waiving fees, and providing some forms of mortgage assistance. With concerns over ATM contamination, some advisors in the financial industry are suggesting customers bring their own sanitizer, gloves, and a stylus to transactions.

4. Realtors can manage most meetings virtually, and thanks to technology like Kleard and Immoviewer, buyers can get a very good idea of what properties look like and even handle closings online. However, it’s vital to follow state and local regulations regarding home showings.

5. The National Association of Bar Executives offers abundant guidance for legal professionals via their pandemic preparedness resource. They are hosting roundtables, publishing lists of tech vendors appropriate to the industry, and highlighting government and philanthropic news.

6. Personal care professionals may be struggling most, with hair stylists, manicurists, massage therapists, and related practitioners having no way to replicate their work via the Internet. Kaleidoscope Salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee held a fundraiser offering a prize of a full year of hair services in order to meet its payroll during its closure. Professionals seeking to maintain client relationships during this pause in business can head to YouTube, like R’s Just Hair Salon’s chief hairstylist Ruchi Sawhney, to demo do-it-yourself beauty tips. Stay-at-home orders are making it harder for people to access personal care products. If your salon has inventory, consider curbside pick-up of health and beauty supply kits, as is being offered by Sally Beauty.

Retail

1. Retail is taking a hard hit, and there’s no gainsaying this, but vendors who can transition at least part of their operations to e-commerce selling may be able to remain operational simply because the demand is so high now for home delivery. If you are sitting on unsold inventory and are having trouble imagining how to sell it, check out eBay, which recently announced that it is waiving seller fees to help retailers get their products onto the web for sale.

2. Major clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed their stores, but continue to sell online. Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has stated that the fewest employee furloughs have been in their digital operations, and that they hope to start bringing workers back on through a staggered process in the future. Meanwhile, smaller basic clothing retailers like the Vermont Country Store have temporarily shuttered their premises, but are continuing to ship with the proviso that an overload of orders has slowed down shipping speeds.

3. Electronics retailers are finding their product lines in high demand as all of us seek ways to conduct more of life online. T-Mobile stores may be closed, but they are offering free two-day shipping and have published a whole new section of service resources during the health emergency. Best Buy is offering contactless curbside pickup and delivery. Batteries Plus Bulbs has remained largely operational and is supplying the medical field with essential technology, while also offering curbside pickup to retail customers.

4. Plant nurseries are finding themselves inundated with customers eager to plant food crops in any gardening space they have. In my state of California, agricultural businesses are considered essential. Many nurseries and garden supply shops remain open, but — like the San Francisco Bay Area Sloat Nursery chain — are taking steps to limit the number of customers allowed in at a time, and also offer curbside pickup and delivery. Nurseries should be growing as many veggie starts and stocking as much vegetable seed as possible right now.

5. Home Improvement and hardware stores offering free delivery, like Home Depot, and free curbside pickup, like Ace Hardware, have a good chance of weathering this storm so long as customers can afford to improve their dwellings, in which they are now spending so much more of their time. In a related category, large home furnishings brands like Crate & Barrel are selling online and have their design consultants working from home with clients via phone and web chat.

6. Auto dealers have embraced tech to keep car sales moving. Toyota’s SmartPath tool takes customers from inventory search, to applying for a line of credit, to the point where a vehicle can be delivered to your home. I’ve noticed several dealerships deferring first-month payments to stimulate purchases. Meanwhile, General Motors has begun producing ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana facility and face masks at its plant in Warren, Michigan.

Where to publicize what you’re doing

Once you’ve determined how your business can best pivot to continue serving the public, you’ll want to update your website to ensure you’re communicating your offerings. You should also update your local business listings, as described in the last edition of my column. Beyond this, here is an example-filled list of resources for maximizing publicity:

Blogs

About a decade ago, local SEO experts were strongly promoting the idea of creating hyperlocal blogs to engage communities. Bloggers who were up to the challenge now have platforms in place through which the most recent and useful information can be quickly communicated to neighbors, as in this excellent example of the West Seattle Blog. If your community lacks a hyperlocal resource like this, your business could be of great help in creating one now. If such a blog is already in place, see if your business can contribute content.

Hyperlocal business association sites

If you don’t want to go it alone in creating a blog, joining with others in a local business association like the West Seattle Junction or Chamber of Commerce will enable many hands to lighten the work. Community hubs like this one are publishing vital information including PSAs, updates on which businesses offer delivery and pickup, and highlighting local merchants. If your neighborhood has platforms like these, contact them to see how you can contribute content. If no such resources exist, contact your neighboring business owners to discuss what you can create together.

Facebook

If you aren’t in a position to build a hyperlocal website or blog right now, Facebook may be your next best option. The Yurok Tribe of California is inspiring in their use of Facebook for continuous dialog with their community. Many tribes are role-modeling how to support one another, and particularly the most vulnerable, in these times. The above example shows how one tribe is phoning its elders and has created a hotline to ensure they’re receiving vital services. I came across another example in which a tribe’s Facebook post instructed elders to hang something red in their windows if they needed any help from younger members of the community. Now is a good time to double down on Facebook with any supportive information your local business can broadcast. Of note, Facebook is offering $100 million in small business cash grants and ad credits.

Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a particularly lively community hub and this is a very good time to join it as a business. It should go without saying that publishing anything that could seem self-serving would be a poor choice. Instead, take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated in the above example of a neighborhood converting their Little Free Library into a mini dry goods pantry, or this independent restaurant using Nextdoor to offer a discount to anyone in their industry who may have lost their local job. This is a good, ready-do-go platform for outreach to your community.

Twitter

Check out how the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton is using Twitter to promote virtual local events and a new directory they’re building on their website specifically highlighting operational local businesses. The instantaneous communication capacity of Twitter is a resource your company should consider right now, even if you haven’t done much tweeting in the past. Follow and share the content of other local businesses to create a stronger community with timely messaging for the public.

Instagram

Instagram is proving extremely helpful in alerting communities to offerings and changes, as in this example of a Richland, Washington cookie cutter manufacturer transitioning operations to produce face shields for medical personnel, and providing DIY instructions for anyone with access to a 3D printer.

Radio

This excellent Los Angeles Times article by Randy Lewis reminds us of how radio remains a strong resource even for those in our community who lack Internet access. People are tuning the dials for hyperlocal information about the availability of resources, for comfort, and hope. If your business is doing something that would help local customers, consider calling into the nearest radio station to share your story. Obviously, avoid being overly-promotional, and do consider whether this might be a good time to invest a little more in formal radio advertising.

Newspapers

Almost any town with a newspaper is printing abundant information about community resources right now, including lists of operational companies like this one in the Marin Independent Journal. Reach out with your news and volunteer to be interviewed to spread the word about how your business is serving the community. These unstructured citations from trusted online news outlets can help local searchers find your business and even boost your rankings. Consider paid news ad spots as well, if it’s in your budget.

Local television and video media

I thought this multi-location appliance company, Airport Home Appliances, did an excellent job with their local TV ad spot regarding their current operations, which they also posted to YouTube. Your audience is mainly homebound now, and Nielsen finds that local TV is becoming the preferred choice for accessing news and information in the United States. If it’s in your budget, even a basic local television ad could reach many customers at this time. If now isn’t a good time for your brand to invest, get something up on YouTube and embed it on your website.

Local, regional, or industry podcasts

If your area or business category is lucky enough to have a good podcast, reaching out to the podcaster to share what your business is doing could help you broadcast your offering to a wider audience. Check out this episode of the Tennessee Farm Table (theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head), in which podcaster Amy Campbell gives a running list of Appalachian businesses providing local food to residents. Whether you simply get mentioned or take the next step of being interviewed by a podcaster, this medium is one to embrace. And, if your area has no local podcast, think about launching one to create a more connected community.

Being the helpers

Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Image Credit: Wally Gobetz.

I hope you’ve seen something in this article that could help support your local brand’s goals to sustain itself in the coming months. A commonality across all the examples I’ve reviewed of COVID-19 business adjustments is that regular, open communication with customers to understand and meet their needs is simply essential right now. Your customers’ stated requests are your best playbook for this unscripted moment.

It’s my heartfelt wish that you’ll see the fruits of today’s extraordinary efforts in tomorrow’s customer loyalty. My teammate, Dr. Pete, recently shared an article with me in which the author described how Marks & Spencer’s provision of clothing during Great Britain's World War II textile rationing earned decades of devoted patronage because customers felt the retailer had “been there” for them when it mattered.

Being there at the present may mean transitioning some operations online, onto street curbs and parking lots, or into delivery vans, and how you communicate availability matters more than ever before. I’m inspired by seeing the ingenuity and kindness of the “helpers” Fred Rogers spoke of, in community after community.

There’s no denying that this is a challenging time for local search marketing, and yet, at the same time, local promotional skills have never been more critical. Take a second to imagine our communities if we were still limited to once-a-year phone book updates of business information, and I think you’ll quickly see just how vital a resource the local Internet has become.

Can you be a helper today? Please, comment about your own business, your clients’ brands, or any company in your town that you’re seeing make a special endeavor to serve communities. Your story could spark a new idea for a local business owner to keep a neighborhood or even an entire city afloat. Thanks for being a helper.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[xaydungtruonggia]

How Your Local Business Can Be a Helper

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers

This quote is one I find myself turning to frequently these days as a local SEO. It calls to mind my irreplaceable neighborhood grocer. On my last essential run to their store, they not only shared a stashed 4-pack of bath tissue with me, but also stocked their market with local distillery-produced hand sanitizer which I was warned will reek of bourbon, but will get the job done.

When times are hard, finding helpers comes as such a relief. Even the smallest acts that a local business does to support physical and mental health can be events customers remember for years to come.

While none of us gets to live in Mister Rogers’ idealized neighborhood, the adaptations I’m seeing local businesses and organizations make to sustain communities during COVID-19 are a meaningful expression of caring worthy of his humanitarian vision. Almost any brand, large or small, has the chance to be a good neighbor. Please use the following industry and platform examples to spark local business creativity when it’s needed most so that brands you care about can stay helpfully productive during the public health emergency.

Inspirational local business pivots and plans

Everyone at Moz is full of admiration for the way different industries are responding in a time that’s not business-as-usual. My thanks to the many teammates who contributed to this roundup of examples we’ve been personally encountering, and we hope you’ll find an actionable path for your business here.

Food and hospitality

1. From fancy to fundamental, famed Seattle restaurant Canlis quickly transitioned from fine dining to offering drive-thru bagels, family meal delivery, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes from local farms.

2. From pizza place to pantry, multiple restaurants and caterers are putting their supply chain to work for their customers. California Pizza Kitchen is delivering meal kits and pantry staples as a pop-up market.

3. Caterers with big hearts like Kay Catering asked parents whose schoolchildren she normally feeds whether they’d be willing to donate unused lunch fees so her company could cook for families in need. Through the generosity of these parents, Kay Kim is now serving dinner to the residents at the Sand Point Public Housing Center at Magnuson Park as part of Seattle Public Schools’ overall effort to feed its students.

4. Pike Place Market on your doorstep is the offering of Savor Seattle, which has shifted from offering tasting tours to aggregating the iconic products of an entire marketplace for home delivery and curbside pickup.

5. To keep grocery shelves stocked, Santa Rosa, California food manufacturer Amy’s Kitchen has ramped up production by erecting tent kitchens with social distancing so that the company’s canned soups can be produced in greater quantities. Meanwhile, distilleries across the country have converted operations to manufacture of hand sanitizer.

6. Community-support agriculture may well see a boom with the appeal of boxes of fresh, local foods delivered to your door, allowing customers to entirely forego trips to grocery stores. Farm stands have become extra precious community resources. Role models like Heron Pond Farm in New Hampshire are accepting SNAP payments and providing discounts to SNAP shoppers.

7. Caring for our most vulnerable community members, grocery stores large and small are setting senior shopping hours. Raley’s is offering curbside pickup of $20 “Senior Essential Bags” filled with fresh and dry goods. Kroger-owned stores are donating $3 million to deploy groceries to food-insecure communities via their Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program.

8. Looking to the future, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieg has launched SaveOurFaves.com, a San Francisco Bay Area directory of restaurants hosting the purchase of gift cards to keep cherished eating spots afloat. These gift cards, meant to be used later, are in the nature of a small business loan.

9. Serving up support for displaced restaurant workers, Food Network star and restaurateur Guy Fieri has created a relief fund. This Bay Area celebrity has repeatedly come to the rescue in disasters, cooking for impacted communities, and now, offering $500 in cash to unemployed restaurant employees on a first-come, first-served basis.

10. Hotels are housing health care workers in need of lodging, with some 6,500 properties participating in the Hotels for Hope initiative nationwide. Meanwhile, in San Francisco alone, more than 30 hotels have offered housing for homeless Americans in response to local and state government requests.

Home services

1. Contractors put safety first by implementing new sanitary protocols when making home visits. Roto-Rooter is doing an outstanding job of explaining how plumbers will wear protective equipment, practice social distancing, and use disinfectant. They are also publishing how-to videos for simple home plumbing and offering advice regarding sanitary products. HVAC brand Vaughan Comfort Services created this section of their website to explain their enhanced safety measures.

2. Cleaning services are making tough decisions about whether to remain operational. Some, like Molly Maid, are still cleaning residences while implementing increased safety practices, but others are diversifying into the commercial cleaning space, cleaning offices that are temporarily empty. Meanwhile, professional biohazard cleaning services like Aftermath are creating new pages on their websites to describe their in-demand practices for disinfecting impacted properties.

3. Computer repair services are adapting, where state regulations allow, to 100% mobile operations and are fixing issues over the phone where possible. One independent shop, DreamNet Computers, created this page to explain how they are sanitizing devices being picked up or dropped off, and how they can repair some computers remotely if they can connect to the Internet.

4. The landscaping services market is haphazard at the moment, with some professionals concerned that state-by-state regulations are not clear enough for their industry, while others are embracing virtual meetings and 3D modeling with the thought that people working from home will now be more invested in having livable outdoor spaces.

Professional and instructional services

1. Much of medicine has become telemedicine and therapy has become teletherapy, barring cases which require direct one-on-one contact. Practitioners able to navigate privacy regulations can still provide vital patient support. Bridges Therapy & Wellness Center of Fairfax, Virginia is just one example of a practice putting online appointment availability front and center on its website. Check out how the telehealth platform PatientPop has quickly pivoted their roll out for medical clients.

2. Movement, meditation, and multiple forms of self-care have made a quick transition online. Religious institutions are putting their services on the web, from Pope Francis celebrating Mass at the Vatican, to Ann Arbor’s Temple Beth Emeth observing virtual Shabbat and the Imams of the Islamic Center of America broadcasting live, daily lectures from Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve found Indigenous invitations to prayer for healing especially moving in these times. Meanwhile, dance studio Dance Church has thousands of folks boogying to their livestreams, and yoga, martial arts, fine arts, and music instructors have shifted to both public and private online sessions. Check out the business support being offered by Your Yoga Alliance to instructors needing to transition operations.

3. Banks and financial institutions are responding by offering various forms of relief including deferring or waiving fees, and providing some forms of mortgage assistance. With concerns over ATM contamination, some advisors in the financial industry are suggesting customers bring their own sanitizer, gloves, and a stylus to transactions.

4. Realtors can manage most meetings virtually, and thanks to technology like Kleard and Immoviewer, buyers can get a very good idea of what properties look like and even handle closings online. However, it’s vital to follow state and local regulations regarding home showings.

5. The National Association of Bar Executives offers abundant guidance for legal professionals via their pandemic preparedness resource. They are hosting roundtables, publishing lists of tech vendors appropriate to the industry, and highlighting government and philanthropic news.

6. Personal care professionals may be struggling most, with hair stylists, manicurists, massage therapists, and related practitioners having no way to replicate their work via the Internet. Kaleidoscope Salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee held a fundraiser offering a prize of a full year of hair services in order to meet its payroll during its closure. Professionals seeking to maintain client relationships during this pause in business can head to YouTube, like R’s Just Hair Salon’s chief hairstylist Ruchi Sawhney, to demo do-it-yourself beauty tips. Stay-at-home orders are making it harder for people to access personal care products. If your salon has inventory, consider curbside pick-up of health and beauty supply kits, as is being offered by Sally Beauty.

Retail

1. Retail is taking a hard hit, and there’s no gainsaying this, but vendors who can transition at least part of their operations to e-commerce selling may be able to remain operational simply because the demand is so high now for home delivery. If you are sitting on unsold inventory and are having trouble imagining how to sell it, check out eBay, which recently announced that it is waiving seller fees to help retailers get their products onto the web for sale.

2. Major clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed their stores, but continue to sell online. Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has stated that the fewest employee furloughs have been in their digital operations, and that they hope to start bringing workers back on through a staggered process in the future. Meanwhile, smaller basic clothing retailers like the Vermont Country Store have temporarily shuttered their premises, but are continuing to ship with the proviso that an overload of orders has slowed down shipping speeds.

3. Electronics retailers are finding their product lines in high demand as all of us seek ways to conduct more of life online. T-Mobile stores may be closed, but they are offering free two-day shipping and have published a whole new section of service resources during the health emergency. Best Buy is offering contactless curbside pickup and delivery. Batteries Plus Bulbs has remained largely operational and is supplying the medical field with essential technology, while also offering curbside pickup to retail customers.

4. Plant nurseries are finding themselves inundated with customers eager to plant food crops in any gardening space they have. In my state of California, agricultural businesses are considered essential. Many nurseries and garden supply shops remain open, but — like the San Francisco Bay Area Sloat Nursery chain — are taking steps to limit the number of customers allowed in at a time, and also offer curbside pickup and delivery. Nurseries should be growing as many veggie starts and stocking as much vegetable seed as possible right now.

5. Home Improvement and hardware stores offering free delivery, like Home Depot, and free curbside pickup, like Ace Hardware, have a good chance of weathering this storm so long as customers can afford to improve their dwellings, in which they are now spending so much more of their time. In a related category, large home furnishings brands like Crate & Barrel are selling online and have their design consultants working from home with clients via phone and web chat.

6. Auto dealers have embraced tech to keep car sales moving. Toyota’s SmartPath tool takes customers from inventory search, to applying for a line of credit, to the point where a vehicle can be delivered to your home. I’ve noticed several dealerships deferring first-month payments to stimulate purchases. Meanwhile, General Motors has begun producing ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana facility and face masks at its plant in Warren, Michigan.

Where to publicize what you’re doing

Once you’ve determined how your business can best pivot to continue serving the public, you’ll want to update your website to ensure you’re communicating your offerings. You should also update your local business listings, as described in the last edition of my column. Beyond this, here is an example-filled list of resources for maximizing publicity:

Blogs

About a decade ago, local SEO experts were strongly promoting the idea of creating hyperlocal blogs to engage communities. Bloggers who were up to the challenge now have platforms in place through which the most recent and useful information can be quickly communicated to neighbors, as in this excellent example of the West Seattle Blog. If your community lacks a hyperlocal resource like this, your business could be of great help in creating one now. If such a blog is already in place, see if your business can contribute content.

Hyperlocal business association sites

If you don’t want to go it alone in creating a blog, joining with others in a local business association like the West Seattle Junction or Chamber of Commerce will enable many hands to lighten the work. Community hubs like this one are publishing vital information including PSAs, updates on which businesses offer delivery and pickup, and highlighting local merchants. If your neighborhood has platforms like these, contact them to see how you can contribute content. If no such resources exist, contact your neighboring business owners to discuss what you can create together.

Facebook

If you aren’t in a position to build a hyperlocal website or blog right now, Facebook may be your next best option. The Yurok Tribe of California is inspiring in their use of Facebook for continuous dialog with their community. Many tribes are role-modeling how to support one another, and particularly the most vulnerable, in these times. The above example shows how one tribe is phoning its elders and has created a hotline to ensure they’re receiving vital services. I came across another example in which a tribe’s Facebook post instructed elders to hang something red in their windows if they needed any help from younger members of the community. Now is a good time to double down on Facebook with any supportive information your local business can broadcast. Of note, Facebook is offering $100 million in small business cash grants and ad credits.

Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a particularly lively community hub and this is a very good time to join it as a business. It should go without saying that publishing anything that could seem self-serving would be a poor choice. Instead, take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated in the above example of a neighborhood converting their Little Free Library into a mini dry goods pantry, or this independent restaurant using Nextdoor to offer a discount to anyone in their industry who may have lost their local job. This is a good, ready-do-go platform for outreach to your community.

Twitter

Check out how the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton is using Twitter to promote virtual local events and a new directory they’re building on their website specifically highlighting operational local businesses. The instantaneous communication capacity of Twitter is a resource your company should consider right now, even if you haven’t done much tweeting in the past. Follow and share the content of other local businesses to create a stronger community with timely messaging for the public.

Instagram

Instagram is proving extremely helpful in alerting communities to offerings and changes, as in this example of a Richland, Washington cookie cutter manufacturer transitioning operations to produce face shields for medical personnel, and providing DIY instructions for anyone with access to a 3D printer.

Radio

This excellent Los Angeles Times article by Randy Lewis reminds us of how radio remains a strong resource even for those in our community who lack Internet access. People are tuning the dials for hyperlocal information about the availability of resources, for comfort, and hope. If your business is doing something that would help local customers, consider calling into the nearest radio station to share your story. Obviously, avoid being overly-promotional, and do consider whether this might be a good time to invest a little more in formal radio advertising.

Newspapers

Almost any town with a newspaper is printing abundant information about community resources right now, including lists of operational companies like this one in the Marin Independent Journal. Reach out with your news and volunteer to be interviewed to spread the word about how your business is serving the community. These unstructured citations from trusted online news outlets can help local searchers find your business and even boost your rankings. Consider paid news ad spots as well, if it’s in your budget.

Local television and video media

I thought this multi-location appliance company, Airport Home Appliances, did an excellent job with their local TV ad spot regarding their current operations, which they also posted to YouTube. Your audience is mainly homebound now, and Nielsen finds that local TV is becoming the preferred choice for accessing news and information in the United States. If it’s in your budget, even a basic local television ad could reach many customers at this time. If now isn’t a good time for your brand to invest, get something up on YouTube and embed it on your website.

Local, regional, or industry podcasts

If your area or business category is lucky enough to have a good podcast, reaching out to the podcaster to share what your business is doing could help you broadcast your offering to a wider audience. Check out this episode of the Tennessee Farm Table (theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head), in which podcaster Amy Campbell gives a running list of Appalachian businesses providing local food to residents. Whether you simply get mentioned or take the next step of being interviewed by a podcaster, this medium is one to embrace. And, if your area has no local podcast, think about launching one to create a more connected community.

Being the helpers

Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Image Credit: Wally Gobetz.

I hope you’ve seen something in this article that could help support your local brand’s goals to sustain itself in the coming months. A commonality across all the examples I’ve reviewed of COVID-19 business adjustments is that regular, open communication with customers to understand and meet their needs is simply essential right now. Your customers’ stated requests are your best playbook for this unscripted moment.

It’s my heartfelt wish that you’ll see the fruits of today’s extraordinary efforts in tomorrow’s customer loyalty. My teammate, Dr. Pete, recently shared an article with me in which the author described how Marks & Spencer’s provision of clothing during Great Britain's World War II textile rationing earned decades of devoted patronage because customers felt the retailer had “been there” for them when it mattered.

Being there at the present may mean transitioning some operations online, onto street curbs and parking lots, or into delivery vans, and how you communicate availability matters more than ever before. I’m inspired by seeing the ingenuity and kindness of the “helpers” Fred Rogers spoke of, in community after community.

There’s no denying that this is a challenging time for local search marketing, and yet, at the same time, local promotional skills have never been more critical. Take a second to imagine our communities if we were still limited to once-a-year phone book updates of business information, and I think you’ll quickly see just how vital a resource the local Internet has become.

Can you be a helper today? Please, comment about your own business, your clients’ brands, or any company in your town that you’re seeing make a special endeavor to serve communities. Your story could spark a new idea for a local business owner to keep a neighborhood or even an entire city afloat. Thanks for being a helper.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[bfxenon]

How Your Local Business Can Be a Helper

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers

This quote is one I find myself turning to frequently these days as a local SEO. It calls to mind my irreplaceable neighborhood grocer. On my last essential run to their store, they not only shared a stashed 4-pack of bath tissue with me, but also stocked their market with local distillery-produced hand sanitizer which I was warned will reek of bourbon, but will get the job done.

When times are hard, finding helpers comes as such a relief. Even the smallest acts that a local business does to support physical and mental health can be events customers remember for years to come.

While none of us gets to live in Mister Rogers’ idealized neighborhood, the adaptations I’m seeing local businesses and organizations make to sustain communities during COVID-19 are a meaningful expression of caring worthy of his humanitarian vision. Almost any brand, large or small, has the chance to be a good neighbor. Please use the following industry and platform examples to spark local business creativity when it’s needed most so that brands you care about can stay helpfully productive during the public health emergency.

Inspirational local business pivots and plans

Everyone at Moz is full of admiration for the way different industries are responding in a time that’s not business-as-usual. My thanks to the many teammates who contributed to this roundup of examples we’ve been personally encountering, and we hope you’ll find an actionable path for your business here.

Food and hospitality

1. From fancy to fundamental, famed Seattle restaurant Canlis quickly transitioned from fine dining to offering drive-thru bagels, family meal delivery, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes from local farms.

2. From pizza place to pantry, multiple restaurants and caterers are putting their supply chain to work for their customers. California Pizza Kitchen is delivering meal kits and pantry staples as a pop-up market.

3. Caterers with big hearts like Kay Catering asked parents whose schoolchildren she normally feeds whether they’d be willing to donate unused lunch fees so her company could cook for families in need. Through the generosity of these parents, Kay Kim is now serving dinner to the residents at the Sand Point Public Housing Center at Magnuson Park as part of Seattle Public Schools’ overall effort to feed its students.

4. Pike Place Market on your doorstep is the offering of Savor Seattle, which has shifted from offering tasting tours to aggregating the iconic products of an entire marketplace for home delivery and curbside pickup.

5. To keep grocery shelves stocked, Santa Rosa, California food manufacturer Amy’s Kitchen has ramped up production by erecting tent kitchens with social distancing so that the company’s canned soups can be produced in greater quantities. Meanwhile, distilleries across the country have converted operations to manufacture of hand sanitizer.

6. Community-support agriculture may well see a boom with the appeal of boxes of fresh, local foods delivered to your door, allowing customers to entirely forego trips to grocery stores. Farm stands have become extra precious community resources. Role models like Heron Pond Farm in New Hampshire are accepting SNAP payments and providing discounts to SNAP shoppers.

7. Caring for our most vulnerable community members, grocery stores large and small are setting senior shopping hours. Raley’s is offering curbside pickup of $20 “Senior Essential Bags” filled with fresh and dry goods. Kroger-owned stores are donating $3 million to deploy groceries to food-insecure communities via their Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program.

8. Looking to the future, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieg has launched SaveOurFaves.com, a San Francisco Bay Area directory of restaurants hosting the purchase of gift cards to keep cherished eating spots afloat. These gift cards, meant to be used later, are in the nature of a small business loan.

9. Serving up support for displaced restaurant workers, Food Network star and restaurateur Guy Fieri has created a relief fund. This Bay Area celebrity has repeatedly come to the rescue in disasters, cooking for impacted communities, and now, offering $500 in cash to unemployed restaurant employees on a first-come, first-served basis.

10. Hotels are housing health care workers in need of lodging, with some 6,500 properties participating in the Hotels for Hope initiative nationwide. Meanwhile, in San Francisco alone, more than 30 hotels have offered housing for homeless Americans in response to local and state government requests.

Home services

1. Contractors put safety first by implementing new sanitary protocols when making home visits. Roto-Rooter is doing an outstanding job of explaining how plumbers will wear protective equipment, practice social distancing, and use disinfectant. They are also publishing how-to videos for simple home plumbing and offering advice regarding sanitary products. HVAC brand Vaughan Comfort Services created this section of their website to explain their enhanced safety measures.

2. Cleaning services are making tough decisions about whether to remain operational. Some, like Molly Maid, are still cleaning residences while implementing increased safety practices, but others are diversifying into the commercial cleaning space, cleaning offices that are temporarily empty. Meanwhile, professional biohazard cleaning services like Aftermath are creating new pages on their websites to describe their in-demand practices for disinfecting impacted properties.

3. Computer repair services are adapting, where state regulations allow, to 100% mobile operations and are fixing issues over the phone where possible. One independent shop, DreamNet Computers, created this page to explain how they are sanitizing devices being picked up or dropped off, and how they can repair some computers remotely if they can connect to the Internet.

4. The landscaping services market is haphazard at the moment, with some professionals concerned that state-by-state regulations are not clear enough for their industry, while others are embracing virtual meetings and 3D modeling with the thought that people working from home will now be more invested in having livable outdoor spaces.

Professional and instructional services

1. Much of medicine has become telemedicine and therapy has become teletherapy, barring cases which require direct one-on-one contact. Practitioners able to navigate privacy regulations can still provide vital patient support. Bridges Therapy & Wellness Center of Fairfax, Virginia is just one example of a practice putting online appointment availability front and center on its website. Check out how the telehealth platform PatientPop has quickly pivoted their roll out for medical clients.

2. Movement, meditation, and multiple forms of self-care have made a quick transition online. Religious institutions are putting their services on the web, from Pope Francis celebrating Mass at the Vatican, to Ann Arbor’s Temple Beth Emeth observing virtual Shabbat and the Imams of the Islamic Center of America broadcasting live, daily lectures from Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve found Indigenous invitations to prayer for healing especially moving in these times. Meanwhile, dance studio Dance Church has thousands of folks boogying to their livestreams, and yoga, martial arts, fine arts, and music instructors have shifted to both public and private online sessions. Check out the business support being offered by Your Yoga Alliance to instructors needing to transition operations.

3. Banks and financial institutions are responding by offering various forms of relief including deferring or waiving fees, and providing some forms of mortgage assistance. With concerns over ATM contamination, some advisors in the financial industry are suggesting customers bring their own sanitizer, gloves, and a stylus to transactions.

4. Realtors can manage most meetings virtually, and thanks to technology like Kleard and Immoviewer, buyers can get a very good idea of what properties look like and even handle closings online. However, it’s vital to follow state and local regulations regarding home showings.

5. The National Association of Bar Executives offers abundant guidance for legal professionals via their pandemic preparedness resource. They are hosting roundtables, publishing lists of tech vendors appropriate to the industry, and highlighting government and philanthropic news.

6. Personal care professionals may be struggling most, with hair stylists, manicurists, massage therapists, and related practitioners having no way to replicate their work via the Internet. Kaleidoscope Salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee held a fundraiser offering a prize of a full year of hair services in order to meet its payroll during its closure. Professionals seeking to maintain client relationships during this pause in business can head to YouTube, like R’s Just Hair Salon’s chief hairstylist Ruchi Sawhney, to demo do-it-yourself beauty tips. Stay-at-home orders are making it harder for people to access personal care products. If your salon has inventory, consider curbside pick-up of health and beauty supply kits, as is being offered by Sally Beauty.

Retail

1. Retail is taking a hard hit, and there’s no gainsaying this, but vendors who can transition at least part of their operations to e-commerce selling may be able to remain operational simply because the demand is so high now for home delivery. If you are sitting on unsold inventory and are having trouble imagining how to sell it, check out eBay, which recently announced that it is waiving seller fees to help retailers get their products onto the web for sale.

2. Major clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed their stores, but continue to sell online. Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has stated that the fewest employee furloughs have been in their digital operations, and that they hope to start bringing workers back on through a staggered process in the future. Meanwhile, smaller basic clothing retailers like the Vermont Country Store have temporarily shuttered their premises, but are continuing to ship with the proviso that an overload of orders has slowed down shipping speeds.

3. Electronics retailers are finding their product lines in high demand as all of us seek ways to conduct more of life online. T-Mobile stores may be closed, but they are offering free two-day shipping and have published a whole new section of service resources during the health emergency. Best Buy is offering contactless curbside pickup and delivery. Batteries Plus Bulbs has remained largely operational and is supplying the medical field with essential technology, while also offering curbside pickup to retail customers.

4. Plant nurseries are finding themselves inundated with customers eager to plant food crops in any gardening space they have. In my state of California, agricultural businesses are considered essential. Many nurseries and garden supply shops remain open, but — like the San Francisco Bay Area Sloat Nursery chain — are taking steps to limit the number of customers allowed in at a time, and also offer curbside pickup and delivery. Nurseries should be growing as many veggie starts and stocking as much vegetable seed as possible right now.

5. Home Improvement and hardware stores offering free delivery, like Home Depot, and free curbside pickup, like Ace Hardware, have a good chance of weathering this storm so long as customers can afford to improve their dwellings, in which they are now spending so much more of their time. In a related category, large home furnishings brands like Crate & Barrel are selling online and have their design consultants working from home with clients via phone and web chat.

6. Auto dealers have embraced tech to keep car sales moving. Toyota’s SmartPath tool takes customers from inventory search, to applying for a line of credit, to the point where a vehicle can be delivered to your home. I’ve noticed several dealerships deferring first-month payments to stimulate purchases. Meanwhile, General Motors has begun producing ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana facility and face masks at its plant in Warren, Michigan.

Where to publicize what you’re doing

Once you’ve determined how your business can best pivot to continue serving the public, you’ll want to update your website to ensure you’re communicating your offerings. You should also update your local business listings, as described in the last edition of my column. Beyond this, here is an example-filled list of resources for maximizing publicity:

Blogs

About a decade ago, local SEO experts were strongly promoting the idea of creating hyperlocal blogs to engage communities. Bloggers who were up to the challenge now have platforms in place through which the most recent and useful information can be quickly communicated to neighbors, as in this excellent example of the West Seattle Blog. If your community lacks a hyperlocal resource like this, your business could be of great help in creating one now. If such a blog is already in place, see if your business can contribute content.

Hyperlocal business association sites

If you don’t want to go it alone in creating a blog, joining with others in a local business association like the West Seattle Junction or Chamber of Commerce will enable many hands to lighten the work. Community hubs like this one are publishing vital information including PSAs, updates on which businesses offer delivery and pickup, and highlighting local merchants. If your neighborhood has platforms like these, contact them to see how you can contribute content. If no such resources exist, contact your neighboring business owners to discuss what you can create together.

Facebook

If you aren’t in a position to build a hyperlocal website or blog right now, Facebook may be your next best option. The Yurok Tribe of California is inspiring in their use of Facebook for continuous dialog with their community. Many tribes are role-modeling how to support one another, and particularly the most vulnerable, in these times. The above example shows how one tribe is phoning its elders and has created a hotline to ensure they’re receiving vital services. I came across another example in which a tribe’s Facebook post instructed elders to hang something red in their windows if they needed any help from younger members of the community. Now is a good time to double down on Facebook with any supportive information your local business can broadcast. Of note, Facebook is offering $100 million in small business cash grants and ad credits.

Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a particularly lively community hub and this is a very good time to join it as a business. It should go without saying that publishing anything that could seem self-serving would be a poor choice. Instead, take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated in the above example of a neighborhood converting their Little Free Library into a mini dry goods pantry, or this independent restaurant using Nextdoor to offer a discount to anyone in their industry who may have lost their local job. This is a good, ready-do-go platform for outreach to your community.

Twitter

Check out how the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton is using Twitter to promote virtual local events and a new directory they’re building on their website specifically highlighting operational local businesses. The instantaneous communication capacity of Twitter is a resource your company should consider right now, even if you haven’t done much tweeting in the past. Follow and share the content of other local businesses to create a stronger community with timely messaging for the public.

Instagram

Instagram is proving extremely helpful in alerting communities to offerings and changes, as in this example of a Richland, Washington cookie cutter manufacturer transitioning operations to produce face shields for medical personnel, and providing DIY instructions for anyone with access to a 3D printer.

Radio

This excellent Los Angeles Times article by Randy Lewis reminds us of how radio remains a strong resource even for those in our community who lack Internet access. People are tuning the dials for hyperlocal information about the availability of resources, for comfort, and hope. If your business is doing something that would help local customers, consider calling into the nearest radio station to share your story. Obviously, avoid being overly-promotional, and do consider whether this might be a good time to invest a little more in formal radio advertising.

Newspapers

Almost any town with a newspaper is printing abundant information about community resources right now, including lists of operational companies like this one in the Marin Independent Journal. Reach out with your news and volunteer to be interviewed to spread the word about how your business is serving the community. These unstructured citations from trusted online news outlets can help local searchers find your business and even boost your rankings. Consider paid news ad spots as well, if it’s in your budget.

Local television and video media

I thought this multi-location appliance company, Airport Home Appliances, did an excellent job with their local TV ad spot regarding their current operations, which they also posted to YouTube. Your audience is mainly homebound now, and Nielsen finds that local TV is becoming the preferred choice for accessing news and information in the United States. If it’s in your budget, even a basic local television ad could reach many customers at this time. If now isn’t a good time for your brand to invest, get something up on YouTube and embed it on your website.

Local, regional, or industry podcasts

If your area or business category is lucky enough to have a good podcast, reaching out to the podcaster to share what your business is doing could help you broadcast your offering to a wider audience. Check out this episode of the Tennessee Farm Table (theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head), in which podcaster Amy Campbell gives a running list of Appalachian businesses providing local food to residents. Whether you simply get mentioned or take the next step of being interviewed by a podcaster, this medium is one to embrace. And, if your area has no local podcast, think about launching one to create a more connected community.

Being the helpers

Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Image Credit: Wally Gobetz.

I hope you’ve seen something in this article that could help support your local brand’s goals to sustain itself in the coming months. A commonality across all the examples I’ve reviewed of COVID-19 business adjustments is that regular, open communication with customers to understand and meet their needs is simply essential right now. Your customers’ stated requests are your best playbook for this unscripted moment.

It’s my heartfelt wish that you’ll see the fruits of today’s extraordinary efforts in tomorrow’s customer loyalty. My teammate, Dr. Pete, recently shared an article with me in which the author described how Marks & Spencer’s provision of clothing during Great Britain's World War II textile rationing earned decades of devoted patronage because customers felt the retailer had “been there” for them when it mattered.

Being there at the present may mean transitioning some operations online, onto street curbs and parking lots, or into delivery vans, and how you communicate availability matters more than ever before. I’m inspired by seeing the ingenuity and kindness of the “helpers” Fred Rogers spoke of, in community after community.

There’s no denying that this is a challenging time for local search marketing, and yet, at the same time, local promotional skills have never been more critical. Take a second to imagine our communities if we were still limited to once-a-year phone book updates of business information, and I think you’ll quickly see just how vital a resource the local Internet has become.

Can you be a helper today? Please, comment about your own business, your clients’ brands, or any company in your town that you’re seeing make a special endeavor to serve communities. Your story could spark a new idea for a local business owner to keep a neighborhood or even an entire city afloat. Thanks for being a helper.

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[cliftonsteen]

COVID-19: What Coffee Farmers Want You to Know

It’s only been a few months since COVID-19 was first officially identified. Since then it’s rapidly spread around the world, changing the way that millions of people live and millions of businesses operate.

The coffee supply chain hasn’t been spared from this fallout. Government-mandated Stay At Home and social distancing orders mean that millions of coffee shops around the world have been forced to close their doors to the public. As a result, the sale of brewed, roast, and green coffee have been affected.

Here’s how the Coronavirus has impacted the coffee supply chain, what can be done to weather the uncertainty surrounding it, and how consumers can play their part in helping everyone from producers to roasters deal with the crisis.

You may also like Closing The Knowledge Gap Between Specialty Café & Farm

Credit: Nicole Motteux

It’s a Trickle-Down Effect 

As of April 9th, 2.6 billion – or roughly a third of the world’s population – has been placed on lockdown or in quarantine. This means that a significant amount of cafés, restaurants, and places that serve coffee can no longer prepare and sell it directly to customers – or can only do so by following strict social distancing measures. 

As a result, these businesses are buying less roasted coffee than usual, which has led to the roasters supplying them slowing down production and purchasing fewer beans for roasting. Karl Wienhold, Director of the Colombian Farmers’ Collective and Exporter Cedro Alto, reveals that some roasters don’t want to be stuck with stale stock if sales are down. If they over-purchase coffee now, it could result in them getting stuck with old crops. It means that many are reducing purchase commitments to decrease their risk and plan to buy more should they need it later.

Karl points out that while a green coffee’s lifespan and popularity with roasters will depend on its quality and how it’s stored, processed, dried and handled, it can be hard to sell green coffee that’s been in storage for even 4-5 months. It means that the importers who’d usually supply these roasters could be stuck with stock they can’t sell. This will put their coffee exporters under financial pressure, as importers and roasters will be reducing or delaying their purchasing commitments or purchasing and reserving less coffee altogether.

For smaller exporters, this can be a huge blow. Without prompt payments and adequate cash flow, financing even one container can be too expensive, regardless of whether they’re exporting to an importer or roaster. When exporters can’t purchase their usual amounts of coffee or are left in a financial lurch, the producers they work with will be affected. If many producers can’t sell their crops to those who’d usually buy them, they’ll no longer have a market for their coffee. 

Rafael Silva is the Owner of Sicafe, an exporter and producer in El Salvador. He understands that the Coronavirus putting more pressure on an already stressed group. “Producers, both big and small, work hard all year to produce and process a crop that’s only sold one time a year. They do this dealing with many difficulties, [like]… rainfall, drought, cold and hot weather, hail, storms, wind… [a] reduced workforce due to migration to cities or outside the country, scarcity of resources… coffee prices falling… So now, producers around the world are wondering if they’ll be able to sell their crop or not, and if they do, at what prices?”

Credit: De la Montaña Café

Exchange Rates Impact Incomes

COVID-19 could impact the exchange rate and C price, which will directly affect producers, exporters, and international buyers. Daniel Velasquez is the Founder of Campesino Coffee, an exporter based in Colombia. He reveals that current conditions “make it difficult for a small exporter to buy at a high price right now [as they] risk a weaker dollar, and most likely a lower coffee price when it comes time to sell.”

Karl explains that if an exporter buys coffee in one currency but sells it later in another, they could have to deal with a fluctuation in the value of their purchase currency versus the value of the currency they’re selling in, if unhedged. Since the currencies of many producing countries have weakened against the US dollar (the currency in which coffee is traded), exporters are paying producers more in local currencies than they did a month ago. This means that if the exporter gets paid in US dollars after conditions have normalised and local currencies have strengthened against the US dollar, the exporter could face a loss.

Daniel adds, “Closing [fixed price] forward contracts can help alleviate some of the risks, but with the uncertainty, roasters are hesitant to [do so]. This is… difficult for smaller exporters or farmers who export directly and don’t have the bank relationships to be able to lock forwards for currency exchange rates. Brazil is looking to have a very productive harvest, but the virus is expected to peak during its harvest time. This volatility adds to the confusion and uncertainty.”

Coffee farmers and those working on their farms are likely receiving the brunt of this change, which will be compounded by the fact that most already face significant challenges when it comes to coffee production.

Credit: Ana Valencia

Shipping Delays Are Leading to Penalties

Many producers and traders are dealing with their coffees being stuck at the country’s port, unable to move due to closed borders and other restrictions being imposed regarding trade between countries. Additional delays could lead to the coffee ageing, and as Rafael mentions, if a ship or container is detained at port, it will incur penalties, with the incoterms determining who’s responsible for paying these penalties.

The Keys to the Shop podcast recently interviewed green coffee importer Ally Coffee’s COO Ricardo Pereira on how COVID-19 is impacting the business’s coffee supply chain. He revealed that they’re currently focusing on helping producers who have coffee that’s processed, dry milled, and ready to be shipped get their coffee out of origin as soon as possible.

It’s something that all parties involved need to consider, as it will impact exporters, importers, shipping companies, and those who work on these ships. Rafael mentions that “Both importers and exporters have to do their due diligence and investigate… route options for their containers. Shipping companies have to be a lot more careful about their workers; there are several ships that have been detained due to the crew testing positive for the virus.”

Maintaining good relationships with the ports and those involved in shipping can help here. Daniel has witnessed some ports and ocean-liners working with clients to waive fees and rerouting shipments free of charge if required. “Fortunately, this situation has also brought the good out [in] people and companies.”

Credit: Paulo Henrique

Delayed Payments Mean Less Cash Flow

For coffee producing farms, delayed payments and shipping from buyers mean less cash in pocket. Some producers like Rafael are already racing the repercussions and are taking on significant risk. “[In] Central America, we’re seeing the effects of the crisis right now. We’ve barely finished picking coffee and this is the time when we usually start selling and preparing our coffees for exports. Because of the Coronavirus, most buyers and importers have shut down, suspended their buying for now or declined orders. We as producers are scared, we have 100% of the risk at hand now.”

It’s something that could impact producers and farm workers long after the COVID-19 crisis is over, as many depend on harvest sales to meet their immediate and future personal and production-related needs. As Rafael says, “Producers depend on these sales to be able to pay their loans, work the farms, pay all farm and mill collaborators…[and]… provide food for their families, to live, to eat. What happens to all farmers and the people that depend on them for income for the rest of the year?”

It’s something that the rest of the supply chain can’t ignore, as if producers can’t keep producing coffee, the entire supply chain will suffer. Rafael points out that “without producers, all exporters, importers, roasters and coffee shops can’t exist. If producers are left out of the equation, the domino effect will start taking its effect on the rest of the chain”.

Because producers have the most to lose, Karl emphasises that supply chain members need to find a way to minimise their exposure to risk while also before being aware of where the risk is being passed to, as a roaster will pass it to an importer, who will pass it to an exporter, who will pass it to the producer.

Specialty Lots Sold at Commercial Prices

Some producers are finding that they aren’t able to sell their coffee, as their usual buyers are delaying payments or cancelling commitments. Daniel explains that this could mean that “the farmer will have to sell their coffee to a co-operative for a lower market price. The reduction in demand that is expected for the second and third quarters will also have an effect on the quantity of coffee being purchased at specialty coffee prices.” 

According to Karl, some micro lot quality coffee might need to be sold at regional prices if there’s no demand for it, and that the premiums usually paid for high-end specialty coffee could suffer. This may mean lower prices and less demand for natural and honey processed coffees as well as low-yielding varieties. A struggle to sell these lots while they’re fresh and worthy of a price premium might result in lower prices later on – when and if the coffee gets sold.

Another side effect of roasters reducing their costs is that some might cut back on their social responsibility and sustainability projects involving producers and their farms. With no clear end in sight for COVID-19, this could only resume next year. Daniel says, “[Campesinos Specialty Coffee] was getting ready to launch [its] coffee school in May, with international invites, local and state government involvement… This has come to a temporary halt for obvious reasons. Although the school will be able to function as planned with the funding that has already been allocated, any future projects will have to be put on hold until the world gets back on its feet.”

Credit: Angie Molina

Credit Is (More) Expensive at Origin

Another consequence of a money shortage is that producers might struggle to meet their financial obligations to banks and lenders now and in the future, as many producers rely on future sales commitments to guarantee their income for the year. Many producers are already in significant debt due to fluctuating prices, unpredictable farming conditions, and other uncertainties. According to Karl, when supply commitments are difficult to come by, this passes on a large risk premium to farmers. 

Martin Mayorga is Founder of Mayorga Organics and in a recent podcast episode on how the Coronavirus is impacting producers, he says that many banks aren’t assisting farmers in their predicament and that some social lenders are starting to request that farmers pay them back for loans they have received. 

While access to additional funding might help tide producers over, this isn’t always available or comes with exorbitant interest rates for farmers in producing countries. In Rafael’s experience, “farm credits are usually [between] 6% and 9%. There is [access to] credit right now for [those needing] quick cash.. [but]… with a 12% rate against a mortgage”. 

While the financial challenges being faced by producers are significant, Ricardo believes that most governments are aware of what is happening and that producing countries are watching each other and are aware of what’s going on. 

Farm Workers Are Unable to Work

Coffee pickers are a critical, yet marginalised part of the coffee supply chain. COVID-19 has resulted in many being unable or unwilling to cross borders to work, which means that some coffee could rot before it’s picked, or that the harvest’s overall quality could deteriorate before picking. Martin explains that because of this, many farmworkers won’t be able to get the income they live on – as most travel from community to community, living from harvest to harvest.

Ricardo says that many producers are struggling to attract pickers as people are being told to stay home and are afraid of leaving the house. He mentions that he knows one producer that usually has 400 workers at peak harvest, but now only has 150 people to do their work. 

For the producers who already have farmworkers on their farms, it becomes an issue of managing their needs at a time when there might not be work to do on the farm itself. Al Lopez is the Owner of Finca Terrerito in Honduras, which is a business that specialises in direct trade. In his case, the workers he employs can’t go home to Guatemala as the borders have been closed. This means he has to house, feed, and keep them busy when there’s no work, which can be challenging.

A possible solution to this could be encouraging local governments to employ local workers in their respective countries to work on coffee farms without having to cross borders. Daniel says, “Pickers don’t want to leave home and risk getting infected … local governments don’t want pickers from other regions coming into their regions potentially carrying the virus. This has prompted some local governments to start campaigns to hire locals to pick coffee, offering guaranteed medical coverage against the virus and other subsidies.”

Credit: Virginia Coffee Roasters

What Can We do to Support Producers?

While there are no doubt many innovative solutions that could help members of the supply chain deal with their challenges, only one solution will benefit everyone and keep the coffee supply chain functioning. Consumers need to keep buying and drinking coffee. With no clear end in sight to the lockdowns that are slowing the spread of the Coronavirus, this means encouraging people to safely and responsibly enjoy specialty coffee at home.

Doing this will allow green coffee buyers to keep up with their existing and future purchasing commitments and share some of the risks that producers have taken on. And when roasters experience an increase in sales due to increased home consumption of their coffee, they could allocate extra price premiums to producers – which is something that will benefit everyone. 

For Al, developing direct trade relationships and passing on premiums to farmers will help them better and maintain their farms, which will help them better their coffee. 

Rafael has a similar opinion. “Some roasters [ask] if they can find an NGO to support [to] have a positive impact in the face of adversity, but the answer is simpler. Just maintain your relationships with your producers and suppliers, and pay price premiums to go direct to the producer. Wherever possible, ask for transparency beyond FOB.”

He adds, “Price is always negotiable. Talk with your producers and seek a happy medium for all. Be straightforward and transparent about quantities [as] this way producers can seek other options if you are not committing to all coffees they are offering you. The best thing roasters can do is not to leave producers with coffees in their warehouses.”

Credit: Nathaniel Soque

Conclusion

The coffee supply chain has undoubtedly been impacted by the fallout of COVID-19. This has had a significant effect on those producing and picking the coffee, as they remain most vulnerable. As Karl tells me, they’re the shock absorbers of the supply chain. However, everyone is being influenced by the uncertainty it’s created.

With certain members of the coffee supply chain already under significant pressure, it’s up to everyone to work within their means and do what they can to alleviate the pressure being placed on the entire supply chain.

Max Perez is a producer and President of the Cooperativa La Hermosa in Guatemala and tells me that the majority of roasters are completing their contractual obligations and only a small minority are cancelling them – which is a good sign.

As long as this continues happening – and consumers keep playing their part by enjoying coffee – the coffee industry will be able to keep moving forward with as little disruption as possible. 

Enjoyed this? Then Read How To Support Your Local Roaster During Social Distancing

Written by Janice Kanniah. Featured photo credit: Paulo Henrique

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COVID-19: What Coffee Farmers Want You to Know published first on https://espressoexpertweb.weebly.com/

[nutrifami]

How Your Local Business Can Be a Helper

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers

This quote is one I find myself turning to frequently these days as a local SEO. It calls to mind my irreplaceable neighborhood grocer. On my last essential run to their store, they not only shared a stashed 4-pack of bath tissue with me, but also stocked their market with local distillery-produced hand sanitizer which I was warned will reek of bourbon, but will get the job done.

When times are hard, finding helpers comes as such a relief. Even the smallest acts that a local business does to support physical and mental health can be events customers remember for years to come.

While none of us gets to live in Mister Rogers’ idealized neighborhood, the adaptations I’m seeing local businesses and organizations make to sustain communities during COVID-19 are a meaningful expression of caring worthy of his humanitarian vision. Almost any brand, large or small, has the chance to be a good neighbor. Please use the following industry and platform examples to spark local business creativity when it’s needed most so that brands you care about can stay helpfully productive during the public health emergency.

Inspirational local business pivots and plans

Everyone at Moz is full of admiration for the way different industries are responding in a time that’s not business-as-usual. My thanks to the many teammates who contributed to this roundup of examples we’ve been personally encountering, and we hope you’ll find an actionable path for your business here.

Food and hospitality

1. From fancy to fundamental, famed Seattle restaurant Canlis quickly transitioned from fine dining to offering drive-thru bagels, family meal delivery, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes from local farms.

2. From pizza place to pantry, multiple restaurants and caterers are putting their supply chain to work for their customers. California Pizza Kitchen is delivering meal kits and pantry staples as a pop-up market.

3. Caterers with big hearts like Kay Catering asked parents whose schoolchildren she normally feeds whether they’d be willing to donate unused lunch fees so her company could cook for families in need. Through the generosity of these parents, Kay Kim is now serving dinner to the residents at the Sand Point Public Housing Center at Magnuson Park as part of Seattle Public Schools’ overall effort to feed its students.

4. Pike Place Market on your doorstep is the offering of Savor Seattle, which has shifted from offering tasting tours to aggregating the iconic products of an entire marketplace for home delivery and curbside pickup.

5. To keep grocery shelves stocked, Santa Rosa, California food manufacturer Amy’s Kitchen has ramped up production by erecting tent kitchens with social distancing so that the company’s canned soups can be produced in greater quantities. Meanwhile, distilleries across the country have converted operations to manufacture of hand sanitizer.

6. Community-support agriculture may well see a boom with the appeal of boxes of fresh, local foods delivered to your door, allowing customers to entirely forego trips to grocery stores. Farm stands have become extra precious community resources. Role models like Heron Pond Farm in New Hampshire are accepting SNAP payments and providing discounts to SNAP shoppers.

7. Caring for our most vulnerable community members, grocery stores large and small are setting senior shopping hours. Raley’s is offering curbside pickup of $20 “Senior Essential Bags” filled with fresh and dry goods. Kroger-owned stores are donating $3 million to deploy groceries to food-insecure communities via their Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program.

8. Looking to the future, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieg has launched SaveOurFaves.com, a San Francisco Bay Area directory of restaurants hosting the purchase of gift cards to keep cherished eating spots afloat. These gift cards, meant to be used later, are in the nature of a small business loan.

9. Serving up support for displaced restaurant workers, Food Network star and restaurateur Guy Fieri has created a relief fund. This Bay Area celebrity has repeatedly come to the rescue in disasters, cooking for impacted communities, and now, offering $500 in cash to unemployed restaurant employees on a first-come, first-served basis.

10. Hotels are housing health care workers in need of lodging, with some 6,500 properties participating in the Hotels for Hope initiative nationwide. Meanwhile, in San Francisco alone, more than 30 hotels have offered housing for homeless Americans in response to local and state government requests.

Home services

1. Contractors put safety first by implementing new sanitary protocols when making home visits. Roto-Rooter is doing an outstanding job of explaining how plumbers will wear protective equipment, practice social distancing, and use disinfectant. They are also publishing how-to videos for simple home plumbing and offering advice regarding sanitary products. HVAC brand Vaughan Comfort Services created this section of their website to explain their enhanced safety measures.

2. Cleaning services are making tough decisions about whether to remain operational. Some, like Molly Maid, are still cleaning residences while implementing increased safety practices, but others are diversifying into the commercial cleaning space, cleaning offices that are temporarily empty. Meanwhile, professional biohazard cleaning services like Aftermath are creating new pages on their websites to describe their in-demand practices for disinfecting impacted properties.

3. Computer repair services are adapting, where state regulations allow, to 100% mobile operations and are fixing issues over the phone where possible. One independent shop, DreamNet Computers, created this page to explain how they are sanitizing devices being picked up or dropped off, and how they can repair some computers remotely if they can connect to the Internet.

4. The landscaping services market is haphazard at the moment, with some professionals concerned that state-by-state regulations are not clear enough for their industry, while others are embracing virtual meetings and 3D modeling with the thought that people working from home will now be more invested in having livable outdoor spaces.

Professional and instructional services

1. Much of medicine has become telemedicine and therapy has become teletherapy, barring cases which require direct one-on-one contact. Practitioners able to navigate privacy regulations can still provide vital patient support. Bridges Therapy & Wellness Center of Fairfax, Virginia is just one example of a practice putting online appointment availability front and center on its website. Check out how the telehealth platform PatientPop has quickly pivoted their roll out for medical clients.

2. Movement, meditation, and multiple forms of self-care have made a quick transition online. Religious institutions are putting their services on the web, from Pope Francis celebrating Mass at the Vatican, to Ann Arbor’s Temple Beth Emeth observing virtual Shabbat and the Imams of the Islamic Center of America broadcasting live, daily lectures from Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve found Indigenous invitations to prayer for healing especially moving in these times. Meanwhile, dance studio Dance Church has thousands of folks boogying to their livestreams, and yoga, martial arts, fine arts, and music instructors have shifted to both public and private online sessions. Check out the business support being offered by Your Yoga Alliance to instructors needing to transition operations.

3. Banks and financial institutions are responding by offering various forms of relief including deferring or waiving fees, and providing some forms of mortgage assistance. With concerns over ATM contamination, some advisors in the financial industry are suggesting customers bring their own sanitizer, gloves, and a stylus to transactions.

4. Realtors can manage most meetings virtually, and thanks to technology like Kleard and Immoviewer, buyers can get a very good idea of what properties look like and even handle closings online. However, it’s vital to follow state and local regulations regarding home showings.

5. The National Association of Bar Executives offers abundant guidance for legal professionals via their pandemic preparedness resource. They are hosting roundtables, publishing lists of tech vendors appropriate to the industry, and highlighting government and philanthropic news.

6. Personal care professionals may be struggling most, with hair stylists, manicurists, massage therapists, and related practitioners having no way to replicate their work via the Internet. Kaleidoscope Salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee held a fundraiser offering a prize of a full year of hair services in order to meet its payroll during its closure. Professionals seeking to maintain client relationships during this pause in business can head to YouTube, like R’s Just Hair Salon’s chief hairstylist Ruchi Sawhney, to demo do-it-yourself beauty tips. Stay-at-home orders are making it harder for people to access personal care products. If your salon has inventory, consider curbside pick-up of health and beauty supply kits, as is being offered by Sally Beauty.

Retail

1. Retail is taking a hard hit, and there’s no gainsaying this, but vendors who can transition at least part of their operations to e-commerce selling may be able to remain operational simply because the demand is so high now for home delivery. If you are sitting on unsold inventory and are having trouble imagining how to sell it, check out eBay, which recently announced that it is waiving seller fees to help retailers get their products onto the web for sale.

2. Major clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed their stores, but continue to sell online. Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has stated that the fewest employee furloughs have been in their digital operations, and that they hope to start bringing workers back on through a staggered process in the future. Meanwhile, smaller basic clothing retailers like the Vermont Country Store have temporarily shuttered their premises, but are continuing to ship with the proviso that an overload of orders has slowed down shipping speeds.

3. Electronics retailers are finding their product lines in high demand as all of us seek ways to conduct more of life online. T-Mobile stores may be closed, but they are offering free two-day shipping and have published a whole new section of service resources during the health emergency. Best Buy is offering contactless curbside pickup and delivery. Batteries Plus Bulbs has remained largely operational and is supplying the medical field with essential technology, while also offering curbside pickup to retail customers.

4. Plant nurseries are finding themselves inundated with customers eager to plant food crops in any gardening space they have. In my state of California, agricultural businesses are considered essential. Many nurseries and garden supply shops remain open, but — like the San Francisco Bay Area Sloat Nursery chain — are taking steps to limit the number of customers allowed in at a time, and also offer curbside pickup and delivery. Nurseries should be growing as many veggie starts and stocking as much vegetable seed as possible right now.

5. Home Improvement and hardware stores offering free delivery, like Home Depot, and free curbside pickup, like Ace Hardware, have a good chance of weathering this storm so long as customers can afford to improve their dwellings, in which they are now spending so much more of their time. In a related category, large home furnishings brands like Crate & Barrel are selling online and have their design consultants working from home with clients via phone and web chat.

6. Auto dealers have embraced tech to keep car sales moving. Toyota’s SmartPath tool takes customers from inventory search, to applying for a line of credit, to the point where a vehicle can be delivered to your home. I’ve noticed several dealerships deferring first-month payments to stimulate purchases. Meanwhile, General Motors has begun producing ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana facility and face masks at its plant in Warren, Michigan.

Where to publicize what you’re doing

Once you’ve determined how your business can best pivot to continue serving the public, you’ll want to update your website to ensure you’re communicating your offerings. You should also update your local business listings, as described in the last edition of my column. Beyond this, here is an example-filled list of resources for maximizing publicity:

Blogs

About a decade ago, local SEO experts were strongly promoting the idea of creating hyperlocal blogs to engage communities. Bloggers who were up to the challenge now have platforms in place through which the most recent and useful information can be quickly communicated to neighbors, as in this excellent example of the West Seattle Blog. If your community lacks a hyperlocal resource like this, your business could be of great help in creating one now. If such a blog is already in place, see if your business can contribute content.

Hyperlocal business association sites

If you don’t want to go it alone in creating a blog, joining with others in a local business association like the West Seattle Junction or Chamber of Commerce will enable many hands to lighten the work. Community hubs like this one are publishing vital information including PSAs, updates on which businesses offer delivery and pickup, and highlighting local merchants. If your neighborhood has platforms like these, contact them to see how you can contribute content. If no such resources exist, contact your neighboring business owners to discuss what you can create together.

Facebook

If you aren’t in a position to build a hyperlocal website or blog right now, Facebook may be your next best option. The Yurok Tribe of California is inspiring in their use of Facebook for continuous dialog with their community. Many tribes are role-modeling how to support one another, and particularly the most vulnerable, in these times. The above example shows how one tribe is phoning its elders and has created a hotline to ensure they’re receiving vital services. I came across another example in which a tribe’s Facebook post instructed elders to hang something red in their windows if they needed any help from younger members of the community. Now is a good time to double down on Facebook with any supportive information your local business can broadcast. Of note, Facebook is offering $100 million in small business cash grants and ad credits.

Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a particularly lively community hub and this is a very good time to join it as a business. It should go without saying that publishing anything that could seem self-serving would be a poor choice. Instead, take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated in the above example of a neighborhood converting their Little Free Library into a mini dry goods pantry, or this independent restaurant using Nextdoor to offer a discount to anyone in their industry who may have lost their local job. This is a good, ready-do-go platform for outreach to your community.

Twitter

Check out how the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton is using Twitter to promote virtual local events and a new directory they’re building on their website specifically highlighting operational local businesses. The instantaneous communication capacity of Twitter is a resource your company should consider right now, even if you haven’t done much tweeting in the past. Follow and share the content of other local businesses to create a stronger community with timely messaging for the public.

Instagram

Instagram is proving extremely helpful in alerting communities to offerings and changes, as in this example of a Richland, Washington cookie cutter manufacturer transitioning operations to produce face shields for medical personnel, and providing DIY instructions for anyone with access to a 3D printer.

Radio

This excellent Los Angeles Times article by Randy Lewis reminds us of how radio remains a strong resource even for those in our community who lack Internet access. People are tuning the dials for hyperlocal information about the availability of resources, for comfort, and hope. If your business is doing something that would help local customers, consider calling into the nearest radio station to share your story. Obviously, avoid being overly-promotional, and do consider whether this might be a good time to invest a little more in formal radio advertising.

Newspapers

Almost any town with a newspaper is printing abundant information about community resources right now, including lists of operational companies like this one in the Marin Independent Journal. Reach out with your news and volunteer to be interviewed to spread the word about how your business is serving the community. These unstructured citations from trusted online news outlets can help local searchers find your business and even boost your rankings. Consider paid news ad spots as well, if it’s in your budget.

Local television and video media

I thought this multi-location appliance company, Airport Home Appliances, did an excellent job with their local TV ad spot regarding their current operations, which they also posted to YouTube. Your audience is mainly homebound now, and Nielsen finds that local TV is becoming the preferred choice for accessing news and information in the United States. If it’s in your budget, even a basic local television ad could reach many customers at this time. If now isn’t a good time for your brand to invest, get something up on YouTube and embed it on your website.

Local, regional, or industry podcasts

If your area or business category is lucky enough to have a good podcast, reaching out to the podcaster to share what your business is doing could help you broadcast your offering to a wider audience. Check out this episode of the Tennessee Farm Table (theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head), in which podcaster Amy Campbell gives a running list of Appalachian businesses providing local food to residents. Whether you simply get mentioned or take the next step of being interviewed by a podcaster, this medium is one to embrace. And, if your area has no local podcast, think about launching one to create a more connected community.

Being the helpers

Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Image Credit: Wally Gobetz.

I hope you’ve seen something in this article that could help support your local brand’s goals to sustain itself in the coming months. A commonality across all the examples I’ve reviewed of COVID-19 business adjustments is that regular, open communication with customers to understand and meet their needs is simply essential right now. Your customers’ stated requests are your best playbook for this unscripted moment.

It’s my heartfelt wish that you’ll see the fruits of today’s extraordinary efforts in tomorrow’s customer loyalty. My teammate, Dr. Pete, recently shared an article with me in which the author described how Marks & Spencer’s provision of clothing during Great Britain's World War II textile rationing earned decades of devoted patronage because customers felt the retailer had “been there” for them when it mattered.

Being there at the present may mean transitioning some operations online, onto street curbs and parking lots, or into delivery vans, and how you communicate availability matters more than ever before. I’m inspired by seeing the ingenuity and kindness of the “helpers” Fred Rogers spoke of, in community after community.

There’s no denying that this is a challenging time for local search marketing, and yet, at the same time, local promotional skills have never been more critical. Take a second to imagine our communities if we were still limited to once-a-year phone book updates of business information, and I think you’ll quickly see just how vital a resource the local Internet has become.

Can you be a helper today? Please, comment about your own business, your clients’ brands, or any company in your town that you’re seeing make a special endeavor to serve communities. Your story could spark a new idea for a local business owner to keep a neighborhood or even an entire city afloat. Thanks for being a helper.

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[thanhtuandoan89]

How Your Local Business Can Be a Helper

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers

This quote is one I find myself turning to frequently these days as a local SEO. It calls to mind my irreplaceable neighborhood grocer. On my last essential run to their store, they not only shared a stashed 4-pack of bath tissue with me, but also stocked their market with local distillery-produced hand sanitizer which I was warned will reek of bourbon, but will get the job done.

When times are hard, finding helpers comes as such a relief. Even the smallest acts that a local business does to support physical and mental health can be events customers remember for years to come.

While none of us gets to live in Mister Rogers’ idealized neighborhood, the adaptations I’m seeing local businesses and organizations make to sustain communities during COVID-19 are a meaningful expression of caring worthy of his humanitarian vision. Almost any brand, large or small, has the chance to be a good neighbor. Please use the following industry and platform examples to spark local business creativity when it’s needed most so that brands you care about can stay helpfully productive during the public health emergency.

Inspirational local business pivots and plans

Everyone at Moz is full of admiration for the way different industries are responding in a time that’s not business-as-usual. My thanks to the many teammates who contributed to this roundup of examples we’ve been personally encountering, and we hope you’ll find an actionable path for your business here.

Food and hospitality

1. From fancy to fundamental, famed Seattle restaurant Canlis quickly transitioned from fine dining to offering drive-thru bagels, family meal delivery, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes from local farms.

2. From pizza place to pantry, multiple restaurants and caterers are putting their supply chain to work for their customers. California Pizza Kitchen is delivering meal kits and pantry staples as a pop-up market.

3. Caterers with big hearts like Kay Catering asked parents whose schoolchildren she normally feeds whether they’d be willing to donate unused lunch fees so her company could cook for families in need. Through the generosity of these parents, Kay Kim is now serving dinner to the residents at the Sand Point Public Housing Center at Magnuson Park as part of Seattle Public Schools’ overall effort to feed its students.

4. Pike Place Market on your doorstep is the offering of Savor Seattle, which has shifted from offering tasting tours to aggregating the iconic products of an entire marketplace for home delivery and curbside pickup.

5. To keep grocery shelves stocked, Santa Rosa, California food manufacturer Amy’s Kitchen has ramped up production by erecting tent kitchens with social distancing so that the company’s canned soups can be produced in greater quantities. Meanwhile, distilleries across the country have converted operations to manufacture of hand sanitizer.

6. Community-support agriculture may well see a boom with the appeal of boxes of fresh, local foods delivered to your door, allowing customers to entirely forego trips to grocery stores. Farm stands have become extra precious community resources. Role models like Heron Pond Farm in New Hampshire are accepting SNAP payments and providing discounts to SNAP shoppers.

7. Caring for our most vulnerable community members, grocery stores large and small are setting senior shopping hours. Raley’s is offering curbside pickup of $20 “Senior Essential Bags” filled with fresh and dry goods. Kroger-owned stores are donating $3 million to deploy groceries to food-insecure communities via their Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program.

8. Looking to the future, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieg has launched SaveOurFaves.com, a San Francisco Bay Area directory of restaurants hosting the purchase of gift cards to keep cherished eating spots afloat. These gift cards, meant to be used later, are in the nature of a small business loan.

9. Serving up support for displaced restaurant workers, Food Network star and restaurateur Guy Fieri has created a relief fund. This Bay Area celebrity has repeatedly come to the rescue in disasters, cooking for impacted communities, and now, offering $500 in cash to unemployed restaurant employees on a first-come, first-served basis.

10. Hotels are housing health care workers in need of lodging, with some 6,500 properties participating in the Hotels for Hope initiative nationwide. Meanwhile, in San Francisco alone, more than 30 hotels have offered housing for homeless Americans in response to local and state government requests.

Home services

1. Contractors put safety first by implementing new sanitary protocols when making home visits. Roto-Rooter is doing an outstanding job of explaining how plumbers will wear protective equipment, practice social distancing, and use disinfectant. They are also publishing how-to videos for simple home plumbing and offering advice regarding sanitary products. HVAC brand Vaughan Comfort Services created this section of their website to explain their enhanced safety measures.

2. Cleaning services are making tough decisions about whether to remain operational. Some, like Molly Maid, are still cleaning residences while implementing increased safety practices, but others are diversifying into the commercial cleaning space, cleaning offices that are temporarily empty. Meanwhile, professional biohazard cleaning services like Aftermath are creating new pages on their websites to describe their in-demand practices for disinfecting impacted properties.

3. Computer repair services are adapting, where state regulations allow, to 100% mobile operations and are fixing issues over the phone where possible. One independent shop, DreamNet Computers, created this page to explain how they are sanitizing devices being picked up or dropped off, and how they can repair some computers remotely if they can connect to the Internet.

4. The landscaping services market is haphazard at the moment, with some professionals concerned that state-by-state regulations are not clear enough for their industry, while others are embracing virtual meetings and 3D modeling with the thought that people working from home will now be more invested in having livable outdoor spaces.

Professional and instructional services

1. Much of medicine has become telemedicine and therapy has become teletherapy, barring cases which require direct one-on-one contact. Practitioners able to navigate privacy regulations can still provide vital patient support. Bridges Therapy & Wellness Center of Fairfax, Virginia is just one example of a practice putting online appointment availability front and center on its website. Check out how the telehealth platform PatientPop has quickly pivoted their roll out for medical clients.

2. Movement, meditation, and multiple forms of self-care have made a quick transition online. Religious institutions are putting their services on the web, from Pope Francis celebrating Mass at the Vatican, to Ann Arbor’s Temple Beth Emeth observing virtual Shabbat and the Imams of the Islamic Center of America broadcasting live, daily lectures from Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve found Indigenous invitations to prayer for healing especially moving in these times. Meanwhile, dance studio Dance Church has thousands of folks boogying to their livestreams, and yoga, martial arts, fine arts, and music instructors have shifted to both public and private online sessions. Check out the business support being offered by Your Yoga Alliance to instructors needing to transition operations.

3. Banks and financial institutions are responding by offering various forms of relief including deferring or waiving fees, and providing some forms of mortgage assistance. With concerns over ATM contamination, some advisors in the financial industry are suggesting customers bring their own sanitizer, gloves, and a stylus to transactions.

4. Realtors can manage most meetings virtually, and thanks to technology like Kleard and Immoviewer, buyers can get a very good idea of what properties look like and even handle closings online. However, it’s vital to follow state and local regulations regarding home showings.

5. The National Association of Bar Executives offers abundant guidance for legal professionals via their pandemic preparedness resource. They are hosting roundtables, publishing lists of tech vendors appropriate to the industry, and highlighting government and philanthropic news.

6. Personal care professionals may be struggling most, with hair stylists, manicurists, massage therapists, and related practitioners having no way to replicate their work via the Internet. Kaleidoscope Salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee held a fundraiser offering a prize of a full year of hair services in order to meet its payroll during its closure. Professionals seeking to maintain client relationships during this pause in business can head to YouTube, like R’s Just Hair Salon’s chief hairstylist Ruchi Sawhney, to demo do-it-yourself beauty tips. Stay-at-home orders are making it harder for people to access personal care products. If your salon has inventory, consider curbside pick-up of health and beauty supply kits, as is being offered by Sally Beauty.

Retail

1. Retail is taking a hard hit, and there’s no gainsaying this, but vendors who can transition at least part of their operations to e-commerce selling may be able to remain operational simply because the demand is so high now for home delivery. If you are sitting on unsold inventory and are having trouble imagining how to sell it, check out eBay, which recently announced that it is waiving seller fees to help retailers get their products onto the web for sale.

2. Major clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed their stores, but continue to sell online. Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has stated that the fewest employee furloughs have been in their digital operations, and that they hope to start bringing workers back on through a staggered process in the future. Meanwhile, smaller basic clothing retailers like the Vermont Country Store have temporarily shuttered their premises, but are continuing to ship with the proviso that an overload of orders has slowed down shipping speeds.

3. Electronics retailers are finding their product lines in high demand as all of us seek ways to conduct more of life online. T-Mobile stores may be closed, but they are offering free two-day shipping and have published a whole new section of service resources during the health emergency. Best Buy is offering contactless curbside pickup and delivery. Batteries Plus Bulbs has remained largely operational and is supplying the medical field with essential technology, while also offering curbside pickup to retail customers.

4. Plant nurseries are finding themselves inundated with customers eager to plant food crops in any gardening space they have. In my state of California, agricultural businesses are considered essential. Many nurseries and garden supply shops remain open, but — like the San Francisco Bay Area Sloat Nursery chain — are taking steps to limit the number of customers allowed in at a time, and also offer curbside pickup and delivery. Nurseries should be growing as many veggie starts and stocking as much vegetable seed as possible right now.

5. Home Improvement and hardware stores offering free delivery, like Home Depot, and free curbside pickup, like Ace Hardware, have a good chance of weathering this storm so long as customers can afford to improve their dwellings, in which they are now spending so much more of their time. In a related category, large home furnishings brands like Crate & Barrel are selling online and have their design consultants working from home with clients via phone and web chat.

6. Auto dealers have embraced tech to keep car sales moving. Toyota’s SmartPath tool takes customers from inventory search, to applying for a line of credit, to the point where a vehicle can be delivered to your home. I’ve noticed several dealerships deferring first-month payments to stimulate purchases. Meanwhile, General Motors has begun producing ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana facility and face masks at its plant in Warren, Michigan.

Where to publicize what you’re doing

Once you’ve determined how your business can best pivot to continue serving the public, you’ll want to update your website to ensure you’re communicating your offerings. You should also update your local business listings, as described in the last edition of my column. Beyond this, here is an example-filled list of resources for maximizing publicity:

Blogs

About a decade ago, local SEO experts were strongly promoting the idea of creating hyperlocal blogs to engage communities. Bloggers who were up to the challenge now have platforms in place through which the most recent and useful information can be quickly communicated to neighbors, as in this excellent example of the West Seattle Blog. If your community lacks a hyperlocal resource like this, your business could be of great help in creating one now. If such a blog is already in place, see if your business can contribute content.

Hyperlocal business association sites

If you don’t want to go it alone in creating a blog, joining with others in a local business association like the West Seattle Junction or Chamber of Commerce will enable many hands to lighten the work. Community hubs like this one are publishing vital information including PSAs, updates on which businesses offer delivery and pickup, and highlighting local merchants. If your neighborhood has platforms like these, contact them to see how you can contribute content. If no such resources exist, contact your neighboring business owners to discuss what you can create together.

Facebook

If you aren’t in a position to build a hyperlocal website or blog right now, Facebook may be your next best option. The Yurok Tribe of California is inspiring in their use of Facebook for continuous dialog with their community. Many tribes are role-modeling how to support one another, and particularly the most vulnerable, in these times. The above example shows how one tribe is phoning its elders and has created a hotline to ensure they’re receiving vital services. I came across another example in which a tribe’s Facebook post instructed elders to hang something red in their windows if they needed any help from younger members of the community. Now is a good time to double down on Facebook with any supportive information your local business can broadcast. Of note, Facebook is offering $100 million in small business cash grants and ad credits.

Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a particularly lively community hub and this is a very good time to join it as a business. It should go without saying that publishing anything that could seem self-serving would be a poor choice. Instead, take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated in the above example of a neighborhood converting their Little Free Library into a mini dry goods pantry, or this independent restaurant using Nextdoor to offer a discount to anyone in their industry who may have lost their local job. This is a good, ready-do-go platform for outreach to your community.

Twitter

Check out how the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton is using Twitter to promote virtual local events and a new directory they’re building on their website specifically highlighting operational local businesses. The instantaneous communication capacity of Twitter is a resource your company should consider right now, even if you haven’t done much tweeting in the past. Follow and share the content of other local businesses to create a stronger community with timely messaging for the public.

Instagram

Instagram is proving extremely helpful in alerting communities to offerings and changes, as in this example of a Richland, Washington cookie cutter manufacturer transitioning operations to produce face shields for medical personnel, and providing DIY instructions for anyone with access to a 3D printer.

Radio

This excellent Los Angeles Times article by Randy Lewis reminds us of how radio remains a strong resource even for those in our community who lack Internet access. People are tuning the dials for hyperlocal information about the availability of resources, for comfort, and hope. If your business is doing something that would help local customers, consider calling into the nearest radio station to share your story. Obviously, avoid being overly-promotional, and do consider whether this might be a good time to invest a little more in formal radio advertising.

Newspapers

Almost any town with a newspaper is printing abundant information about community resources right now, including lists of operational companies like this one in the Marin Independent Journal. Reach out with your news and volunteer to be interviewed to spread the word about how your business is serving the community. These unstructured citations from trusted online news outlets can help local searchers find your business and even boost your rankings. Consider paid news ad spots as well, if it’s in your budget.

Local television and video media

I thought this multi-location appliance company, Airport Home Appliances, did an excellent job with their local TV ad spot regarding their current operations, which they also posted to YouTube. Your audience is mainly homebound now, and Nielsen finds that local TV is becoming the preferred choice for accessing news and information in the United States. If it’s in your budget, even a basic local television ad could reach many customers at this time. If now isn’t a good time for your brand to invest, get something up on YouTube and embed it on your website.

Local, regional, or industry podcasts

If your area or business category is lucky enough to have a good podcast, reaching out to the podcaster to share what your business is doing could help you broadcast your offering to a wider audience. Check out this episode of the Tennessee Farm Table (theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head), in which podcaster Amy Campbell gives a running list of Appalachian businesses providing local food to residents. Whether you simply get mentioned or take the next step of being interviewed by a podcaster, this medium is one to embrace. And, if your area has no local podcast, think about launching one to create a more connected community.

Being the helpers

Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Image Credit: Wally Gobetz.

I hope you’ve seen something in this article that could help support your local brand’s goals to sustain itself in the coming months. A commonality across all the examples I’ve reviewed of COVID-19 business adjustments is that regular, open communication with customers to understand and meet their needs is simply essential right now. Your customers’ stated requests are your best playbook for this unscripted moment.

It’s my heartfelt wish that you’ll see the fruits of today’s extraordinary efforts in tomorrow’s customer loyalty. My teammate, Dr. Pete, recently shared an article with me in which the author described how Marks & Spencer’s provision of clothing during Great Britain's World War II textile rationing earned decades of devoted patronage because customers felt the retailer had “been there” for them when it mattered.

Being there at the present may mean transitioning some operations online, onto street curbs and parking lots, or into delivery vans, and how you communicate availability matters more than ever before. I’m inspired by seeing the ingenuity and kindness of the “helpers” Fred Rogers spoke of, in community after community.

There’s no denying that this is a challenging time for local search marketing, and yet, at the same time, local promotional skills have never been more critical. Take a second to imagine our communities if we were still limited to once-a-year phone book updates of business information, and I think you’ll quickly see just how vital a resource the local Internet has become.

Can you be a helper today? Please, comment about your own business, your clients’ brands, or any company in your town that you’re seeing make a special endeavor to serve communities. Your story could spark a new idea for a local business owner to keep a neighborhood or even an entire city afloat. Thanks for being a helper.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[evempierson]

How Your Local Business Can Be a Helper

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers

This quote is one I find myself turning to frequently these days as a local SEO. It calls to mind my irreplaceable neighborhood grocer. On my last essential run to their store, they not only shared a stashed 4-pack of bath tissue with me, but also stocked their market with local distillery-produced hand sanitizer which I was warned will reek of bourbon, but will get the job done.

When times are hard, finding helpers comes as such a relief. Even the smallest acts that a local business does to support physical and mental health can be events customers remember for years to come.

While none of us gets to live in Mister Rogers’ idealized neighborhood, the adaptations I’m seeing local businesses and organizations make to sustain communities during COVID-19 are a meaningful expression of caring worthy of his humanitarian vision. Almost any brand, large or small, has the chance to be a good neighbor. Please use the following industry and platform examples to spark local business creativity when it’s needed most so that brands you care about can stay helpfully productive during the public health emergency.

Inspirational local business pivots and plans

Everyone at Moz is full of admiration for the way different industries are responding in a time that’s not business-as-usual. My thanks to the many teammates who contributed to this roundup of examples we’ve been personally encountering, and we hope you’ll find an actionable path for your business here.

Food and hospitality

1. From fancy to fundamental, famed Seattle restaurant Canlis quickly transitioned from fine dining to offering drive-thru bagels, family meal delivery, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes from local farms.

2. From pizza place to pantry, multiple restaurants and caterers are putting their supply chain to work for their customers. California Pizza Kitchen is delivering meal kits and pantry staples as a pop-up market.

3. Caterers with big hearts like Kay Catering asked parents whose schoolchildren she normally feeds whether they’d be willing to donate unused lunch fees so her company could cook for families in need. Through the generosity of these parents, Kay Kim is now serving dinner to the residents at the Sand Point Public Housing Center at Magnuson Park as part of Seattle Public Schools’ overall effort to feed its students.

4. Pike Place Market on your doorstep is the offering of Savor Seattle, which has shifted from offering tasting tours to aggregating the iconic products of an entire marketplace for home delivery and curbside pickup.

5. To keep grocery shelves stocked, Santa Rosa, California food manufacturer Amy’s Kitchen has ramped up production by erecting tent kitchens with social distancing so that the company’s canned soups can be produced in greater quantities. Meanwhile, distilleries across the country have converted operations to manufacture of hand sanitizer.

6. Community-support agriculture may well see a boom with the appeal of boxes of fresh, local foods delivered to your door, allowing customers to entirely forego trips to grocery stores. Farm stands have become extra precious community resources. Role models like Heron Pond Farm in New Hampshire are accepting SNAP payments and providing discounts to SNAP shoppers.

7. Caring for our most vulnerable community members, grocery stores large and small are setting senior shopping hours. Raley’s is offering curbside pickup of $20 “Senior Essential Bags” filled with fresh and dry goods. Kroger-owned stores are donating $3 million to deploy groceries to food-insecure communities via their Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program.

8. Looking to the future, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieg has launched SaveOurFaves.com, a San Francisco Bay Area directory of restaurants hosting the purchase of gift cards to keep cherished eating spots afloat. These gift cards, meant to be used later, are in the nature of a small business loan.

9. Serving up support for displaced restaurant workers, Food Network star and restaurateur Guy Fieri has created a relief fund. This Bay Area celebrity has repeatedly come to the rescue in disasters, cooking for impacted communities, and now, offering $500 in cash to unemployed restaurant employees on a first-come, first-served basis.

10. Hotels are housing health care workers in need of lodging, with some 6,500 properties participating in the Hotels for Hope initiative nationwide. Meanwhile, in San Francisco alone, more than 30 hotels have offered housing for homeless Americans in response to local and state government requests.

Home services

1. Contractors put safety first by implementing new sanitary protocols when making home visits. Roto-Rooter is doing an outstanding job of explaining how plumbers will wear protective equipment, practice social distancing, and use disinfectant. They are also publishing how-to videos for simple home plumbing and offering advice regarding sanitary products. HVAC brand Vaughan Comfort Services created this section of their website to explain their enhanced safety measures.

2. Cleaning services are making tough decisions about whether to remain operational. Some, like Molly Maid, are still cleaning residences while implementing increased safety practices, but others are diversifying into the commercial cleaning space, cleaning offices that are temporarily empty. Meanwhile, professional biohazard cleaning services like Aftermath are creating new pages on their websites to describe their in-demand practices for disinfecting impacted properties.

3. Computer repair services are adapting, where state regulations allow, to 100% mobile operations and are fixing issues over the phone where possible. One independent shop, DreamNet Computers, created this page to explain how they are sanitizing devices being picked up or dropped off, and how they can repair some computers remotely if they can connect to the Internet.

4. The landscaping services market is haphazard at the moment, with some professionals concerned that state-by-state regulations are not clear enough for their industry, while others are embracing virtual meetings and 3D modeling with the thought that people working from home will now be more invested in having livable outdoor spaces.

Professional and instructional services

1. Much of medicine has become telemedicine and therapy has become teletherapy, barring cases which require direct one-on-one contact. Practitioners able to navigate privacy regulations can still provide vital patient support. Bridges Therapy & Wellness Center of Fairfax, Virginia is just one example of a practice putting online appointment availability front and center on its website. Check out how the telehealth platform PatientPop has quickly pivoted their roll out for medical clients.

2. Movement, meditation, and multiple forms of self-care have made a quick transition online. Religious institutions are putting their services on the web, from Pope Francis celebrating Mass at the Vatican, to Ann Arbor’s Temple Beth Emeth observing virtual Shabbat and the Imams of the Islamic Center of America broadcasting live, daily lectures from Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve found Indigenous invitations to prayer for healing especially moving in these times. Meanwhile, dance studio Dance Church has thousands of folks boogying to their livestreams, and yoga, martial arts, fine arts, and music instructors have shifted to both public and private online sessions. Check out the business support being offered by Your Yoga Alliance to instructors needing to transition operations.

3. Banks and financial institutions are responding by offering various forms of relief including deferring or waiving fees, and providing some forms of mortgage assistance. With concerns over ATM contamination, some advisors in the financial industry are suggesting customers bring their own sanitizer, gloves, and a stylus to transactions.

4. Realtors can manage most meetings virtually, and thanks to technology like Kleard and Immoviewer, buyers can get a very good idea of what properties look like and even handle closings online. However, it’s vital to follow state and local regulations regarding home showings.

5. The National Association of Bar Executives offers abundant guidance for legal professionals via their pandemic preparedness resource. They are hosting roundtables, publishing lists of tech vendors appropriate to the industry, and highlighting government and philanthropic news.

6. Personal care professionals may be struggling most, with hair stylists, manicurists, massage therapists, and related practitioners having no way to replicate their work via the Internet. Kaleidoscope Salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee held a fundraiser offering a prize of a full year of hair services in order to meet its payroll during its closure. Professionals seeking to maintain client relationships during this pause in business can head to YouTube, like R’s Just Hair Salon’s chief hairstylist Ruchi Sawhney, to demo do-it-yourself beauty tips. Stay-at-home orders are making it harder for people to access personal care products. If your salon has inventory, consider curbside pick-up of health and beauty supply kits, as is being offered by Sally Beauty.

Retail

1. Retail is taking a hard hit, and there’s no gainsaying this, but vendors who can transition at least part of their operations to e-commerce selling may be able to remain operational simply because the demand is so high now for home delivery. If you are sitting on unsold inventory and are having trouble imagining how to sell it, check out eBay, which recently announced that it is waiving seller fees to help retailers get their products onto the web for sale.

2. Major clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed their stores, but continue to sell online. Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has stated that the fewest employee furloughs have been in their digital operations, and that they hope to start bringing workers back on through a staggered process in the future. Meanwhile, smaller basic clothing retailers like the Vermont Country Store have temporarily shuttered their premises, but are continuing to ship with the proviso that an overload of orders has slowed down shipping speeds.

3. Electronics retailers are finding their product lines in high demand as all of us seek ways to conduct more of life online. T-Mobile stores may be closed, but they are offering free two-day shipping and have published a whole new section of service resources during the health emergency. Best Buy is offering contactless curbside pickup and delivery. Batteries Plus Bulbs has remained largely operational and is supplying the medical field with essential technology, while also offering curbside pickup to retail customers.

4. Plant nurseries are finding themselves inundated with customers eager to plant food crops in any gardening space they have. In my state of California, agricultural businesses are considered essential. Many nurseries and garden supply shops remain open, but — like the San Francisco Bay Area Sloat Nursery chain — are taking steps to limit the number of customers allowed in at a time, and also offer curbside pickup and delivery. Nurseries should be growing as many veggie starts and stocking as much vegetable seed as possible right now.

5. Home Improvement and hardware stores offering free delivery, like Home Depot, and free curbside pickup, like Ace Hardware, have a good chance of weathering this storm so long as customers can afford to improve their dwellings, in which they are now spending so much more of their time. In a related category, large home furnishings brands like Crate & Barrel are selling online and have their design consultants working from home with clients via phone and web chat.

6. Auto dealers have embraced tech to keep car sales moving. Toyota’s SmartPath tool takes customers from inventory search, to applying for a line of credit, to the point where a vehicle can be delivered to your home. I’ve noticed several dealerships deferring first-month payments to stimulate purchases. Meanwhile, General Motors has begun producing ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana facility and face masks at its plant in Warren, Michigan.

Where to publicize what you’re doing

Once you’ve determined how your business can best pivot to continue serving the public, you’ll want to update your website to ensure you’re communicating your offerings. You should also update your local business listings, as described in the last edition of my column. Beyond this, here is an example-filled list of resources for maximizing publicity:

Blogs

About a decade ago, local SEO experts were strongly promoting the idea of creating hyperlocal blogs to engage communities. Bloggers who were up to the challenge now have platforms in place through which the most recent and useful information can be quickly communicated to neighbors, as in this excellent example of the West Seattle Blog. If your community lacks a hyperlocal resource like this, your business could be of great help in creating one now. If such a blog is already in place, see if your business can contribute content.

Hyperlocal business association sites

If you don’t want to go it alone in creating a blog, joining with others in a local business association like the West Seattle Junction or Chamber of Commerce will enable many hands to lighten the work. Community hubs like this one are publishing vital information including PSAs, updates on which businesses offer delivery and pickup, and highlighting local merchants. If your neighborhood has platforms like these, contact them to see how you can contribute content. If no such resources exist, contact your neighboring business owners to discuss what you can create together.

Facebook

If you aren’t in a position to build a hyperlocal website or blog right now, Facebook may be your next best option. The Yurok Tribe of California is inspiring in their use of Facebook for continuous dialog with their community. Many tribes are role-modeling how to support one another, and particularly the most vulnerable, in these times. The above example shows how one tribe is phoning its elders and has created a hotline to ensure they’re receiving vital services. I came across another example in which a tribe’s Facebook post instructed elders to hang something red in their windows if they needed any help from younger members of the community. Now is a good time to double down on Facebook with any supportive information your local business can broadcast. Of note, Facebook is offering $100 million in small business cash grants and ad credits.

Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a particularly lively community hub and this is a very good time to join it as a business. It should go without saying that publishing anything that could seem self-serving would be a poor choice. Instead, take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated in the above example of a neighborhood converting their Little Free Library into a mini dry goods pantry, or this independent restaurant using Nextdoor to offer a discount to anyone in their industry who may have lost their local job. This is a good, ready-do-go platform for outreach to your community.

Twitter

Check out how the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton is using Twitter to promote virtual local events and a new directory they’re building on their website specifically highlighting operational local businesses. The instantaneous communication capacity of Twitter is a resource your company should consider right now, even if you haven’t done much tweeting in the past. Follow and share the content of other local businesses to create a stronger community with timely messaging for the public.

Instagram

Instagram is proving extremely helpful in alerting communities to offerings and changes, as in this example of a Richland, Washington cookie cutter manufacturer transitioning operations to produce face shields for medical personnel, and providing DIY instructions for anyone with access to a 3D printer.

Radio

This excellent Los Angeles Times article by Randy Lewis reminds us of how radio remains a strong resource even for those in our community who lack Internet access. People are tuning the dials for hyperlocal information about the availability of resources, for comfort, and hope. If your business is doing something that would help local customers, consider calling into the nearest radio station to share your story. Obviously, avoid being overly-promotional, and do consider whether this might be a good time to invest a little more in formal radio advertising.

Newspapers

Almost any town with a newspaper is printing abundant information about community resources right now, including lists of operational companies like this one in the Marin Independent Journal. Reach out with your news and volunteer to be interviewed to spread the word about how your business is serving the community. These unstructured citations from trusted online news outlets can help local searchers find your business and even boost your rankings. Consider paid news ad spots as well, if it’s in your budget.

Local television and video media

I thought this multi-location appliance company, Airport Home Appliances, did an excellent job with their local TV ad spot regarding their current operations, which they also posted to YouTube. Your audience is mainly homebound now, and Nielsen finds that local TV is becoming the preferred choice for accessing news and information in the United States. If it’s in your budget, even a basic local television ad could reach many customers at this time. If now isn’t a good time for your brand to invest, get something up on YouTube and embed it on your website.

Local, regional, or industry podcasts

If your area or business category is lucky enough to have a good podcast, reaching out to the podcaster to share what your business is doing could help you broadcast your offering to a wider audience. Check out this episode of the Tennessee Farm Table (theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head), in which podcaster Amy Campbell gives a running list of Appalachian businesses providing local food to residents. Whether you simply get mentioned or take the next step of being interviewed by a podcaster, this medium is one to embrace. And, if your area has no local podcast, think about launching one to create a more connected community.

Being the helpers

Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Image Credit: Wally Gobetz.

I hope you’ve seen something in this article that could help support your local brand’s goals to sustain itself in the coming months. A commonality across all the examples I’ve reviewed of COVID-19 business adjustments is that regular, open communication with customers to understand and meet their needs is simply essential right now. Your customers’ stated requests are your best playbook for this unscripted moment.

It’s my heartfelt wish that you’ll see the fruits of today’s extraordinary efforts in tomorrow’s customer loyalty. My teammate, Dr. Pete, recently shared an article with me in which the author described how Marks & Spencer’s provision of clothing during Great Britain's World War II textile rationing earned decades of devoted patronage because customers felt the retailer had “been there” for them when it mattered.

Being there at the present may mean transitioning some operations online, onto street curbs and parking lots, or into delivery vans, and how you communicate availability matters more than ever before. I’m inspired by seeing the ingenuity and kindness of the “helpers” Fred Rogers spoke of, in community after community.

There’s no denying that this is a challenging time for local search marketing, and yet, at the same time, local promotional skills have never been more critical. Take a second to imagine our communities if we were still limited to once-a-year phone book updates of business information, and I think you’ll quickly see just how vital a resource the local Internet has become.

Can you be a helper today? Please, comment about your own business, your clients’ brands, or any company in your town that you’re seeing make a special endeavor to serve communities. Your story could spark a new idea for a local business owner to keep a neighborhood or even an entire city afloat. Thanks for being a helper.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[whitelabelseoreseller]

How Your Local Business Can Be a Helper

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers

This quote is one I find myself turning to frequently these days as a local SEO. It calls to mind my irreplaceable neighborhood grocer. On my last essential run to their store, they not only shared a stashed 4-pack of bath tissue with me, but also stocked their market with local distillery-produced hand sanitizer which I was warned will reek of bourbon, but will get the job done.

When times are hard, finding helpers comes as such a relief. Even the smallest acts that a local business does to support physical and mental health can be events customers remember for years to come.

While none of us gets to live in Mister Rogers’ idealized neighborhood, the adaptations I’m seeing local businesses and organizations make to sustain communities during COVID-19 are a meaningful expression of caring worthy of his humanitarian vision. Almost any brand, large or small, has the chance to be a good neighbor. Please use the following industry and platform examples to spark local business creativity when it’s needed most so that brands you care about can stay helpfully productive during the public health emergency.

Inspirational local business pivots and plans

Everyone at Moz is full of admiration for the way different industries are responding in a time that’s not business-as-usual. My thanks to the many teammates who contributed to this roundup of examples we’ve been personally encountering, and we hope you’ll find an actionable path for your business here.

Food and hospitality

1. From fancy to fundamental, famed Seattle restaurant Canlis quickly transitioned from fine dining to offering drive-thru bagels, family meal delivery, and community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes from local farms.

2. From pizza place to pantry, multiple restaurants and caterers are putting their supply chain to work for their customers. California Pizza Kitchen is delivering meal kits and pantry staples as a pop-up market.

3. Caterers with big hearts like Kay Catering asked parents whose schoolchildren she normally feeds whether they’d be willing to donate unused lunch fees so her company could cook for families in need. Through the generosity of these parents, Kay Kim is now serving dinner to the residents at the Sand Point Public Housing Center at Magnuson Park as part of Seattle Public Schools’ overall effort to feed its students.

4. Pike Place Market on your doorstep is the offering of Savor Seattle, which has shifted from offering tasting tours to aggregating the iconic products of an entire marketplace for home delivery and curbside pickup.

5. To keep grocery shelves stocked, Santa Rosa, California food manufacturer Amy’s Kitchen has ramped up production by erecting tent kitchens with social distancing so that the company’s canned soups can be produced in greater quantities. Meanwhile, distilleries across the country have converted operations to manufacture of hand sanitizer.

6. Community-support agriculture may well see a boom with the appeal of boxes of fresh, local foods delivered to your door, allowing customers to entirely forego trips to grocery stores. Farm stands have become extra precious community resources. Role models like Heron Pond Farm in New Hampshire are accepting SNAP payments and providing discounts to SNAP shoppers.

7. Caring for our most vulnerable community members, grocery stores large and small are setting senior shopping hours. Raley’s is offering curbside pickup of $20 “Senior Essential Bags” filled with fresh and dry goods. Kroger-owned stores are donating $3 million to deploy groceries to food-insecure communities via their Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program.

8. Looking to the future, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieg has launched SaveOurFaves.com, an San Francisco Bay Area directory of restaurants hosting the purchase of gift cards to keep cherished eating spots afloat. These gift cards, meant to be used later, are in the nature of a small business loan.

9. Serving up support for displaced restaurant workers, Food Network star and restaurateur Guy Fieri has created a relief fund.This Bay Area celebrity has repeatedly come to the rescue in disasters, cooking for impacted communities, and now, offering $500 in cash to unemployed restaurant employees on a first-come, first-served basis.

10. Hotels are housing health care workers in need of lodging, with some 6,500 properties participating in the Hotels for Hope initiative nationwide. Meanwhile, in San Francisco alone, more than 30 hotels have offered housing for homeless Americans in response to local and state government requests.

Home services

1. Contractors put safety first by implementing new sanitary protocols when making home visits. Roto-Rooter is doing an outstanding job of explaining how plumbers will wear protective equipment, practice social distancing, and use disinfectant. They are also publishing how-to videos for simple home plumbing and offering advice regarding sanitary products. HVAC brand Vaughan Comfort Services created this section of their website to explain their enhanced safety measures.

2. Cleaning services are making tough decisions about whether to remain operational. Some, like Molly Maid, are still cleaning residences while implementing increased safety practices, but others are diversifying into the commercial cleaning space, cleaning offices that are temporarily empty. Meanwhile, professional biohazard cleaning services like Aftermath are creating new pages on their websites to describe their in-demand practices for disinfecting impacted properties.

3. Computer repair services are adapting, where state regulations allow, to 100% mobile operations and are fixing issues over the phone where possible. One independent shop, DreamNet Computers, created this page to explain how they are sanitizing devices being picked up or dropped off, and how they can repair some computers remotely if they can connect to the Internet.

4. The landscaping services market is haphazard at the moment, with some professionals concerned that state-by-state regulations are not clear enough for their industry, while others are embracing virtual meetings and 3D modeling with the thought that people working from home will now be more invested in having livable outdoor spaces.

Professional and instructional services

1. Much of medicine has become telemedicine and therapy has become teletherapy, barring cases which require direct one-on-one contact. Practitioners able to navigate privacy regulations can still provide vital patient support. Bridges Therapy & Wellness Center of Fairfax, Virginia is just one example of a practice putting online appointment availability front and center on its website. Check out how the telehealth platform PatientPop has quickly pivoted their roll out for medical clients.

2. Movement, meditation, and multiple forms of self-care have made a quick transition online. Religious institutions are putting their services on the web, from Pope Francis celebrating Mass at the Vatican, to Ann Arbor’s Temple Beth Emeth observing virtual Shabbat and the Imams of the Islamic Center of America broadcasting live, daily lectures from Dearborn, Michigan. I’ve found Indigenous invitations to prayer for healing especially moving in these times. Meanwhile, dance studio Dance Church has thousands of folks boogying to their livestreams, and yoga, martial arts, fine arts, and music instructors have shifted to both public and private online sessions. Check out the business support being offered by Your Yoga Alliance to instructors needing to transition operations.

3. Banks and financial institutions are responding by offering various forms of relief including deferring or waiving fees, and providing some forms of mortgage assistance. With concerns over ATM contamination, some advisors in the financial industry are suggesting customers bring their own sanitizer, gloves, and a stylus to transactions.

4. Realtors can manage most meetings virtually, and thanks to technology like Kleard and Immoviewer, buyers can get a very good idea of what properties look like and even handle closings online. However, it’s vital to follow state and local regulations regarding home showings.

5. The National Association of Bar Executives offers abundant guidance for legal professionals via their pandemic preparedness resource. They are hosting roundtables, publishing lists of tech vendors appropriate to the industry, and highlighting government and philanthropic news.

6. Personal care professionals may be struggling most, with hair stylists, manicurists, massage therapists, and related practitioners having no way to replicate their work via the Internet. Kaleidoscope Salon in Chattanooga, Tennessee held a fundraiser offering a prize of a full year of hair services in order to meet its payroll during its closure. Professionals seeking to maintain client relationships during this pause in business can head to YouTube, like R’s Just Hair Salon’s chief hairstylist Ruchi Sawhney, to demo do-it-yourself beauty tips. Stay-at-home orders are making it harder for people to access personal care products. If your salon has inventory, consider curbside pick-up of health and beauty supply kits, as is being offered by Sally Beauty.

Retail

1. Retail is taking a hard hit, and there’s no gainsaying this, but vendors who can transition at least part of their operations to e-commerce selling may be able to remain operational simply because the demand is so high now for home delivery. If you are sitting on unsold inventory and are having trouble imagining how to sell it, check out eBay, which recently announced that it is waiving seller fees to help retailers get their products onto the web for sale.

2. Major clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s have closed their stores, but continue to sell online. Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has stated that the fewest employee furloughs have been in their digital operations, and that they hope to start bringing workers back on through a staggered process in the future. Meanwhile, smaller basic clothing retailers like the Vermont Country Store have temporarily shuttered their premises, but are continuing to ship with the proviso that an overload of orders has slowed down shipping speeds.

3. Electronics retailers are finding their product lines in high demand as all of us seek ways to conduct more of life online. T-Mobile stores may be closed, but they are offering free two-day shipping and have published a whole new section of service resources during the health emergency. Best Buy is offering contactless curbside pickup and delivery. Batteries Plus Bulbs has remained largely operational and is supplying the medical field with essential technology, while also offering curbside pickup to retail customers.

4. Plant nurseries are finding themselves inundated with customers eager to plant food crops in any gardening space they have. In my state of California, agricultural businesses are considered essential. Many nurseries and garden supply shops remain open, but — like the San Francisco Bay Area Sloat Nursery chain — are taking steps to limit the number of customers allowed in at a time, and also offer curbside pickup and delivery. Nurseries should be growing as many veggie starts and stocking as much vegetable seed as possible right now.

5. Home Improvement and hardware stores offering free delivery, like Home Depot, and free curbside pickup, like Ace Hardware, have a good chance of weathering this storm so long as customers can afford to improve their dwellings, in which they are now spending so much more of their time. In a related category, large home furnishings brands like Crate & Barrel are selling online and have their design consultants working from home with clients via phone and web chat.

6. Auto dealers have embraced tech to keep car sales moving. Toyota’s SmartPath tool takes customers from inventory search, to applying for a line of credit, to the point where a vehicle can be delivered to your home. I’ve noticed several dealerships deferring first-month payments to stimulate purchases. Meanwhile, General Motors has begun producing ventilators at its Kokomo, Indiana facility and face masks at its plant in Warren, Michigan.

Where to publicize what you’re doing

Once you’ve determined how your business can best pivot to continue serving the public, you’ll want to update your website to ensure you’re communicating your offerings. You should also update your local business listings, as described in the last edition of my column. Beyond this, here is an example-filled list of resources for maximizing publicity:

Blogs

About a decade ago, local SEO experts were strongly promoting the idea of creating hyperlocal blogs to engage communities. Bloggers who were up to the challenge now have platforms in place through which the most recent and useful information can be quickly communicated to neighbors, as in this excellent example of the West Seattle Blog. If your community lacks a hyperlocal resource like this, your business could be of great help in creating one now. If such a blog is already in place, see if your business can contribute content.

Hyperlocal business association sites

If you don’t want to go it alone in creating a blog, joining with others in a local business association like the West Seattle Junction or Chamber of Commerce will enable many hands to lighten the work. Community hubs like this one are publishing vital information including PSAs, updates on which businesses offer delivery and pickup, and highlighting local merchants. If your neighborhood has platforms like these, contact them to see how you can contribute content. If no such resources exist, contact your neighboring business owners to discuss what you can create together.

Facebook

If you aren’t in a position to build a hyperlocal website or blog right now, Facebook may be your next best option. The Yurok Tribe of California is inspiring in their use of Facebook for continuous dialog with their community. Many tribes are role-modeling how to support one another, and particularly the most vulnerable, in these times. The above example shows how one tribe is phoning its elders and has created a hotline to ensure they’re receiving vital services. I came across another example in which a tribe’s Facebook post instructed elders to hang something red in their windows if they needed any help from younger members of the community. Now is a good time to double down on Facebook with any supportive information your local business can broadcast. Of note, Facebook is offering $100 million in small business cash grants and ad credits.

Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a particularly lively community hub and this is a very good time to join it as a business. It should go without saying that publishing anything that could seem self-serving would be a poor choice. Instead, take inspiration from the spirit demonstrated in the above example of a neighborhood converting their Little Free Library into a mini dry goods pantry, or this independent restaurant using Nextdoor to offer a discount to anyone in their industry who may have lost their local job. This is a good, ready-do-go platform for outreach to your community.

Twitter

Check out how the Downtown Business Association of Edmonton is using Twitter to promote virtual local events and a new directory they’re building on their website specifically highlighting operational local businesses. The instantaneous communication capacity of Twitter is a resource your company should consider right now, even if you haven’t done much tweeting in the past. Follow and share the content of other local businesses to create a stronger community with timely messaging for the public.

Instagram

Instagram is proving extremely helpful in alerting communities to offerings and changes, as in this example of a Richland, Washington cookie cutter manufacturer transitioning operations to produce face shields for medical personnel, and providing DIY instructions for anyone with access to a 3D printer.

Radio

This excellent Los Angeles Times article by Randy Lewis reminds us of how radio remains a strong resource even for those in our community who lack Internet access. People are tuning the dials for hyperlocal information about the availability of resources, for comfort, and hope. If your business is doing something that would help local customers, consider calling into the nearest radio station to share your story. Obviously, avoid being overly-promotional, and do consider whether this might be a good time to invest a little more in formal radio advertising.

Newspapers

Almost any town with a newspaper is printing abundant information about community resources right now, including lists of operational companies like this one in the Marin Independent Journal. Reach out with your news and volunteer to be interviewed to spread the word about how your business is serving the community. These unstructured citations from trusted online news outlets can help local searchers find your business and even boost your rankings. Consider paid news ad spots as well, if it’s in your budget.

Local television and video media

I thought this multi-location appliance company, Airport Home Appliances, did an excellent job with their local TV ad spot regarding their current operations, which they also posted to YouTube. Your audience is mainly homebound now, and Nielsen finds that local TV is becoming the preferred choice for accessing news and information in the United States. If it’s in your budget, even a basic local television ad could reach many customers at this time. If now isn’t a good time for your brand to invest, get something up on YouTube and embed it on your website.

Local, regional, or industry podcasts

If your area or business category is lucky enough to have a good podcast, reaching out to the podcaster to share what your business is doing could help you broadcast your offering to a wider audience. Check out this episode of the Tennessee Farm Table (theme song guaranteed to get stuck in your head), in which podcaster Amy Campbell gives a running list of Appalachian businesses providing local food to residents. Whether you simply get mentioned or take the next step of being interviewed by a podcaster, this medium is one to embrace. And, if your area has no local podcast, think about launching one to create a more connected community.

Being the helpers

Fred Rogers Memorial Statue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Image Credit: Wally Gobetz.

I hope you’ve seen something in this article that could help support your local brand’s goals to sustain itself in the coming months. A commonality across all the examples I’ve reviewed of COVID-19 business adjustments is that regular, open communication with customers to understand and meet their needs is simply essential right now. Your customers’ stated requests are your best playbook for this unscripted moment.

It’s my heartfelt wish that you’ll see the fruits of today’s extraordinary efforts in tomorrow’s customer loyalty. My teammate, Dr. Pete, recently shared an article with me in which the author described how Marks & Spencer’s provision of clothing during Great Britain's World War II textile rationing earned decades of devoted patronage because customers felt the retailer had “been there” for them when it mattered.

Being there at the present may mean transitioning some operations online, onto street curbs and parking lots, or into delivery vans, and how you communicate availability matters more than ever before. I’m inspired by seeing the ingenuity and kindness of the “helpers” Fred Rogers spoke of, in community after community.

There’s no denying that this is a challenging time for local search marketing, and yet, at the same time, local promotional skills have never been more critical. Take a second to imagine our communities if we were still limited to once-a-year phone book updates of business information, and I think you’ll quickly see just how vital a resource the local Internet has become.

Can you be a helper today? Please, comment about your own business, your clients’ brands, or any company in your town that you’re seeing make a special endeavor to serve communities. Your story could spark a new idea for a local business owner to keep a neighborhood or even an entire city afloat. Thanks for being a helper.

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