American Express Teams Up With TikTok to Help Small Businesses This Holiday Season
American Express has partnered with TikTok to launch the Shop Small Accelerator, a new program to help small business owners reach a new generation of shoppers for Small Business Saturday on Nov. 26.
According to American Express, the program will include an offer for eligible small business owners to earn a $100 TikTok advertising credit as well as access to tools and resources to think like content creators.
Lifestyle creators Anna Sitar and Sofia Bella, along with small business owner Brandon Blackwood, will teach small business owners how to use TikTok as a search engine; leverage sounds, trends, hashtags and communities; and how to drive engagement with users. To help small businesses get discovered by new audiences, American Express has also partnered with musical artist Chlöe Bailey to create a “Shop Small Soundtrack,” which TikTok users can add to their content.
“Our Shop Small Impact Study found that 67% of Gen Z users have shopped from a small business that was displayed on their for you page,” Elizabeth Rutledge, chief marketing officer at American Express, said in a statement. “Shopping small has a significant impact on helping local communities, with two-thirds of every dollar spent at small businesses staying within the local community.”
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Sofia Hernandez, global head of business marketing for TikTok, added in a statement that an increasing amount of small businesses are already turning to the social media platform to take the viewer inside their world in a “fun authentic” way. “The real world impact is undeniable, with 44% of TikTok users saying that they discovered something on the platform and immediately went out to buy it, according to our Global Retail Path To Purchase Study,” said Hernandez.
The partnership, which runs throughout the holiday season, is part of the credit card company’s goal to drive $100 billion in reported consumer spending at small businesses from 2021 through 2025.
Small Business Saturday was created in 2010 to help small businesses and communities thrive. Since then, it has turned into a nationwide Shop Small movement that is celebrated annually and is critical for small businesses during the holiday shopping season.
Last year, consumers spent more than $23 billion shopping small on Small Business Saturday.
