"Small Business Saturday" Campaign Boosts City Merchants

By: NY1 News

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The city's small businesses are hoping to cash in on the holiday shopping rush with their own special day today.Small Business Saturday is in an effort to boost business for smaller merchants during this big shopping weekend.
The campaign focuses on social networking to get traffic into small businesses between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, two of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Sponsor American Express has given 10,000 businesses $100 worth of free Facebook advertising to help drive online buzz and get customers into their stores.
"It's great to have American Express as an advocate for small businesses, being that small businesses are the driving force of the economy here in America today," said one entrepreneur.
"People are feeling the stress and the strain of the economy and we thought it's better in a collaboration," said another. "Why don't we all collaborate together and come up with the idea that if we partner and shop with each other for our needs, we can help strengthen the community."
Customers are also encouraged to help promote their favorite businesses through Facebook and Twitter.
For every person that "likes" Small Business Saturday on Facebook, American Express will donate $1 to Girls Inc., which encourages young women to become entrepreneurs.
For more information about Small Business Saturday, call 311 or visit SmallBusinessSaturday.com or nyc.gov/consumers.