In this vlog, Dan Willis of millennialmotivator.ca visits Sanwichi, a sandwich shop in Ottawa, to demonstrate how a small brick‑and‑mortar business can succeed on social media. He argues that small businesses should prioritize content marketing over paid ads, select only the platforms they can consistently service, post as frequently as their capacity allows, and actively engage with their local community. Dan highlights the power of visual platforms like Instagram and emerging opportunities on YouTube for food‑focused businesses. He also shares his own publishing cadence (daily posts on multiple platforms and weekly live reviews) as a practical example. The video concludes with a call to action for viewers to reflect on their own social media priorities.
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Social media is awesome for any business, right? Right? Stick around, I'm going to show you that absolutely any business can find success using social media properly. Let's go. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I am Dan from millennialmotivator.ca, helping you learn how to create, engage, and And inspire. If you're new to the channel, click that subscribe button down there and the little bell. You'll get a notification when I go live next. I put up videos Monday through Saturday teaching you how to use online media, digital media, video marketing to grow your businesses and hit success. Whether you're a small business owner or an entrepreneur, this is the place for you. Today what we're looking at, and I'm pretty pumped about this, we're going live, we're going on the road, we're going to visit a little place in the west end of Ottawa, and I'm going to show you guys that even a small brick-and-mortar business can find success online. Let's go. All right guys, time to get rolling here. Headed into Ottawa, gonna check out a business that's stoked about using video marketing. Thought we'd go along for the ride on the channel. Let's do this. All right guys, business meeting. Guy runs a sandwich shop. What do you got to do? You got to go get sandwich stuff. All right, guys, that's it. We had an amazing day at Sanwichi. It was a blast. Had a phenomenal time with Paul and Romina. Beautiful restaurant. Love what they're doing. Love their vision, their focus, and their drive. Now, what I want to share with you guys is a few of the things that we discussed to help them grow their business and to help really nail down what you as a small business owner can do and break some of the bad habits that small businesses have. So let's get this going. Small businesses, for some reason, feel that they have to operate the exact same way as a big business, and this is not true. It's just not true. Okay, what do I mean by that? I mean Big business like Coke and McDonald's drop millions of dollars in advertising every single year. And small business sees that and says, okay, I don't know how we're going to compete, but I know we have to compete. And we have to use paid ads. And we have to use this paid ad and that paid ad. And the reality is, guys, I think a lot of small businesses shoot themselves in the foot by not seeing what they can do first with content marketing, second, paid marketing, right? So the reality is this, guys, if you're a small business owner, Is it necessary for you to use paid marketing? Maybe, maybe. First and foremost, you need to acknowledge the fact that content marketing can be very powerful, especially for places like the place that we visited with sandwiches, right? Sandwiches, food, anything of that nature. There are all kinds of networks out there that you can plug into, create content, which is your food, and showcase it online. Pinterest, Instagram, uh, Yummly. There's all kinds of great places, Yelp, that you can go and create content and showcase your content and have people be aware of who you are and what you're about. It's so powerful and so simple. I highly recommend you do it. I highly recommend you hit it up. And this is one of the big things that I noticed almost right away is a lot of the dialogue that we had to get started was, where should I spend my ad money? And my response was— Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hit the brakes. Drop the ad money, drop the different social networks that are out there trying to plug you on their ad program, and let's take a look first at how you're creating content and how you're engaging with the community. So what are the next tips? No surprise, creation of content and community content creation, guys. Now this is one that blows me away. The rule for me is this: create as much content as you possibly can on every network that you choose to be engaged with. Now, there are a couple key elements to what I just said. As much content as you can create on the networks you choose to engage with. So, can create, choose to create on, right? So, should you be on every single social network? Maybe, maybe. I think you should only take on as many social networks as you are actually capable of creating content for. So I know for myself, I am on several networks, but I work in digital marketing professionally. So I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. That's where I'm at. That's where you'll see posts from me. Twitter, you'll see a couple times a day. Instagram, you'll see a couple times a day. Facebook, I do one post a day. YouTube, I do one video a day. LinkedIn, I do one post a day. This isn't a massive amount of content for some of those channels. You're only seeing one piece of content. Content today, but the reality is that's as much as I— that's right— can create. I'm not bound by any rule or system that says I must create 10 posts today in order to be successful. I feel that you guys should be out there creating as much content as you possibly can. Now, that doesn't mean you going, well, Dan, I created 3 and that's more than your 1. Well, if all you've got is 1 network, you're only on Instagram, and you only put up 3 posts today, the same as me, as somebody who's using multiple networks, I think you're falling short of an opportunity. And that's something you need to engage with as a social business. Be active. And this is one of the things that this restaurant was doing phenomenally. All day long they're on Instagram posting stuff out. It was a beautiful thing to see. But I think there's opportunity, there's new networks. And I actually— one of the big things that I went to go talk to them about was the power of YouTube for them, right? They've got amazing things, and I don't want to blow the blow the surprise when they actually come up with it, but they're gonna be doing something pretty cool on YouTube that I'm very excited about. Know that I'm gonna be involved with them in the future, and you'll see that channel evolve onto YouTube. But it's, it's such a powerful tool, guys. Choose which networks are working best for you, okay? If LinkedIn isn't the place to be for you, you create, you create content like Logan Paul, or you create content that's music-based content. Maybe LinkedIn isn't the place for you, and that's fine. You have to target the networks that are relevant to your niche and demographic. Furthermore, you need to make sure that you choose how often you're putting content out. Make sure you're just driving as much content as you can out into there. Now, that's the content creation side of things, guys. Where is most of your time in the day when you're running a small business? It's in running the small business. So don't feel bad if it's only one post a day that you can consistently put out on the networks. At least you're doing that. Another core part that gets overlooked massively though is the community aspect of a small business. All right, so let's take a look at that. That's it for today, guys. Thank you so much for watching. I know this video was supposed to be out yesterday, and my most sincere apologies. I had had an idea to edit and compile this video on the live that I do every Saturday, By the way, if you're not catching those, every Saturday I do reviews of websites, social media, and YouTube channels. So if you want to be a part of that, noon Eastern Standard Time every Saturday, you can check it out. If you click the bell, you'll get a notification when I go live. So click the bell, click the bell. But other than that, uh, what was I saying? Right. Uh, that's it for today though, guys. Thank you so much for watching this. If you are a small business, hopefully this is helpful. Question of the day is Which of these things do you need to address as a small business? Do you need to put your ad revenue last? Do you need to make sure that you're posting as much content as possible where you choose to use that content, which social networks you choose to use? And are you engaging in a community? Let me know down in the comments below what you think, and I will catch you Monday with another great video. See you then.
