Black-owned Friday is a Google initiative that transforms the busiest shopping time of the year into a day to purposefully support Black-owned businesses in our community. We made this year’s campaign bigger than just Black Friday by encouraging shoppers to choose Black every single day—showing them how to do it by actually letting them virtually experience it. Because social media has long been a tool for discovery and thanks to sound-based social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts, music has become tied to how we discover new things. Social media is especially helpful for discovering businesses to support and for shopping inspiration with nearly half of those surveyed utilizing social media to learn about Black-owned businesses.* We wanted to contribute to the ecosystem where people post daily about restaurants or items they've purchased. So social became an integral part of connecting Black-owned brands with the consumers looking for them. Each participating person had a role to play in helping this vision come to life; From Ludacris and Flo Milli to cameos and influencers to small businesses and shoppers. We first launched the official Black-owned Friday song, “Buying All Black,” on direct streaming platforms and social media platforms to get the song all over people’s newsfeeds and get the song stuck in the heads of listeners. By leveraging Ludacris and Flo Milli’s fanbases and social savviness, the fans and business owners alike made their own videos showing off their brands or favorite Black-owned businesses. We sustained this energy by working with a range of influencers to create content showing how they support Black-owned businesses in their everyday lives using the Black-owned Friday anthem. In addition, Black-owned brands like S3ktion8 hopped on the trend to show off their products and services. People got the message and ran with it, creating over 1,000 videos showing off their businesses and favorite Black-owned brands. The song ultimately became a powerful tool to help Black-owned businesses find customers and customers discover new Black-owned businesses to support. The campaign was picked up in over 80+ publications and had reached 429M. We had 14M+ YouTube views in the first two weeks, surpassing the total views of last year's campaign by 3M in less than one month. With over 200k social engagements and 267% in Y/Y increase, we saw a major lift in social conversation around Black-owned businesses. And people weren’t just watching and talking, they were shopping. Over 1.2M+ visitors visited the Black-owned Friday interactive music video microsite with more than 30K clicks to learn more about the featured products and businesses. There were over 1.3K videos and posts showing off Black-owned businesses using the “Buying All Black” track across Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube with 99% positive social sentiment. ______________________________________________________________________________________ *ActiveCampaign 2022 Black-owned business guide, conducted by Dynata