The COVID-19 pandemic hit Black-owned small businesses the hardest, causing them to close at twice the rate of other small businesses. And those that survived were facing the roughest road to recovery.

This coincided with a rise in holiday shoppers’ interest in supporting Black-owned businesses, particularly among members of the Black community and younger consumers.

So we brought our #BuyBlack Friday campaign back for a second year and expanded it with additions like The #BuyBlack Shop in Los Angeles. Expansions like this made it easier for people to shop with Black-owned businesses during the holiday shopping season, a critical time.

Our vision for this holiday season campaign was to redistribute the energy of the biggest retail day of the year, Black Friday, to celebrate and support Black-owned businesses. We did that by turning every Friday into November into a #BuyBlack Friday.

But that was just the beginning.

A year after our first #BuyBlack Friday campaign, Black-owned businesses still needed support more than ever. So we wanted to provide even more in the second year.

Our new objectives were to provide more support beyond the holiday season, feature more Black-owned businesses, expand to other countries and add in-person elements to this previously virtual-only campaign.

This expansion would help us do more in pursuit of our overall mission: to create more economic opportunity in Black communities by providing more ways for Black-owned small businesses to increase their sales. So it was time for #BuyBlack Friday to evolve and grow.

With #BuyBlack Friday, we turned every Friday in November into a Black Friday for Black-owned small businesses. But we wanted the second year to provide even more support.

So we made the movement even bigger with new elements like:

? The #BuyBlack Shop in Los Angeles — a pop-up shop with a shoppable window display that featured 10 local Black-owned businesses

? Expansion to Brazil and Australia — live shows, a festival and other programs to help the movement reach millions more people

? Gift guides curated by celebrities — collections of products from Black-owned businesses, curated by Ciara, D-Nice and Daymond John

? Live shopping during the #BuyBlack Friday Show — a format change that turned the weekly variety show into a fun shop-a-thon

Our target consumer audience includes holiday shoppers who are interested in socially conscious shopping, particularly Black people and young people. The target business audience includes Black-owned businesses and other businesses that support racial justice.

Our approach was to create celebratory moments and methods for shopping with Black-owned businesses during the holiday season.

? The #BuyBlack Friday Show featured live shopping with product pop-ups from each featured business’s Facebook shop.

? The #BuyBlack Shop used QR codes to make the window display shoppable on Facebook and Instagram.

? #BuyBlack Friday in Brazil featured live shows, a festival and more, hosted on Facebook and Instagram.

? #BuyBlak Friday in Australia celebrated First Nations business owners on Facebook and Instagram.

? Curated gift guides featured products from Black-owned businesses in Facebook Shop collections each week.

This year’s campaign was also designed to provide a starting point for more long-term support for Black-owned businesses.

The #BuyBlack Friday Show was broadcast live in the Facebook app’s Shop and Watch tabs every Friday in November. It incorporated live shopping with product pop-ups from each featured business’s shop.

The #BuyBlack Shop occupied retail space in Los Angeles’ Fairfax shopping district for eight weeks. It featured 10 local Black-owned businesses, with QR codes that made the window display shoppable.

#BuyBlack Friday gift guides were released each week, featuring products from 74 Black-owned businesses.

#BuyBlack Friday in Brazil featured live shows, a podcast and an acceleration program that provided funding and training to 50 Black female entrepreneurs. We also co-hosted the Feira Preta Festival, Latin America’s biggest Black community event.

#BuyBlak Friday in Australia featured an on-platform campaign, a creator campaign and an editorial partnership with The Guardian.

We featured 103 Black-owned businesses in this big movement with a big message: #BuyBlack and make a difference with every dollar.

The expanded #BuyBlack Friday campaign brought the movement to millions more people.

The campaign reached more than 20 million people in Brazil and got 5 million impressions in Australia.

The #BuyBlack Shop in Los Angeles got 1.24 million organic impressions from 10 social media influencers — 25.2% more than our target of 0.99 million organic impressions.

And the #BuyBlack Friday Show attracted 19 million unique views — 27% more than our goal and benchmark, the 15 million unique views from the first year.

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“Thank you for sowing into our business and providing us with the means to continue."

?—Obia Ewah, owner of OBIA Naturals

“[#BuyBlack Friday] presented me with opportunity after opportunity to keep my business growing.”

?—Annette Njau, founder of House of Takura

“This has been phenomenal, absolutely surreal. … I am forever grateful. This means the world to us.”

?—Meeka Davis, co-owner of One-of-a-Kind Hats