15 February, 2023
Angie Sutton, Copywriter at Clash Creative
What is Alignable network? Essentially, Alignable network is a location-based social media platform for small businesses. It’s a networking opportunity for small businesses to connect with other small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in their area. We took a deep dive into this app to determine whether or not it’s worth including in your digital marketing strategy. Read on to learn about its features and benefits and our industry opinion on its value to your small business.
Alignable Explained
The intention of this platform isn’t to sell anything — it’s to connect with other small businesses in your area and support each other. It’s described as a small business referral network; it works by connecting business communities together and increasing word of mouth for your business. Sound familiar? It’s a lot like LinkedIn but with no customers to market to, only small businesses. Alignable is designed for small businesses only, so if you’re an enterprise-level company, you need not waste your time.
What’s the Platform Used For?
The goal is to make connections with other small businesses in your area, but if you’re using the free version, you can only make 10 connections per month with the closest 500 businesses in your networking radius. To increase your networking radius and the number of connections you can make, you’ll have to upgrade to one of the paid versions. The other objective is to give and receive referrals. So, you’ll spend time writing referrals for all the businesses you connect with only to keep your fingers crossed to see if they return the favour. There’s also a Business Advice Forum where companies can ask and answer specific or general questions related to small businesses. In summary, the platform is used to connect small businesses but you are limited to only 10 per month, and most (all) businesses would benefit from networking beyond the closest 500 businesses of their location.
Alignable Features
Unless you pay for premium features, Alignable’s free features are quite similar to other more popular platforms. There are three paid plans that incrementally increase your connection radius, allowing you to see information about who is visiting your page and getting you promoted in the algorithm. You can even pay to get a verified badge, making you more visible to everyone in the community but making the app less valuable unless you pay for visibility. However, the cost is pretty low, ranging from approximately $200 to $1,000 annually. With that being said, there are some worthwhile free features. The community calendar can be useful to share events and promotions in your area. You can also send direct messages to your connections and create a group chat of up to 20 businesses. These two features would be great if everyone in the community is working together to promote each other.
What Are the Benefits?
Being connected to other local businesses is a great way to build a community. Spreading awareness of your business to other businesses might make for co-promotion and collaboration opportunities. And if you’re a company that supplies products or services to other businesses, Alignable’s B2B marketing potential is high. But you’ll have to pay for the premium features to get decent results and be noticed. Alignable makes it easier to connect with other SMBs in your area and it gives you a platform to share products and services, give and get referrals, and share and receive advice.
How to Create an Alignable Strategy
You can use Alignable, but keep this in mind: you get what you put in. This is an active social media platform. Making connections and getting referrals will require you to actively seek out businesses that align with your company. Your efforts won’t stop with searching though; you must consistently write referrals and promote other companies’ products, all in the hopes that your connections will do the same for you. To create a strategy, we would suggest allocating an employee or giving yourself time each month to focus on increasing your network’s size and have someone keep up with notifications weekly on the platform (sharing, liking, reposting, asking/answering questions, and writing referrals).
Should You use Alignable for Your Business?
Are the benefits of this platform enough, and are they worth the cost? Alignable could be effective for businesses that need a good B2B network, but then you have to make sure you’re not advertising to other companies because that’s not what the platform is supposed to be used for.
We have a B2B Networking group on our Alignable profile that we update with great resources. We have made connections with companies all over North America and gained business from this networking. You just have to be prepared to put in the effort for any return on investment. Most of the free features are available on platforms, like LinkedIn and Facebook, and you aren’t limited to a geographical location. Any small business that sells nationwide would have to pay for the highest package to be able to connect with businesses anywhere in Canada or the U.S. We think it’s worth it for B2B marketing but there are other platforms out there to make connections with small businesses that also allow you to connect with potential customers.
We Can Build You a Personalized,
Solid Strategy on the Right Platforms
Clash Creative can help you create a personalized strategy for your business’ digital marketing on Alignable or other platforms. We offer services for Social Media Management and Content Marketing that will get you noticed by potential customers and other SMBs. Our packages are customizable and affordable. We can refresh your website, update your SEO, and improve your brand positioning. Don’t pay to join a platform and then have to put in hours of work — let us do the work for you. Book a call today!
Copywriter at Clash Creative
