The drive encouraging people to love local in Forres, saw the Digital Community Award presented to the volunteer-run Moray Local CIC.

A suite of websites and social media platforms are at the heart of the initiative to drive customers to local shops and promote businesses, clocking up hundreds of thousands of pageviews.

Judges heard: “Visit Forres now features an online shop that is open to local businesses to sell products. This provides an online platform for individuals and businesses who can’t afford the expense of setting up their own online shop. The Forres app, gives visitors another way to explore the area, pulling content from the website including business listings, events and local attractions.”

Unfortunately, no-one from Forres Local was available to attend the awards. But the prize was collected on their behalf by Kimberley Guthrie, Interim Chief Officer of Scotland’s Towns Partnership.

Finalists

‘Like a Local’ – Forth Valley Food and Drink 

Forth Valley Food & Drink’s ‘Like a Local’ social media campaign is an innovative use of digital technology to support and promote local food and drink businesses in the Forth Valley region. Through a series of engaging and immersive social media posts throughout July and August, the campaign connected locals and tourists alike with the vibrant culinary scene and natural beauty of the area. 

The campaign reached over 6,000 people, and successfully leveraged digital technology to create a vibrant and engaging narrative around local food and drink in Forth Valley, ultimately contributing to the promotion of local businesses and tourism in the region. Forth Valley Food & Drink also engaged with Scotland Food and Drink on the campaign to take advantage of their digital reach; as well as sharing it with tourism channels Visit Scotland and Stirling Alive. The campaign will be built upon this autumn, with a planned follow up blog series – ‘party like a local’ showcasing catering outlets and ‘shop like a local’ highlighting places to buy local produce.

Lokali Shop, Inverurie

The current E-commerce arena is dominated by global giants negatively impacting enterprise, communities and the environment. The presence of online shopping continues to grow, yet many local businesses struggle to break into the space.

Lokali is an online marketplace (browser and app) connecting consumers with local businesses, enhancing the local shopping experience by providing a one-stop shop for all local offerings. Digitising local high-street offerings addresses the current inability of SMEs to easily sell their products online. The initial development and pilot has been carried out in Inverurie, through Inverurie BID, and has demonstrated how connectivity and collaboration in a localised area can contribute to sustainable growth.

Lokali’s impact on the local area is evident through the promising vendor onboarding statistics. Out of 39 businesses fully approached, 22 were successfully onboarded with a localised product inventory of 6000+ items, attesting to the platform’s active engagement and resonance within the community.

Thanks to our supporters for this category: