Business Owners
Owners needed a reason to return after publishing.
Once a business created a profile, Shop Latte needed a lightweight way for owners to keep their presence active without asking them to constantly manage another platform.
2024–Present
Block Post
Building Repeat Engagement
Key Insight
Block Post was designed as a fairer visibility loop for small businesses — giving owners a reason to return, customers a reason to check back, and updates a better chance of reaching people who actually care.
After a business published its profile, Shop Latte needed a way for owners to stay active and for customers to see what was happening locally. I designed Block Post as a lightweight community publishing system where businesses could share events, sales, launches, and updates with people browsing their community — without the pressure, noise, or randomness of a traditional social feed.
The Opportunity
Static profiles needed a way to stay active.
Customers
Customers needed timely reasons to check back.
A profile helps customers understand a business, but timely posts help them discover events, sales, launches, and updates happening in their community.
The Challenge
The system needed to create visibility without becoming another social feed.
Small businesses already rely on social platforms where visibility can feel unpredictable, noisy, and disconnected from real customer intent. Block Post needed to give owners a reason to post while keeping the feed fair, local, and useful for customers who were actively looking for businesses, events, sales, and community updates.
Social Feed
- Algorithmic visibility
- High posting pressure
- Random or low-intent viewers
- Louder accounts can dominate
Community Board
- Randomized visibility within 7 days
- One post per week per business
- Shown to people browsing that community
- Filters for events, sales, and updates
Key Observation
Small businesses did not need another place to perform.
Business owners already juggle products, customers, operations, social media, newsletters, events, and marketing. Block Post needed to create visibility without asking owners to constantly post, chase engagement, or compete for attention in another feed.
01
Social visibility often comes with pressure.
Small businesses are expected to post often, stay consistent, and compete for attention, even when they have limited time and resources.
02
Views are not always the same as useful visibility.
A post may get impressions from people who are not local, not interested, or not in the mindset to support a business.
03
Local discovery creates higher-intent attention.
On Shop Latte, customers do not need to follow a business first or continuously search for updates. Timely posts can appear where people are already browsing local businesses and community activity.
Product Approach
A fairer visibility loop with intentional constraints.
Block Post was designed to create recurring activity without rewarding constant posting or algorithmic performance. The system used posting limits, randomized visibility, community-based browsing, and post filters to help timely updates reach higher-intent customers.
One post every 7 days
A weekly posting cadence reduced spam, lowered content pressure, and prevented one business from dominating the feed.
Randomized post visibility
Posts were randomized within the 7-day window to create fairer exposure across businesses instead of ranking updates by popularity or recency alone.
Community-based audience
Posts appeared to people browsing the business's community, making the audience more relevant than broad social views from people who may not be interested.
Filters for customer intent
Post types such as community, event, and sale helped customers focus on the updates they cared about, from local events to ways to meet small businesses in person.
How It Works
A simple flow for sharing timely updates.
Block Post was designed to be lightweight: businesses create a short update, the post appears in local discovery, and customers can use it as a path into the business profile.
Business Shares an Update
Owners create a short post for an event, sale, launch, announcement, or community update.
Post Surfaces Fairly
Updates appear within a randomized 7-day window so one business does not dominate the local feed.
Customers Browse by Intent
Customers can filter for sales, events, and community updates to find timely ways to support small businesses.
Platform Benefits
A different kind of visibility loop.
Block Post gave small businesses a way to stay visible without relying on followers, algorithms, or constant posting. Instead of asking owners to chase attention, updates appeared in a local discovery context where customers were already looking for businesses, events, sales, and community activity.
Less pressure for owners
A weekly posting limit gave businesses a simple reason to return without making visibility depend on constant content creation.
More relevant attention
Posts reached people browsing a business's community, making the audience more aligned than broad social media views from people who may not be local or interested.
Fairer exposure
Randomized posts within a 7-day window helped prevent one business from dominating the feed while giving customers a rotating view of local activity.
Impact
Block Post created visibility without adding more pressure.
The feature gave Shop Latte a lightweight engagement loop that worked differently from social media. Businesses could share timely updates at a manageable pace, while customers could discover local activity without needing to follow every business or search across multiple platforms.
A post-onboarding reason to return
After publishing a profile, businesses had a clear next action: share what was happening now. This helped Shop Latte support ongoing participation without relying only on profile edits.
Higher-intent visibility
Posts appeared in a local discovery context where customers were already looking for small businesses, events, sales, and community updates — not in a broad feed where attention may be random or low-intent.
A fairer update system
A weekly cadence, randomized visibility, and post filters helped keep the feed useful, rotating, and easier to browse by customer intent.
Reflection
Engagement does not have to mean more content.
This project helped me think about retention with more restraint. Small businesses already have enough places demanding constant updates, so the goal was not to make them post more. It was to make the updates they already had easier to share with people who were more likely to care.