Most Guyanese businesses already do their marketing on a phone — a WhatsApp status here, a photo of today's stock there. That instinct is right. What's missing is a page that gathers it in one place, looks like your brand instead of somebody's template, and is still working for you at midnight when a customer in Brooklyn is deciding where their mother's birthday cake is coming from. That is what a RockYard business page is for. Here is how to set one up properly, in an afternoon.
1. Claim the name customers already say
Your handle should be the name people call you, not the name on the registration certificate. If the whole village says "Auntie's" and the paperwork says "A&R Catering Enterprises," the handle is Auntie's. Set the display name, add your location — customers filter by whether you can actually reach them — and write two honest sentences about what you do and when. "Cook-up every Saturday from 6am. Pepperpot at Christmas." beats a paragraph of mission statement every time.
2. Make it look like your shop, not our platform
On RockYard you set your own colours, your own banner, and a square profile picture if you have a logo — because a logo in a round hole gets its corners cut. Use a photo of the actual shop front for the banner if you have nothing else; for a local business, recognisability is branding. Then put the contact row to work: WhatsApp, phone, hours, location, menu. Everything a customer needs to give you money should be one tap from your page — no "link in bio" scavenger hunt.
3. Post what you were already doing
Businesses freeze on social platforms because they think they need "content." You don't. You need evidence — proof of the work, filmed while it happens:
- The bakery: trays coming out at 5 a.m. Thirty seconds. Done.
- The salon: one before-and-after per day, with the client's blessing.
- The market stall: what came in fresh this morning, filmed in one pass.
- The band or the church: go live. Your congregation and your fans abroad will carry the stream further than any advertisement.
- The hardware store: answer one real customer question a week on camera. A year later you own the most useful reel library in your trade.
One post a day, filmed in under five minutes, beats a professional campaign you never quite get around to commissioning.
4. Remember who is watching from abroad
The diaspora is not just an audience — it is a paying customer with family at your address. They order the birthday cake, pay for the repairs, send the barrel, fund the school shoes. When your page shows the work clearly and the WhatsApp number works, you become the business their money reaches. Post with those viewers in mind: prices they can see, a number that answers, delivery details spelled out.
5. The blue check, when you're ready
Verification is free, and for a business it is granted against the certificate of registration with a named person responsible. It is not decoration: it is how a customer sending money from Toronto knows your page is really yours and not somebody trading on your name. Worth doing as soon as your page is dressed.
And when you outgrow the page? Little Rock also owns a radio station and a television channel — a business page here can grow into a produced advertisement on 88.5 Rock FM or LRTVS Channel 10, made by the same house, in one booking. Start with the page. Message us on WhatsApp when you want the airwaves.