Little Bee Soap Co. started with one idea: how do we make natural skincare accessible?
Sounds boring, right?
So, let me rewrite that. How do we create thoughtful, plastic-conscious skincare using traditional methods, carefully selected ingredients and a little more consideration for the world around us?
Now we’re getting somewhere.
The goal has always been to create something that celebrates the ingredients we work with, respects the skin and brings a little bit of everyday luxury into people’s lives. But in a world of mass production, glossy corporate marketing campaigns and increasingly digital shopping habits, how do we make our little voice heard?
We are a small, independent soapery based in Southsea, Portsmouth. We aren’t a factory. We don’t have a production line running around the clock, and we aren’t trying to compete with businesses producing thousands of products a day. We make our soaps by hand, draw inspiration from our seaside surroundings and believe there is something special about creating things slowly, with care.
We want to build something that feels as though it could have belonged here a hundred years ago, while finding its place in the modern world.
And that brings us to social media.
Finding your people
The internet is a big place, but our message will always remain the same.
Finding your people.
I think the biggest realisation I have come to while marketing on social media is not to fall into the ‘appeal to everyone’ trap. Not everyone is going to be interested in us, and that’s okay. They aren’t necessarily our customers.
It’s incredibly important for you to create the kind of content you believe in. Your message will be clearer, your brand will feel more authentic, and the people who genuinely connect with what you do will have a reason to stick around.
When you try to convince everyone, your message gets diluted. I’ve found that when a brand tries to be everything to everyone, it can become difficult to understand what it actually stands for.
Keep a clear stance on who you are and what your brand represents.
For Little Bee Soap Co., that means traditional craftsmanship, thoughtful ingredients, sustainability, animal welfare and celebrating the place we call home. It means talking about the work that goes into making a bar of soap, the ingredients we choose, the packaging we produce ourselves and the local stories that inspire our products.
It also means accepting that not every post will go viral, not every person will understand what we’re doing, and not every trend deserves our attention.
The right community is worth more than a fleeting moment of attention.
Building a business in public
Social media has changed the way small businesses can begin, grow and connect with customers. You no longer need a huge advertising budget or a shop on every high street to introduce your products to the world.
You can start with a phone, a product you’re passionate about and the willingness to show people what you’re building.
But there is a difference between using social media to sell a product and using it to tell a story.
We want people to understand that Little Bee Soap Co. is more than a collection of pretty soap bars. There are decisions behind every product, experiments that don’t always go to plan, hours spent researching ingredients, and the practical realities of running a small business from the ground up.
There is a person behind the packaging. A family behind the business. A reason why we do things the way we do.
As a founder, it can be tempting to show only the finished product: the perfectly cut soap, the beautiful packaging, the carefully arranged photographs. Those images have their place, of course. But the process is just as important.
People are curious about how things are made. They want to know where ingredients come from, why one material is chosen over another, what inspires a particular scent and who is doing the work.
Showing that process helps bring people into our world.
It also reminds us that building a business is not always a polished experience. There is learning as you go, making mistakes, changing direction and trying again. Sharing that journey can be uncomfortable, especially when you’re still figuring things out yourself, but it is also one of the things that makes independent businesses human.
We aren’t just selling soap. We’re inviting people to follow the creation of something that matters to us.
A Victorian seaside soapery in a digital world
Southsea has its own character. Its seaside heritage, independent businesses, creative community and relationship with the natural environment all contribute to the identity we want Little Bee Soap Co. to have.
The idea of a Victorian seaside soapery isn’t about pretending we live in the past. It is about taking inspiration from a time when craftsmanship, local trade and the making of everyday essentials were tangible parts of community life.
We love the thought of a traditional soapery that belongs to its surroundings: somewhere that celebrates the coastline, draws inspiration from nature and creates products with a sense of place.
Our approach to making soap reflects that philosophy. We use traditional cold-process methods, work by hand and take care over the details, from selecting our ingredients to designing and producing our packaging.
We also want our business to reflect the values that matter to us today. That includes considering waste, making thoughtful purchasing decisions, supporting local beekeepers and celebrating the importance of bees and biodiversity.
There is a lovely contrast in building a business inspired by traditional craftsmanship through a platform that represents the speed of modern life.
One moment, we might be cutting and preparing a batch of soap; the next, we’re filming the process, editing a video, writing a caption and trying to understand why one post reaches hundreds of people while another reaches only a handful.
The making of the soap takes patience. The marketing often demands immediacy.
Learning to balance the two has become part of running the business.
The algorithm isn’t your business partner
It is easy to become consumed by numbers on social media.
Followers, likes, views, shares, saves, reach. Every platform has its own measures of success, and there is always another account growing faster or another trend promising to transform your marketing overnight.
For a small business, those numbers can feel incredibly important. Visibility matters, particularly when you are trying to introduce an unfamiliar brand to people who have never heard of you.
But numbers can also distract you from the reason you started.
A post with thousands of views doesn’t automatically translate into customers. A smaller post might start a meaningful conversation, introduce you to a future stockist or connect you with another founder who shares your values.
We have to remember that social media is a tool. It is not the business itself.
The algorithm doesn’t know why you started your company, what you want to achieve or what you have sacrificed to get here. It doesn’t know the hours spent making products, the money invested in ingredients or the excitement of seeing your work on a shop shelf for the first time.
And it certainly doesn’t know what success looks like for you.
That is something you have to decide for yourself.
For us, success means growing Little Bee Soap Co. into a business that people recognise, trust and want to be part of. It means building relationships with customers and stockists, creating products we are proud of and making space for the values that inspired us in the first place.
Growth matters, but not at the expense of everything else.
I would rather build a community of people who genuinely care about what we’re doing than spend every waking hour trying to make a stranger on the internet press a like button.
Collaboration over competition
One of the things I want Little Bee Soap Co. to stand for is the idea that independent businesses don’t have to treat one another as competition.
There is room for collaboration, shared learning and mutual support.
Small businesses often face similar challenges. We are learning how to market ourselves, manage costs, find customers, build relationships with stockists and keep going when things don’t happen as quickly as we hoped.
It can be isolating, particularly when social media makes everyone else’s business look as though it is thriving effortlessly.
But what if we used these platforms to support one another instead?
What if we introduced our audiences to businesses we genuinely admire, shared useful knowledge rather than guarding every little secret, and created opportunities for collaboration instead of viewing every other founder as a threat?
At Little Bee Soap Co., supporting female-founded businesses and embracing collaboration over competition are important parts of the culture we want to build.
That doesn’t mean every business will be the right partner, or that commercial realities disappear. It means recognising that another independent founder’s success does not automatically diminish our own.
A thoughtful collaboration can introduce two communities to one another, bring different creative ideas together and create something neither business could have achieved alone.
Social media gives us the opportunity to make those connections, even when we might never have met otherwise.
I think that is one of the most exciting things about building a small business online. The same platforms that can make us feel as though we are constantly competing can also help us find people who want to see us succeed.
Keeping the human touch in an age of AI
We are building this business at a time when artificial intelligence is changing how people create content, communicate with customers and market their products.
There is no denying that these tools can be useful. They can help small businesses save time, organise ideas and make certain tasks more manageable, particularly when there isn’t a large team behind the scenes.
But when content can be generated in seconds, I believe there is an even greater value in showing what makes a business genuinely human.
A handmade product has a process behind it. A founder has a story. A local business has a relationship with its surroundings. A community has shared experiences that cannot simply be manufactured by following a trend.
Technology can help us communicate those things, but it cannot replace the need to know what we stand for.
For us, the answer isn’t to reject the digital world. It is to use it without losing the qualities that make our business distinctive.
We can embrace new tools while continuing to make our products by hand. We can use social media to reach people far beyond Portsmouth while remaining rooted in Southsea. We can grow our audience without allowing the pursuit of visibility to dictate every decision we make.
Most importantly, we can remember that there are real people on the other side of the screen.
The person who watches a soap-making video over their morning coffee. The customer looking for a thoughtful gift. The independent retailer searching for a local maker. The founder wondering whether anyone else is finding it difficult to build a business.
Those connections are the point.
Building something that lasts
Little Bee Soap Co. is still a journey. We are learning, experimenting, developing products and finding our place in a busy marketplace. There is plenty left to do, and we don’t pretend to have every answer.
But perhaps that is the beauty of building a business in public. You get to share the process, not just the destination.
We want to create a soapery that feels connected to its heritage and its community, while being thoughtful about the future. We want to make products with care, champion other independent businesses and show that traditional craftsmanship still has a place in a world that increasingly values speed and convenience.
Social media gives us a way to tell that story. It allows us to open the doors of our little soapery, share the details of our work and invite people to become part of what we’re building.
We don’t need everyone to listen. We just need to keep speaking clearly to the people who care.
Because, ultimately, building a business online isn’t simply about learning how to attract attention. It’s about deciding what deserves that attention in the first place.
And if we can use the digital world to bring people closer to craftsmanship, community and more thoughtful ways of doing things, then perhaps the old-fashioned soapery and the modern internet aren’t such an unlikely pairing after all.
Maybe the future doesn’t have to mean leaving the past behind.
Maybe it means finding a way to carry the best parts of it forward.
