Social Media Marketing for Franchise Businesses
Social media marketing is always a challenge and an adventure, but if your business is a franchise it can present specific and special challenges that other businesses don’t have. In particular, the rules and guidelines established by the brand or parent company for exactly how you’re allowed to market are of utmost importance. Of course, one advantage a franchise has is that the parent company will usually take care of a lot of advertising at a national level – but that doesn’t always translate into local effectiveness.
So how should you go about making the best use of social media to promote your business online? Here are a few tips.
Make yourself aware of the Franchiser’s social media policy
If they don’t already have one in place for you (they should), ask them for specific guidelines to follow so you don’t run afoul of any of their branding or advertising requirements or restrictions. Any company in this day and age should have a social media policy created that’s readily available.
Emphasize your area
Your Franchiser, as mentioned, is probably already taking care of a lot of national branding campaigns and advertising that makes the brand well-known, but you need to emphasize your franchise as well as the brand. The best way to do that is to emphasize your own community or region with your campaigns, targeting the customers who will use your franchise or location in particular. One of the most common and effective ways to do this is to partner with or at least promote local events and organizations that will resonate with your customers.
Use hashtags and keywords to cover both national and local recognition
To draw attention to both the brand and your individual franchise using a moving company called Fast Moving, you might mention #FastMoving and #FastMovingSussex or #FastMovingGreenville in your posts to bring attention both to the company and your local presence. These hashtags and keywords can be used both in posting and in social listening for your analytics.
Hire a social media management company
This isn’t always a necessity, but it might be a big help. The franchiser is likely large enough to have their own social media team, but your franchise is probably a much smaller team. If you don’t have the resources available to handle your own social media accounts in an effective way – and if it’s not effective it’s a waste of time – outsourcing to a social media management company can more than pay for itself.
See what your competitors are doing
Other businesses you compete with locally are likely on social media too. See what they are doing and how successful their campaigns are in terms of likes, shares, followers, etc. Do the same for other franchises around the country that are under the same brand umbrella as you. As long as you’re following whatever guidelines are set by the franchiser, this might be the single best thing you can do to establish a winning campaign strategy.
If you need help managing and marketing the social media for your franchise, reach out today for a free consultation!