Franchise Social Media Marketing Best Practices for Growing Businesses

The popularity of social media keeps increasing, and its relevance keeps cutting across different aspects. Social media meets franchisee in one area that's potentially contentious in the marketing relationship. It compares lightly to the proverbial no-man's land between enemy lines; hence, the presence of many minefields that people fail to explore. Social Media has grown to become very important in helping brands reach customers across boards.   

In our times, the importance of using a powerful franchise social media strategy  to building a brand cannot be overemphasized. What's not so clear to many people, however, is how they can leverage this opportunity.   

Social media control by franchisor is excellent fit for the following:

• Building a brand that's not limited by place. 
• Control and protection of brand
• Provision of bull horn to help promote products and services
• Driving businesses to franchisees.

 
Franchisee Control of Social Media is Great For: 

• Acknowledgement of holidays and local culture
• Acknowledging volunteer opportunities and handling local community services
• Connecting with local customers the support of local sports teams. 
• Knowing and connecting with customers, irrespective of their state of happiness.

 
The question, therefore, is who should have control of the different social channels? Who should be in charge of managing the day to day activities of those social channels? Who will take charge for providing content for the channel? What strategies should be put in place for resolving customer issues across different channels? Is it right or wrong to make the policy the same across different channels? 

Unfortunately, the answers to these questions may not be as easy as they sound. It's often dependent on the brand, or industry in question. 


For example, it might be sensible for a restaurant chain that uses a standardized menu to centralize their brand on Twitter. On the other hand, a haircutting saloon might need to show off special promotions and expertise level in their local Instagram feed. 

Twitter Social Media Marketing for Franchise Business Owners

Perhaps, Twitter is the most obvious channel where corporate franchisors are needed to take the rein, while local franchisees step down to the backseat. Twitter is a brand vehicle and it doesn't come with any review components like Facebook. Moreover, it's primarily a global platform.

Of course, people look up to Twitter for solving local issues that they experience from time to time. But these are issues that your corporate social media team can also handle. The whole process of trying to combine the running of local franchise Twitter handles with main brand can confuse anybody, plus it typically doesn't bring back as much returns as you'll want. 

Instagram & YouTube Social Media Marketing for Franchise Business Owners

These two are classified as visual media, but a brand can also channel them to be personal and highly specific. This characteristic makes them well-suited to carry contents that are customized to be location-specific. 

In the same vain, without the expertise of a dedicated corporate marketing team, many franchises marketing teams would find it extremely difficult to create polished videos that will positively represent the brand. In the end, the franchise may decide to reside this channel with corporate to share it with franchisee accounts. It all depends on the nature of your franchise and the brand's ability.

LinkedIn Social Media Marketing for Franchise Business Owners

LinkedIn is designed to function primarily as a business to business social network. Therefore, not too many customers look to this platform when they want to make purchases. However, it can be useful for franchisors providing professional services.

Corporate franchisors, on the other hand, may only use it on the side of their business that involves attracting new franchisees to the fold. Generally, LinkedIn easily passes as a location where franchisors keep centralized control of the brand. It typically does not offer any location-based features that allow branch information as it is with Facebook. When people list individual locations on their resumes, they typically roll up to the national page. Having said that, franchisors can channel their efforts to bringing local offices into the loop by including CTOs that will direct people back to their brand website.

Paid Advertising 

Another important strategy that will catapult you to the search results of your potential customers is paid advertising. Most cooperate enterprises would often have a part of their budget reserved for PPC advertising such as Google AdWords. This type of advertising involves companies bidding for search terms. The highest bidder would have their link shown on the search result pages as a sponsored option. PPC can be a critical tool for franchisers that are looking to build on a brand level. 

Having said that, local listings and reviews are some of the best options to go with when it comes to grabbing the attention of local customers.   

Analytics

Having a constant awareness of the progress and outcomes of your email marketing can help you find ways through which you can grow better. Email marketers often take note of the following statistical measures:

• Open Rate - This refers to the amount of people that get to open your emails. It will help you get a better knowledge of the behaviour and responsiveness of your email list.
  
  
• Click-To-Open Rate - Among the people that open your email, this is the percentage that really clicked and entered the email. This process will help you find out the degree of importance placed on your emails and designs. Since most costumers probably won't read over a few paragraphs, it is important that you keep your emails brief and direct.

Sometimes, the franchisors and the franchisees keep a different email list. In such cases, the franchisors don't need to worry much about branding. They just simply equip the franchisees with adequate email marketing tools, then create guide lines and means to supervise the activities and results.
You may also create email templates that are not completely editable so that there are little restrictions and limits on the number of emails that can be sent and when they can be sent, without necessarily refusing the franchisees the freedom to operate and communicate with their lists. 

Compliance 

If you intend to build an email list you will want to be sure you understand and adhere to the laws guiding emails and spam. For example, every email sent must include an unsubscribe link, where people can opt out of your email. 

Segmentation 

It’s a good idea not to send emails to your entire list every time. Some email tools will allow you to create lists of your most active accounts (people who open and click on most emails you send) and mark them for a more frequent communication cadence, while gathering less committed customers onto a list to contact less frequently or with more blockbuster offers. 

Testing 

Testing is the life-blood of email marketing and is recommended even for local franchisees. You can conduct an A/B test, where sample groups are sent two different options of email, and the winning email goes to everyone. Each test you send provides you with more information to understand what your customers will respond to. 

Personalization 

Many email systems allows you to include tags that will fill based on the email profile. This won’t work if you only have an email, but if you gather names along with your email collection, you can send an email that says  “Hi [firstname]”. Personalization can be very effective in email marketing, as studies show consumers engagement rises when they see their own names.   

Customer Referral Offers 

Many franchisors try to gain more clients by persuading their customers to suggest and recommend their franchises to other people. This referral system is mostly effective when tips are offered to the customers as extra motivation. 

Social Follows or Email Sign-up Offers 

When social media was newly introduced, businesses often offered coupons to attract followers on social media platforms. Although it's not as popular as before, you can still find franchises that adopt this technique to build a list of customers. In some companies like the Coyote Ugly Saloon, to access free Wi-Fi, one must fill the sign up page that involves customer information and promotes social follows.