What has two arms and two legs however can go in 289 instructions directly? Every of your franchisees on social media. Eek. How do you retain advertising messages, branding, and buyer expertise in line with, fairly actually, so many cooks within the kitchen?

Concern not, franchisor: Right here’s how one can plan, execute, analyze, and keep a profitable franchise social media advertising technique that each one your franchisees will get enthusiastic about.

What is franchise social media marketing?

Franchise social media marketing is promoting your brand and engaging customers at both the corporate and local levels, while ensuring messaging and values remain consistent across all social profiles.

In a centralized corporation, the company owns all locations (or branches) and there is one chain of command. Simple.

In contrast, an individual or another company owns each franchise company location. These branches are technically separate entities, although they must report back to the parent organization, pay licensing fees, and follow the brand’s established practices.

One of the most well-known franchise examples is McDonald’s, with over 38,000 locations worldwide. Every restaurant is individually owned and operated by franchisees, however clients see the identical signage and menu gadgets — and hopefully, have the identical expertise — at each location.

Franchisor: An organization that owns the emblems and rights to a model who sells licenses permitting franchisees to function enterprise places utilizing the trademarked model.

Franchisee: An individual or firm who pays a licensing charge and recurring royalties to open a enterprise leveraging the guardian firm’s current model, title, companies, and different proprietary property.

The distinctive challenges of franchise social media advertising

Imposing model tips

You need franchisees to benefit from social media advertising to develop their (and your) enterprise, however how do you keep away from a cringe-worthy fake paus, like utilizing an outdated emblem in advertising supplies?

Reply: Creating an in depth brand guidelines document and retaining it the place all franchisees can entry the most recent model, alongside along with your model property.

Keeping content quality consistent

Besides using the right visuals and brand voice, there’s additionally the considerably ambiguous judgment of social media content material “high quality.” What’s good in relation to content material anyway?

Examples of consistency will be so simple as guaranteeing every submit is freed from spelling and grammar errors. Or sticking to at least one exclamation level as a substitute of 5. You realize, the straightforward issues.

These high quality requirements must also be a part of your model tips doc.

Dividing obligations

Will your company head workplace deal with all social media advertising, utilizing one account per platform? Will you create separate model accounts for various areas or languages?

Or, will every franchise open and keep their very own social media accounts?

Neither method to franchise social media advertising is unsuitable. Simply you should definitely doc your construction in your social media marketing strategy.

Monitoring efficiency and ROI

Was the final Black Friday promotion efficient? Or was it solely efficient in a sure market? Or just for a sure franchisee? What did they do in a different way on social in comparison with the opposite franchisees?

Getting efficient efficiency knowledge is essential for all companies, however particularly for franchisors managing groups of franchisees.

Utilizing social media for customer support (successfully)

Offering customer support over social media is not elective: 40% of your customers now anticipate you to assist them on their most popular social platform. Over half (53%) usually tend to purchase from manufacturers who provide customer support by way of chat. And, unsurprisingly, 94% of people say optimistic customer support makes them extra seemingly to purchase from you once more.

You higher hurry, too: 40% expect a response inside an hour and 79% anticipate one inside 24 hours.

So what does all that imply? In the event you’re not already fixing buyer issues on social media, begin now. (Don’t fear: I cowl how one can effortlessly get began with social customer support later.)

Adjusting content material to suit various cultures

Whether or not your franchisees are unfold throughout your state, nation, or your complete world, it’s seemingly that totally different kinds of content material will carry out in a different way throughout every area. Your social media content material must respect variations in tradition, attitudes, legal guidelines, and extra to resonate with as many individuals as potential.

Localization can be about greater than geography. Creating multilingual content material can set up you because the model of selection for thousands and thousands: 2 out of 3 customers would change to a model providing service of their native language.

11 methods for profitable franchise social media advertising

1. Set targets for the model and for particular person branches

Each weblog submit about social media advertising for the reason that dial-up days spouts the significance of setting targets and KPIs to measure the success of your efforts, so I don’t have to. However right here’s how to set social media goals that truly increase ROI, plus a free template to trace all of it.

Franchisors, one of the best ways to measure progress is to set targets in your group as an entire, plus separate social media targets for every department.

You each need the identical factor — Development! Revenue! Loyal clients! — however the way you go about reaching these targets shall be totally different. For instance, every department goes to have a a lot greater function in customer support and engagement than your head workplace (assuming every location will handle their very own social profiles).

In that case, targets for branches might be:

• Delivering a response time underneath 1 hour for all DMs.
• Customer support satisfaction survey scores above 90%.
• Rising follower counts and engagement charges. (Psst: use our free engagement rate calculator to see the way you stack up.)

Whereas targets in your group shall be extra brand-focused, akin to:

• Monitoring and enhancing your brand reputation.
• Utilizing social listening to proactively handle potential PR crises and conduct aggressive analysis.
• Supporting franchisee success by sharing analytics outcomes and training them on social media advertising finest practices.

2. Create a do’s and don’ts information

You want three tips to share with franchisees:

• Brand guidelines: All of the visible elements of your model, like which emblem model to make use of, colours, how one can spell product names and in the event that they want trademark symbols or not, and so on.
• Social media policy: You could possibly embrace this inside a bigger model tips doc. This spells out your model voice,
• A do’s and don’ts information: Consider this as a fast, point-form one-pager itemizing out crucial social media “guidelines.”

A do’s and don’ts information ought to function a cheat sheet franchisees can use to evaluate whether or not they need to submit one thing or not. Stating clear expectations is one of the best ways to keep away from potential PR disasters, and in your franchisees to really feel assured about what they’re posting.

Best Buy doesn’t name theirs a “do’s and don’ts” however it’s clear and to the purpose:

Preserve your tips and coverage paperwork the place all franchisees can simply entry them. It may be so simple as a Google Drive folder. Put visible property in the identical folder too, akin to emblem information, so your franchisees all the time know the place to get probably the most up-to-date variations.

Need assistance? Seize our free social media policy template, and verify this whole information to brand guidelines.

3. Standardize publishing flows

That is the place the facility of a scheduling instrument is available in. Positive, you’ll be able to schedule content material without cost on many of the platforms’ native apps, however a publishing workflow is a lot greater than simply scheduling.

For instance, for those who set your group up with Hootsuite, you additionally get:

• Shared Canva templates for on-brand content material: Earlier I discussed how essential consistency is. With our Canva integration, you’ll be able to let franchisees entry customized branded Canva templates proper from Hootsuite Composer, guaranteeing everybody’s visuals are prime notch.
• Fast onboarding and account entry: You keep Tremendous Admin privileges for all accounts and it’s straightforward to arrange new franchisees at scale.
• Deep analytics insights: With all of your franchisee accounts related in Hootsuite, you may get a macro or micro view of key analytics with a couple of clicks. Simply establish prime performing content material concepts to share with all franchisees and all the time know your social ROI.
• Highly effective publishing instruments: The customized Best Time to Publish characteristic routinely schedules content material for when every profile’s viewers is probably to see it. Plus: Drafts, a visible calendar planner, inbuilt promoting choices, and extra.
• Straightforward content material approval: Need to assessment every submit earlier than it goes public, and simply collaborate on edits or revisions with franchisees? Hootsuite does that, too.

Plus, supercharge your franchisees’ advertising energy with OwlyWriter AI. Good for each novice social media entrepreneurs and execs alike, OwlyWriter immediately generates ready-to-post content material that truly feels like your model.

Get all of the deets in underneath 60 seconds:

4. Observe analytics (regionally and globally)

You already know analytics knowledge is crucial for realizing in case your social media advertising technique is working. However analytics are much more essential for franchisors as a result of it’s good to measure your general progress, and have the ability to break down efficiency by department.

Hootsuite Analytics makes it straightforward to see every thing you want immediately.

Get the large image overview of all of your franchisors directly, throughout all platforms, or break it down by area, platform, or particular person department.

See what’s working (and what’s not) earlier than campaigns finish, permitting time to pivot if crucial. No extra spreadsheets or having to log into every platform’s web site to get the numbers you need. Save your key metrics as customized experiences, able to view, export, or share with only a few clicks.

That is one other massive benefit of setting franchisees up in Hootsuite: They get environment friendly content material scheduling and also you get complete analytics.

Don’t know what to trace? Right here’s every thing it’s good to arrange your social media analytics the appropriate approach.

5. Conduct department social media audits

Don’t panic at the usage of “audit” — it’s painless, I promise. A social media audit is a approach of routinely evaluating efficiency and figuring out enchancment alternatives.

An audit opinions:

• Present social media platforms
• Model consistency
• Analytics experiences
• Status and sentiment by way of social listening tools
• Targets and ROI

It’s a repeatable course of you need to use to see how your franchisees’ social media advertising goes. Use it to reward and amplify top-performing content material, and to establish areas of enchancment to educate them on.

How usually must you run a department social media audit? That’s as much as you, however I’d recommend at the very least quarterly to verify in, and yearly, earlier than updating the subsequent 12 months’s advertising plan and funds.

Learn how one can do a social media audit and snag our free template, or watch under:

6. Assist branches with design templates

One of many largest challenges your franchisees seemingly have with social media advertising is creating content material, particularly visuals like graphics or movies.

The common creator spends 1-5 hours per week creating content material, which doesn’t sound like a ton of time… if social media is your full-time job. However for a lot of franchisees, it’s not.

Plus, over 1 / 4 (27%) spend 5-10 hours and a complete of 30% spend over 10 hours per week on content material.

Supply: Statista

Fortunately, that is one thing you’ll be able to simply resolve in your franchisees. Create pre-designed content material templates that solely want small tweaks earlier than scheduling and publishing.

Set up a template library with Hootsuite’s built-in Canva integration so your franchisees can customise and insert templates proper inside Hootsuite Composer.

We’ve even bought 50 free Canva social media templates to get you began.

7. Create a fast begin equipment

Whether or not you determine to handle your franchisees’ accounts with Hootsuite or have them handle their very own, a social media “fast begin equipment” may also help.

Your equipment might embrace:

• Really helpful social platforms to make use of.
• Naming practices (e.g. @BrandNameCityName) to maintain branding constant.
• Model tips.
• A fundamental one-pager protecting social media advertising targets and expectations.
• Hyperlinks to the place you retain up to date copies of name tips, technique paperwork, property, and different gadgets they’ll often check with.
• Tutorial movies exhibiting how one can arrange social accounts, add logos, schedule posts and/or submit posts for approval, and so on.
• Suggestions on how often to post.

Plus anything you need franchisees to know instantly about how your organization does social media advertising.

8. Construct a social customer support technique

As talked about earlier, your clients anticipate to get good service out of your franchisees’ social media profiles.

However how do you:

• Guarantee all franchisees are offering the identical caliber of customer support?
• Set response time benchmarks?
• Measure buyer satisfaction?
• Construct genuine relationships with clients?

Shock: the reply is Hootsuite.

Yep, Hootsuite Inbox 2.0 is right here with all-new options to make social customer support straightforward and efficient in your franchisees:

• Unified Inbox: Branches can see and reply to DMs and feedback throughout all their social platforms inside Hootsuite, as a substitute of getting to log into platforms individually.
• 24/7 service: Night time owl buyer? No downside. You possibly can setup autoresponders to guarantee clients you’ve obtained their inquiry and once they can anticipate to listen to again from you. That is particularly useful outdoors of enterprise hours.
• Time-saving instruments: Auto-filter messages, save customized replies, and look at cross-channel message historical past so your buyer doesn’t should re-explain themselves.
• Sensible chatbots: Want to supply customer support at scale? Harness the facility of AI to resolve buyer issues immediately with adaptive, conversational chatbots.
• Highly effective analytics: Measure response instances, buyer satisfaction scores, reply quantity, and tons extra to guage efficiency general and per department.

Hootsuite Inbox dramatically boosts your social customer support capabilities and makes it straightforward in your franchisees to make sure each buyer feels valued.

Try all Hootsuite Inbox 2.0 features in-depth, or higher but, request a free demo to see it in motion.

9. Leverage worker advocacy

One of many quickest methods to develop a brand new franchisee’s social media presence is to encourage their staff to become involved. Worker advocacy can enhance natural attain as much as 200% and profits up to 23%.

Plus, a third of employees already share their firm’s content material with out being requested.

Apart from moolah and attain, worker advocacy additionally has other benefits:

Supply: Hootsuite and Altimeter Research, Social Transformation Report

Worker advocacy will be so simple as staff sharing your content material to their private networks, or you’ll be able to go a step additional with Hootsuite Amplify: a devoted area for pre-approved posts.

Apart from getting access to a library of ready-to-share content material, staff can generate customized captions in their very own fashion with built-in AI writing instruments.

Bringing staff into your advertising technique can strengthen their engagement degree and minimize your paid promoting prices on the identical time. A win-win for you and your franchisees.

10. Encourage buyer opinions

Testimonials encourage belief, in each the franchisor and franchisee.

If clients are already leaving opinions on Google, Yelp, or your social media profiles, share them. Create a branded graphic your franchisees can copy and paste current opinions into for fast content material that’s — to cite Pokemon — ”tremendous efficient.”

Folks rank buyer opinions, and different user-generated content material, as 2.4X more authentic than something a model produces, even when your newest business has A-Listing Hollywood expertise. That’s essential as a result of whereas 92% of entrepreneurs assume they’re producing genuine content material, solely 51% of shoppers agree.

No have to search out opinions. Set up Hootsuite Streams to trace opinions and mentions of your model, and share it with a couple of clicks.

11. Share top-performing content material suggestions

Did a submit from considered one of your branches go viral? Work out why, then share it for example for all of your franchisees.

The way you share any classes realized relies upon the way you’ve arrange your franchisee advertising construction. You could possibly ship out a month-to-month publication protecting nice submit examples and finest practices. Or, host a weekly or month-to-month webinar or convention name about social media technique for all franchisees to participate in. You too can maintain it easy with a Slack or Discord group chat to showcase and talk about nice content material.

Everybody advantages from sharing social media success tales.

Hootsuite powers franchise social media advertising with environment friendly scheduling, publishing, and buyer engagement instruments in your franchisees, and superior analytics, collaboration, and branding instruments for you — throughout all platforms. See it in motion.

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