8 Franchisee Social Media Marketing Tips to Boost Local Traffic

Consistency is the key to having a successful social media marketing strategy for your franchise.

Franchisors must create a profitable brand and a successful business model. Franchisees, on the other hand, must maintain brand reputation to help preserve its value.  

The question, however, is how can you work with your franchisor to create a cohesive social media marketing strategy that’s optimized for franchise SEO?

In this article, we will teach you how to market your franchise on social media while maintaining brand consistency and cohesiveness.  

But, first things first!

What is a Franchise?

For those unfamiliar with franchising, it's a business that sells the right to use a business’ name and products or services to an individual (franchisee).  

Franchisees then open and operate their own location or branch. For example, Popeyes is a franchise corporation, and each Popeyes location is owned by different individuals who bought a franchise license.  

In exchange, Popeyes provides these franchisees with supplies and training and helps them market new locations too.  

To avoid any confusion, let's define some terms we'll be using frequently across this blog:

• Franchisor: A term used for the owner of the corporation or umbrella business.  The franchisor is the one who maintains branding control over franchise branches.  In the example above, Popeyes is the franchisor.  
• Franchisee: Owner of one of the locations under the franchise corporation. Franchisees pay a one-time fee to the corporate owner to buy the right to use an existing business' brand or trademark. It also includes covering the costs of getting the business set up, training, and onboarding.  

3 Common Social Media Challenges Franchisees Face

Aside from making sure that they follow brand guidelines to a T and trying to meet social media goals, franchisees also face other social media marketing challenges like the following:

Stand out from your competitors.

Competition is fierce – not just among franchises operating in your region but also those who have similar products or services that you're offering.  

Although brand awareness is already established for the franchised business, it's still crucial that you impress the audience in your specific location and continue to engage them.  

This can foster brand loyalty and keep your brand at the top of their minds. Monitor your hashtags, the branded keywords your followers are using, and what types of content people engage with the most.

Social listening will give you an idea of what people are saying about your brand and topics relevant to it. It will also give you an idea of what kind of topics and content to publish more for better engagement.  

Differentiate your branch from other franchise locations.

It’s difficult when you’re not the only franchisee operating in your region or area because it means you’ll have to compete against them too.  

If this is the case, you’ll have to get a sense of what the people in your neighborhood prefer. To stand out among the different branches in your area, here’s what you need to do:

• Analyze your social analytics to understand what resonates with your followers and target audience on social media.  

• If there are multiple branches in your city, use your neighborhood location in your hashtags.  
• Use a tone consistent with your brand but, at the same time, appropriate for your customer base. For example, a Tim Hortons location in Florida will likely use a different style than a branch in Rhode Island, whether in terms of visuals, slang used in captions, or referencing local traditions.  
• Use search engine analytics to gather information about your target audience in your neighborhood. This will make it easier for you to tailor your branch’s tone and make it more appealing to them.

Not enough resources to have a dedicated social media team.

Small branches don’t have the same resources as big corporations do so you might end up doing your own social media. The only problem is you may not have the skillset to crush it on Facebook or Instagram.  

But don’t worry! Practice, dedication, and learning the basics will help you get there!

The key here is logging into your business’ social media accounts regularly. 65% of users use social media for customer service. Be active on the platform to engage with customers and provide them with the prompt service they want.  

Another trick you’ll find useful is using a social media calendar. A social media calendar will make it easy for you to plan and schedule your content in advance.  

This way, you’re consistently posting on social media, making it seem like you’re active on the platform even when you’re busy doing other things.  

8 Social Media Marketing Tips for Franchisees

1. Read Your Franchisor's Social Media Policies

Before you create social media accounts and develop a strategy for your franchised business, check your franchise’s social media policies and guidelines first.  

Some franchisors don’t allow their franchisees to create location-specific social accounts. If your franchisor does allow it, make sure to follow the guidelines.  

These guidelines will be the foundation of a solid social media strategy. They can help keep your posts on brand and allow you to launch a cohesive, professional social media account that’s aligned with the brand voice.

2. Research Competitors in Your Area

Research your competitors and analyze their social media marketing strategy.  

Your competitors include the following:

• Franchisees within the same franchise and operating in the same city as you.
• Local businesses that offer the same products or services.  
• Franchisees from a different franchise who provide similar products or services as you.

Examine how your competitors are using their social media accounts on various platforms.  

Since your target audience is likely the same as your competitors’, figure out what types of content get the most engagement from their followers. You also want to spot trends about what topics your audience like and don’t like.  

Doing this will give you new ideas for content that resonates with your target audience and better understand how to communicate with them. It also provides insights on how to differentiate your branch from the crowd.

By determining your competitor’s social media marketing and franchise SEO strategy, you can copy their best practices and avoid mistakes.

3. Set S.M.A.R.T Goals

Part of creating a successful social media strategy for your franchised business is setting SMART goals. So, ask yourself this: what do you hope to achieve with social media?

Some of the most common social media marketing goals are:

• Drive traffic to the website
• Generate more leads and sales
• Increase brand awareness
• Establish online authority
• Communicate with customers

Setting SMART goals makes it easier for you to develop social media marketing activities that align with your objectives.  

Once you have a clear goal, you can now track key performance metrics more accurately. You can measure, adjust, then refine your strategy to achieve better results.  

4. Develop a Social Media Content Plan

As a franchisee, you’re most likely provided with marketing materials you can use to sell products or promote services.  

However, it's still crucial to have a social media content plan. This way, you can plan your content for the entire month, plot it out on your calendar, and use a scheduler.  

Schedulers enable you to publish your posts according to the schedule automatically.  

Here are some points to remember when developing a content plan:

• Determine what posts your target audience engages with to give you an idea of what content resonates with them or topics they're interested in.  
• Categorize your content into three categories: promotional, educational, and entertaining. Alternate posting between different categories instead of just always trying to sell to your followers. This makes your account feel less salesy and more authentic.  

• Decide on the different types of content formats you'll use. Since you're already provided with visuals to promote your products or services, incorporate this into your content plan. However, we've noticed that these marketing materials tend to be too salesy, so you may want to take things to the next level by creating original content that’s still consistent with the brand. For example, use the same template as your marketing materials to create an original post featuring customer testimonials. You may also publish videos about product hacks or tips that you know are useful to your audience, explore the Stories feature, and use it to your advantage.  
• Create a plan on how to engage your audience on social media. It's not enough to just post generic content like the rest of the franchisees operating in your region. Take your business to the next level by doing an “Ask Me Anything” session on your Facebook or Instagram Stories, conducting polls and surveys, including calls to action in your posts, posting funny memes, asking questions, and doing branch-specific giveaways.  
• Repurpose your old content by turning it into videos, blogs, or infographics.  
• Encourage your customers to create content for you. User-generated content is a great way to build confidence in your brand and encourage others to buy from you.  

Having a content plan ensures that your posts are consistent and cohesive with the brand even though you've added a little twist to it.  

5. Be Active in The Local Community

What's the best way to attract customers to your neighborhood? Get active in the local community! When you support and participate in charity events and trade shows, it makes your business a part of the neighborhood.  

Plus, you can generate more foot traffic to your location. Make sure to document your participation by posting about it on social media and using relevant hashtags!  

6. Don’t Go Overboard with Your Posts

Posting on social media can be fun, especially when you’re getting a lot of attention and engagement from your followers. But don't get carried away and post more than a couple of times per day.  

The best practice is to post once a day, and no more than twice a day.  

If your followers keep seeing posts from your company every single day, they’re going to get annoyed and unfollow you. Use your social media to provide casual updates, not constant advertisements.  

7. Connect with Your Audience

Social media is the perfect platform to connect with your audience and build a genuine relationship with them. So, you should be doing just that on your social media accounts!

You want to respond to customer DMs quickly, whether it’s a product inquiry or concerns about your services. You also want to with users in the comments section, like their posts, and share user-generated content!

Doing this will help humanize your franchise and position you in a place that’s closer to their hearts.  

8. Hire a Social Media Marketing and Franchise SEO Agency

If you have the budget, it's best to invest in a digital marketing agency that can handle social media and franchise SEO for you.  

It will make your life 101% easier. Plus, you will begin generating leads online almost immediately!

If you’ve got zero skills for social media or SEO, it’s best to entrust this part of your business to experts.  

When you work with a digital marketing agency, you don’t have to worry about content planning, logging in constantly to your social media accounts, creating a content calendar, and many more.  

This gives you more time to focus on running your franchise and doing things you love!

Take Your Business to The Next Level with Social Media and Franchise SEO!

Are you not getting as much foot and web traffic as you were hoping to generate when you first bought your franchise? Don’t worry, we can fix that!

At Digital Resource, our social media marketing experts and franchise SEO specialists will work with you to create custom content and SEO strategy that will put your branch ahead of your competitors and help you get more customers.  

Contact us today to start getting more leads and making more sales!

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