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 per, fairly actually, so many cooks within the kitchen?
Concern not, franchisor: Right here’s how to plan, execute, analyze, and keep a profitable franchise social media advertising technique that every one your franchisees will get enthusiastic about.
Franchise social media advertising is selling your model and interesting prospects at each the company and native ranges, whereas guaranteeing messaging and values stay constant throughout all social profiles.
In a centralized company, the corporate owns all places (or branches) and there’s one chain of command. Easy.
In distinction, a person or one other firm owns every franchise firm location. These branches are technically separate entities, though they need to report again to the mum or dad group, pay licensing charges, and comply with the model’s established practices.
Some of the well-known franchise examples is McDonald’s, with over 38,000 places worldwide. Every restaurant is individually owned and operated by franchisees, however prospects see the identical signage and menu gadgets — and hopefully, have the identical expertise — at each location.
Franchisor: An organization that owns the logos 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 payment and recurring royalties to open a enterprise leveraging the mum or dad firm’s present model, identify, companies, and different proprietary property.
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Imposing model tips
You need franchisees to take advantage of 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to develop their (and your) enterprise, however how do you keep away from a cringe-worthy fake paus, like utilizing an outdated brand in advertising supplies?
Reply: Creating an in depth model tips doc and maintaining it the place all franchisees can entry the most recent model, alongside along with your model property.
Preserving content material high quality constant
Moreover utilizing the best visuals and model voice, there’s additionally the considerably ambiguous judgment of social media content material “high quality.” What’s good when it comes to content material anyway?
Examples of consistency might be so simple as guaranteeing every submit is freed from spelling and grammar errors. Or sticking to 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 strategy to franchise social media advertising is mistaken. Simply make certain to doc your construction in your social media advertising technique.
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 contrast to the opposite franchisees?
Getting efficient efficiency information is necessary 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 optionally available: 40% of your prospects now count on you to assist them on their most popular social platform. Over half (53%) are extra probably to purchase from manufacturers who provide customer support by way of chat. And, unsurprisingly, 94% of individuals say constructive customer support makes them extra probably to purchase from you once more.
You higher hurry, too: 40% count on a response inside an hour and 79% count on one inside 24 hours.
So what does all that imply? Should you’re not already fixing buyer issues on social media, begin now. (Don’t fear: I cowl how to effortlessly get began with social customer support later.)
Scale back response time (and your workload)
Handle all of your messages stress-free with simple routing, saved replies, and pleasant chatbots. Attempt Hootsuite’s Inbox at this time.
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Adjusting content material to match various cultures
Whether or not your franchisees are unfold throughout your state, nation, or the complete world, it’s probably that completely different types of content material will carry out in a different way throughout every area. Your social media content material wants to respect variations in tradition, attitudes, legal guidelines, and extra to resonate with as many individuals as attainable.
Localization can also be about greater than geography. Creating multilingual content material can set up you because the model of alternative for thousands and thousands: 2 out of three prospects would change to a model providing service of their native language.
1. Set objectives 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 objectives and KPIs to measure the success of your efforts, so I don’t want to. However right here’s how to set social media objectives that really increase ROI, plus a free template to monitor all of it.
Franchisors, one of the simplest ways to measure progress is to set objectives in your group as an entire, plus separate social media objectives for every department.
You each need the identical factor — Development! Revenue! Loyal prospects! — however the way you go about reaching these objectives shall be completely different. For instance, every department goes to have a a lot larger function in customer support and engagement than your head workplace (assuming every location will handle their very own social profiles).
In that case, objectives for branches may very well be:
- Delivering a response time beneath 1 hour for all DMs.
- Customer support satisfaction survey scores above 90%.
- Rising follower counts and engagement charges. (Psst: use our free engagement price calculator to see the way you stack up.)
Whereas objectives in your group shall be extra brand-focused, similar to:
- Monitoring and bettering your model repute.
- Utilizing social listening to proactively handle potential PR crises and conduct aggressive analysis.
- Supporting franchisee success by means of sharing analytics outcomes and training them on social media advertising greatest practices.
2. Create a do’s and don’ts information
You want three tips to share with franchisees:
- Model tips: All of the visible facets of your model, like which brand model to use, colours, how to spell product names and in the event that they want trademark symbols or not, and so on.
- Social media coverage: You possibly can embody 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 a very powerful social media “guidelines.”
A do’s and don’ts information ought to function a cheat sheet franchisees can use to choose whether or not they need to submit one thing or not. Stating clear expectations is one of the simplest ways to keep away from potential PR disasters, and in your franchisees to really feel assured about what they’re posting.
Greatest Purchase doesn’t name theirs a “do’s and don’ts” but it surely’s clear and to the purpose:
Hold 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, similar to brand recordsdata, so your franchisees at all times know the place to get essentially the most up-to-date variations.
Need assistance? Seize our free social media coverage template, and test this entire information to model tips.
3. Standardize publishing flows
That is the place the ability of a scheduling device is available in. Positive, you’ll be able to schedule content material totally free on a lot of the platforms’ native apps, however a publishing workflow is a lot greater than simply scheduling.
For instance, when you set your workforce up with Hootsuite, you additionally get:
- Shared Canva templates for on-brand content material: Earlier I discussed how necessary 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 high notch.
- Fast onboarding and account entry: You keep Tremendous Admin privileges for all accounts and it’s simple to arrange new franchisees at scale.
- Deep analytics insights: With all of your franchisee accounts linked in Hootsuite, you may get a macro or micro view of key analytics with a number of clicks. Simply establish high performing content material concepts to share with all franchisees and at all times know your social ROI.
- Highly effective publishing instruments: The personalised Greatest Time to Publish function robotically schedules content material for when every profile’s viewers is more than likely to see it. Plus: Drafts, a visible calendar planner, inbuilt promoting choices, and extra.
- Simple 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 professionals alike, OwlyWriter immediately generates ready-to-post content material that really appears like your model.
Get all of the deets in beneath 60 seconds:
4. Monitor analytics (domestically and globally)
You already know analytics information is important for realizing in case your social media advertising technique is working. However analytics are much more necessary for franchisors since you want to measure your total progress, and have the ability to break down efficiency by department.
Hootsuite Analytics makes it simple to see every little thing you want immediately.
Get the massive 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 needed. 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 reviews, prepared to view, export, or share with only a few clicks.
That is one other huge 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 monitor? Right here’s every little thing you want to arrange your social media analytics the best manner.
5. Conduct department social media audits
Don’t panic at using “audit” — it’s painless, I promise. A social media audit is a manner of routinely evaluating efficiency and figuring out enchancment alternatives.
An audit critiques:
- Present social media platforms
- Model consistency
- Analytics reviews
- Repute and sentiment by way of social listening instruments
- Objectives and ROI
It’s a repeatable course of you should 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 coach them on.
How usually must you run a department social media audit? That’s up to you, however I’d counsel at the least quarterly to test in, and yearly, earlier than updating the following yr’s advertising plan and price range.
Learn how to do a social media audit and snag our free template, or watch beneath:
6. Assist branches with design templates
One of many greatest challenges your franchisees probably 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 clear up in your franchisees. Create pre-designed content material templates that solely want small tweaks earlier than scheduling and publishing.
Arrange 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 received 50 free Canva social media templates to get you began.
7. Create a fast begin equipment
Whether or not you resolve to handle your franchisees’ accounts with Hootsuite or have them handle their very own, a social media “fast begin equipment” might help.
Your equipment might embody:
- Really helpful social platforms to use.
- Naming practices (e.g. @BrandNameCityName) to hold branding constant.
- Model tips.
- A fundamental one-pager overlaying social media advertising objectives and expectations.
- Hyperlinks to the place you retain up to date copies of brand name tips, technique paperwork, property, and different gadgets they’ll usually refer to.
- Tutorial movies exhibiting how to arrange social accounts, add logos, schedule posts and/or submit posts for approval, and so on.
- Suggestions on how usually to submit.
Plus anything you need franchisees to know immediately about how your organization does social media advertising.
8. Construct a social customer support technique
As talked about earlier, your prospects count on 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 prospects?
Shock: the reply is Hootsuite.
Yep, Hootsuite Inbox 2.0 is right here with all-new options to make social customer support simple 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 drawback. You possibly can setup autoresponders to guarantee prospects you’ve obtained their inquiry and after they can count on to hear again from you. That is particularly useful outdoors of enterprise hours.
- Time-saving instruments: Auto-filter messages, save customized replies, and examine cross-channel message historical past so your buyer doesn’t have to re-explain themselves.
- Sensible chatbots: Want to present customer support at scale? Harness the ability of AI to clear up buyer issues immediately with adaptive, conversational chatbots.
- Highly effective analytics: Measure response instances, buyer satisfaction scores, reply quantity, and tons extra to consider efficiency total and per department.
Hootsuite Inbox dramatically boosts your social customer support capabilities and makes it simple in your franchisees to guarantee each buyer feels valued.
Take a look at all Hootsuite Inbox 2.0 options 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 improve natural attain up to 200% and income up to 23%.
Plus, a 3rd of staff already share their firm’s content material with out being requested.
Moreover moolah and attain, worker advocacy additionally has different advantages:
Supply: Hootsuite and Altimeter Analysis, Social Transformation Report
Worker advocacy might 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.
Moreover having entry to a library of ready-to-share content material, staff can generate customized captions in their very own model with built-in AI writing instruments.
Bringing staff into your advertising technique can strengthen their engagement degree and reduce your paid promoting prices on the similar time. A win-win for you and your franchisees.
10. Encourage buyer critiques
Testimonials encourage belief, in each the franchisor and franchisee.
If prospects are already leaving critiques on Google, Yelp, or your social media profiles, share them. Create a branded graphic your franchisees can copy and paste present critiques into for fast content material that’s — to quote Pokemon — ”tremendous efficient.”
Folks rank buyer critiques, and different user-generated content material, as 2.4X extra genuine than something a model produces, even when your newest industrial has A-Checklist Hollywood expertise. That’s necessary as a result of whereas 92% of entrepreneurs suppose they’re producing genuine content material, solely 51% of customers agree.
No want to search out critiques. Arrange Hootsuite Streams to monitor critiques and mentions of your model, and share it with a number of clicks.
11. Share top-performing content material suggestions
Did a submit from considered one of your branches go viral? Determine why, then share it for example for all of your franchisees.
The way you share any classes discovered relies upon the way you’ve arrange your franchisee advertising construction. You possibly can ship out a month-to-month publication overlaying nice submit examples and greatest practices. Or, host a weekly or month-to-month webinar or convention name about social media technique for all franchisees to participate in. It’s also possible to hold 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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