Using social media to promote your franchise

Franchisees can generate extra sales by making the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter an integral part of their marketing mix, says Sally Butters, director of media at Coconut Creatives

Like many business owners, a lot of franchisees get excited about social media. They set up an account on every network, make it look pretty and then unfortunately either seem to forget all about it or, even worse, interfere with their franchisor’s activities. This is a pitfall many franchisees fail to navigate, which is a real shame as social media can be a great tool to make a franchisee more successful in their territory.

You are likely to have a number of potential customers within your own community network - such as fellow sports enthusiasts, children’s parents and so on - who you can engage with through social media. This is something you can utilise to increase sales by using online channels to softly inform them of your services. This allows you to keep business online and pleasure offline, which, when integrated in this way, often results in additional sales or an increase in awareness.

Guidance
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How can you use social media to increase sales? As a first step, it is important to discuss your plan to start social media activities with your franchisor. Your franchisor is probably already engaging in social media activities and will be able to provide you with initial guidance. It might also already have a strategy in place that is aimed at increasing your sales. If your franchisor is not yet engaging in social media, it is still worthwhile to enquire if it has any regulations in place you need to adhere to. This is important because it is vital for your and their success with social media that you ensure your strategies complement rather than compete with each other.

To avoid competing with your franchisor’s activities, however unintentionally it might be, you have to take care not to take over its channel on a social media platform. This can happen if you set up your Facebook page merely in the name of the franchise, for example. Hence, there might now suddenly be more than one Facebook page under the brand name.

This creates confusion for customers trying to locate your local branch and also for potential franchisees trying to locate the franchisor, which will have a negative impact for both you, the franchisee, and your franchisor. Therefore, some franchisors may have guidelines in place that limit their franchisees to one particular social media platform or provide information about giving your channels a representative name. It is important to be aware of such regulations before you start your social media campaign.

The Mac Tools franchise primarily uses Facebook to engage with customers. In order to create consistent communication and avoid diffusion of messages, it has centralised interaction at the company’s head office. Franchisees are happy to be part of national promotions on this Facebook page without a direct time involvement on their part, which gives them another avenue for increased sales and a communication tool for prospective customers to ask where their nearest Mac ‘man and van’ is.

Other franchise brands like Cafe2U take a decentralised approached to social media. Every Cafe2U franchise partner has a bespoke regional Facebook page and Twitter account, which they are encouraged to use on a regular basis, while Cafe2U head office also has bespoke national accounts. This ensures its franchise partners have clearly labelled, dedicated platforms where they can publicise the local events they cater for and promote their businesses on a regional level.

Strategy
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As you can see, different franchisors might have different strategies in place that will help you generate sales through social media. However, if your franchisor does not have any strategies and guidelines like this, here are a few things you should take into consideration:

* Identify where your target audience is.

* Set goals of what you want to achieve.

* Choose your social media channels accordingly.

* Share, listen and reply in a non-sales manner.

* Appoint a ‘social media keeper’.

* Integrate it into your marketing plan.

* Measure your results.

At the start of any successful social media campaign it is important to clarify which social media activities your customers engage in and through which channels they would like to be communicated with. This generally depends on whether you have a business to business or business to consumer franchise. If you have a B2C franchise, Facebook is likely to be more effective for you, whereas if you have a B2B franchise LinkedIn and Twitter are probably your channels of choice.

A good example is B2B franchise ActionCOACH. Many of the company’s business coaches will request to link up with new clients on LinkedIn when they book an introductory meeting. This gives the potential client an overview of the coach’s business background and details of recommendations from people they have worked with before. Having a profile on LinkedIn gives each ActionCOACH the chance to attract further business through networking activities and discussion threads.

Keeper
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It is advisable to assign a social media keeper. This can be you, the franchisee, or another person working within your franchise who has 30 minutes a day available to devote to updating your social network channels.

The social media keeper can make sure your content and messages are regularly updated and that people who want to engage with you will be addressed in a consistent and timely manner. Adding or inviting people to connect with you on social media after you have taken their business card at an event, for example, is a great way of bringing your offline and online activities together. You can use social media such as Twitter or Facebook to add them and start an online communication, information exchange and referral system that’s ultimately aimed at improving your sales.

By following this process and by making social media an integral part of your marketing plan, you can measure its effectiveness for your franchise by reviewing the number of clients and the amount of referrals and repeat business you have gained.