Social Media is an incredibly powerful tool that entrepreneurs can use to market and advertise their businesses. But how does it work for franchises? There are different nuances that make social media marketing for franchises more nuanced, which makes it more challenging to master.

For starters, you need to understand how to keep your brand’s consistency while providing quality content on all types of social media. You also want to make sure your advertising efforts are getting the best results for any given campaign.

Are you a franchise owner looking to grow your business? Then this Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing for Franchises is for you.

Choose Your Platforms

Social media marketing is a great tool for franchises to use as they grow their businesses. It gives franchisees the ability to provide updates and engage with local customers in real time, all while targeting audiences that are most likely to become their next customers. 

But with so many social networks available, how do you know where to devote your time? You can’t be everywhere at once, so focus on a few social networks rather than trying to maintain an active presence on all of them. 

Many franchises do well focusing on Facebook and Instagram, but if your franchise is B2B, you might do better on LinkedIn. The point is to be wherever your customers are. For example, if you have a fitness-related franchise, Instagram may be a better choice than LinkedIn because it allows you to share photos of your space and activities more effectively and attract local business.

Related: Meet the Social Media Platforms: A Quick Guide to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter

Create a Buyer Persona

To help guide your decisions about where to focus your marketing efforts, you need to identify the persona of your ideal buyer. This exercise will give you a clear picture of who this person is and what their day-to-day looks like so that you can speak directly to them from a place of empathy. This will make your communications more authentic and relatable, which in turn makes it more likely that they’ll engage with your brand (and lead to more sales).

Identifying the persona of your ideal buyer is more than just understanding their basic demographics, like age and income. You want to think about what makes them who they are: their hopes, dreams, and fears.

For example, if you’re a home decor company and your target persona is a young professional on a budget who’s moving into their first apartment, you might write that their dream is a cozy living area in which to entertain friends but not spend too much money or get overwhelmed by the upkeep. Their biggest fear could be making an expensive purchase that turns out to be a fad — they want to feel secure in their choice for years to come. Once you understand these things about your target buyer, it will be much easier to find the elements of your products that appeal to those goals and fears.

If you have trouble coming up with a target persona on the spot, try thinking of someone close to you who has recently bought something like what you’re selling. What was going through their head when they made the purchase? What did they hope would happen as a result? The answers will likely be very similar for many people looking at your product.

Grow Your Followers

With your buyer persona in mind, now you can go about attracting this type of buyer to your social media pages so you can market to them directly. Here are some tips for growing your following:

• Provide value to your audience. Set yourself apart from others in your niche by having a clear point of view and purpose for why you’re there. If you’re selling dog food, go beyond just posting about your products. Post content that shows people why they should buy from you, not the next guy. Show customers who use your product why it’s the best!
• Post regularly. Keep content fresh and interesting. Post frequently and try out different types of posts like polls, memes, infographics, etc. to keep your audience engaged. Also, post at times when you think your followers would be active on social media—you might want to test out a few different times of day to see what works best for you!
• Engage with your followers and other users. Respond quickly and appropriately to comments, questions and direct messages from your followers. They want answers back as soon as possible — it makes them feel valued by your company! It’s also important to be responsive in the event that someone has a customer service issue or leaves a review about your business. 
• Use hashtags. More important on Instagram than other platforms, hashtags allow people to discover your posts via conversations around specific topics.
• Make sure your profile is complete. Fill in your website, contact information, bio (also a good place for hashtags), “about” section, and all other fields so it’s easy for people to find you and learn more about your business.

Advertise

The buyer persona you created is somewhere on social media, and advertising can help you find them and attract their business. Here are some tips that will help you succeed at social media advertising:

• When possible, use images and/or videos. Study after study has shown that people respond better to visual content than to written content — so don’t just write a caption and post a link to your website. Try to design something eye-catching that draws people in and makes them want to click.
• Include a call to action in every ad, no matter how subtle. Whether it’s “sign up for our newsletter” or “download this free ebook,” always give people something to do when they see your ad.
• Don’t overdo it! If you’re trying for an ad with a great image, perfect wording, and a strong call to action — but then you throw in another message about something completely different (like an upcoming event), you’ll just confuse your audience and drive them away from your brand instead of drawing them in.
• If your budget is small, try boosting your posts initially until you’re ready for full-blown campaigns. Boosting allows more of your audience to see your posts than they would through organic methods alone.

Work With Experts

When you’re trying to grow your business, the last thing you want is a disconnected, out-of-date social media presence. If you lack the time or desire to make a splash with your social media marketing, consider partnering with a company like Rallio that has the technology and team to simplify the process. 

With on-point content and a platform for both brand management and employee engagement, Rallio can help you build an effective presence on any of the major social media platforms that will showcase your brand in the best possible light. To learn more, contact us via rallio.com or sales@rallio.com. 

Related: 4 Big Reasons You Should Outsource Your Social Media Marketing