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Branding Social

Common Red Flags in a Franchise Marketing Plan

Buying a franchise is a significant investment — and it goes without saying that franchisees want to be successful in business to make that investment worth their while. Having a clear marketing plan for them will help them come out of the gate strongly and continue to grow. 

If you’re a franchise candidate looking into any particular franchise, it’s important to know what kind of support and strategy you’ll be given when you get started. And if you’re a franchisor, you’ve got to give them their money’s worth. So if any of the following red flags are showing up in a franchise marketing strategy, it’s time to reassess things (or walk away before you invest).

Inconsistent Content

Buying a franchise means buying into a brand — and franchisees have the benefit of name recognition rather than starting from scratch with an unknown entity. That’s why it’s especially disconcerting to see a company’s logo, imagery and messaging get mangled due to a lack of consistent brand guidelines that specify what franchisees can and cannot do in terms of marketing.

If franchisees are given free rein to do whatever they want with their marketing, and especially with their social media, then the corporate brand is bound to get watered down and jeopardized in the process. They may end up using outdated logos and imagery, expired promotions and inaccurate product or service descriptions. 

Worse yet, franchisees could end up posting offensive or off-brand content — not intentionally perhaps, but without an approval process in place, nobody’s going to be making sure that franchisees haven’t gone rogue.

When there are clear rules and guidelines, however, then it makes it easy for franchisees to understand how they can market themselves. Furthermore, supplying them with approved, branded corporate images and messaging will ensure everyone’s on the same page.

One-Size-Fits-All Corporate Marketing

Even as corporate supplies franchisees with branded content, it’s important that owners build a local presence as well. They need to be posting real local images and videos of their location, employees and customers — as well as local happenings and promotions. If they’re not doing this, they’re missing out on opportunities to attract and build a local customer base.

In other words, there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to franchisee marketing. Therefore, the franchise marketing plan should explain that local operators have the option — and are encouraged — to add in a local flair. 

Growth Hack #1 in our article “9 Social Media Growth Hacks Your Business Needs in 2019” is the following: 

“Your franchise location absolutely needs to be posting local photos and videos if you want to grow. Photos of behind-the-scenes activities and events, office parties, employee spotlights, customer testimonials, and product or service highlights or how-tos are all examples of local content. 

This type of content out-performs corporate content and will help you gain more engagements and followers. As your following grows, expand your reach even more by boosting content to get it in front of more eyes. Even a modest budget will help you reach more of your target audience, driving traffic and sales to your location.”

Our Rallio client Pet Supplies Plus blends in hyper-local content with the help of the Rallio Local team.

Lack of Ad Support

Speaking of boosted content, a franchise marketing plan should indicate what kind of ad support is provided. For example, some of our Rallio clients choose to pay for their franchisees’ boosted ads and allot a monthly spend toward this advertising.

The reason to boost content is simple: to make sure people see it. Facebook doesn’t automatically serve up content in front of all a business’s followers. It picks and chooses what to show based on a user’s preferences. 

The franchisee operators with whom we work do quite well boosting their local content. So, for instance, if one of their local posts does exceptionally well in terms of organic likes and shares, they might boost it and extend the reach even further.

They’re able to target these ads to reach only their desired local customers, using geography, interests, demographics and other factors to predict the people most likely to engage with their content. Supporting franchisees with local ad spend ensures they can drive local business online and offline.

Facebook Business notes that Facebook Lookalike Audiences help you connect to people on Facebook who are similar to your customers: “Use the insights you’ve gained from marketing on Facebook to increase your chances of reaching people who will be interested in your business.”

Too Many Agencies, Too Many Platforms

Sometimes a franchisor will outsource some or all marketing to a third party — or more than one. Although outsourcing to an expert that’s well-versed in digital marketing can be a smart strategy, problems can arise when you have too many people or platforms doing too many different things, including:

  • A lack of clear insight on how a page is doing, because analytics are being pulled in from different technologies that might not be tracking the same things in the same way
  • A lack of cohesiveness, organization and agreement on how to approach a company’s marketing — i.e., the “too many cooks in the kitchen” syndrome 
  • Difficulty managing permissions if many different people have login access to a page 
  • Inconsistent or off-brand messaging and visuals 

Read more: Franchising Social Media Best Practices: a Roundup of Our 12 Best Tips

A Few Caveats and Final Thoughts

Note that it’s not necessary to find a “one stop shop” for all franchise marketing and public relations — in fact, you may need different partners for different needs. For example, perhaps you have one supplier that specializes in digital ads, but they also provide PR services. That doesn’t mean you should hire them for both, no matter what kind of “deal” they may be offering.

Instead, maybe you hire the best supplier for digital marketing with paid ads included — and a different supplier that provides the best PR. You use your scale to negotiate the best deal, but don’t give your business to a group that can’t execute properly on everything. 

In other words, most suppliers have one or two things they’re exceptionally good at, but it’s unlikely they can do all of it well. To sum up:

  • You need a digital team, either in-house or outsourced, that is an expert in paid conversion ads for lead generation.
  • You also need an internal or external team to support organic, local-level content, page management and review responses. 

If you leave either of the above items for franchisees to handle, you risk it not getting done properly or not getting done at all. And that’s not fair to the franchisees that are doing it right — after all, one weak link hurts the entire brand.

Just as you wouldn’t pay your electrician to do your plumbing, you need functional experts in different areas of marketing and control over brand standards. In the electrician/plumber example, both may provide home services, but each has a specialty. 

So therefore, if you want to multiply your organic reach and maintain digital brand standards, it’s essential that you work with the right partners that specialize in each. Your standard digital agency/marketing agency will likely not be able to provide franchisee-level support for hyper-local page management strategies at scale — but Rallio can.

It’s never too late to revise a franchise marketing plan to ensure both corporate and local operators find success with their social media strategy. Reach out to us at support@www.rallio.com for more ideas on how to bring corporate and franchisee plans into alignment. 

This article was written with input from Ryan Hicks, Rallio’s Vice President of Business Development. Ryan talks to franchisors every day about their biggest pain points and works to find solutions from the Rallio team. Feel free to contact him at ryanh@www.rallio.com.


Categories
Social

3 Types of Content You’re Not Creating (But Definitely Should)

If a piece of content drops in the middle of Facebook and no one’s around to see it, did it even happen?

The answer is no, at least not in content marketing terms. 

The whole point of creating content is to make sure people see it, engage with it, like it and share it — and ultimately, do business with you and become loyal customers and brand advocates. 

And although there are many different types of content that get those results, this article is dedicated to three of them you might not have considered. In the short term, you’ll see a boost in likes, shares, comments and followers when you start posting them. And in the long term, you’ll build a community around your brand, and hopefully sales. 

#1 Infographics

Many of us are visual people. We’re also busy people. Rather than take the time to read something in-depth, we might only have time to skim something — and that’s the brilliance of infographics. With an estimated 65% of B2B marketers using infographics as part of their content marketing strategy, according to the Content Marketing Institute, it’s evident that infographics are here to stay and need to be on your radar.

Studies show that readers will spend more time looking at images containing information than they will reading text, according to Nielsen Norman Group. What’s more, they’ll likely ignore “fluff” photos (think stock photos) that are merely decorative at best, mundane at worst, and don’t add any real depth to a page. 

There are two takeaways here. First, infographics containing information of interest to your audience are more interesting, more useful and more likely to garner likes, shares and comments than low-value, boring photos. (The same can be said of authentic, real-life photos of people from your business. More value = more engagement.) Second, boring photos don’t belong on your page. Period.

Because they combine compelling visuals with valuable information of interest to your audience, infographics are some of the best kind of content you can produce. Not only can you share them on social media, but you can also incorporate them into a variety of content marketing initiatives, including case studies, emails, white papers and blog posts. 

Be sure your infographics are branded with your logo and website so that as the images are liked and shared, your name will travel along with them. This way, you have an opportunity to position yourself as a trusted thought leader and get your name in front of a wider audience. You can also boost these posts on social media for a broader reach.

Pro Tip: You don’t have to be a graphic designing whiz to make infographics. Online apps such as Canva offer free templates that make it easy to plug in your info, add cool visuals, download and share. 

#2 How-To Content

Bite-size, how-to pieces are content marketing gold. Like infographics, they allow readers to learn something new in an easy-to-read, digestible format. At the same time, they provide actionable steps. Give people step-by-step guides on topics of interest, and they’re sure to like, comment and share with their friends!

No matter what your industry, there is something you know how to do that your readers will want to learn. For example: Run a home improvement business? Put out a how-to on home-related projects, such as painting a room or hanging up pictures. 

How-to content not only makes you an authoritative voice in your industry, but also builds good will among your customers. You’re giving them something for free without asking for anything in return, thus building trust and confidence in your brand. The next time these customers need your product or service, you’ll be top-of-mind.

For inspiration, think about the most common questions you get from your customers, and turn them into how-to articles, videos, podcasts and social media posts. Look through your direct messages, social media comments, online reviews and your own FAQ section on your website for ideas. Once you have a topic you know your readers are eager to learn more about, create an in-depth how-to answering the question. 

Pro Tip: You can further repurpose these how-tos in a variety of ways — for instance, create an email campaign and send out a link to your how-to content. Always work to get the most mileage out of your content marketing initiatives by using them across multiple channels. It’s less work for you and potentially reaches more of your audience!

#3 Recognition Posts

Don’t you love when people talk you up? Admit it — it feels good when someone recognizes your work. And it probably makes you and your fans want to like, share and comment on such posts, right? Create an entire post or article that recognizes people or places in your industry you personally endorse, and that content will be liked, shared and engaged with, too.

There are many different ways to approach these “recognition posts.” A marketing firm could easily write a post about the “Top Facebook Marketing Experts” or something along those lines. However, these posts are also a great opportunity to create hyper-local content.

How about a roundup of the “Best Local Eateries” or “101 Local Spots to Take Your Kids in Summertime”? You know your town the best, as well as your customers. Think about the local spots your customers would be likely to go.

For this post, the author created a quick intro video and a link over to the article

Again, this sort of helpful, free information goes a long way toward building trust and loyalty. Just be sure the content is substantial and not “thin” — you want people to get something out of the post and not walk away feeling like they just read a bunch of fluff.

Be sure to tag and link to any of the businesses or people you mention in your post so they can share it with their followers, too. The reach will grow exponentially according to the number of shout-outs you give! In other words, writing about 101 local spots — as daunting as that sounds — will give you more traction than just mentioning a handful.

You can take your “recognition posts” a step further by turning the recognition back toward yourself, too. At Rallio, we designed our Employee Advocacy program with this intention for our brands. By empowering their employees publish brand-approved content on their personal profiles, companies are able to significantly expand their organic reach and track all activity and results through our Employee Leaderboard.

Pro Tip: Once you’ve created a recognition post, give it some time to generate engagement. Later, you can approach the people or businesses you wrote about and ask them to link to you or create a mutually beneficial partnership, contest or promotion. Also, if you don’t feel you have the writing skills to tackle a lengthy post, outsource it to someone on your team or a freelancer who can do it for you.

What are some other types of content you’ve created that you’ve found to be the most effective? We want to hear your ideas in the comments.

Categories
Social

Are You Using Social Media to Recruit Top Talent? You Should Be

Anytime we talk with franchisees, one of the most pressing needs always mentioned is finding top talent. We’ve been able to help many of them with their employee recruiting through social media, while also making sure they maintain a positive online reputation.

If you’re hiring, candidates will be checking out your social media pages, so you want to be sure you’re presenting your best self online. People want to see that you have a great company culture and core values they can get on board with. 

So today’s post is all about helping you recruit and retain talent for your franchise location. Start leveraging social media to connect with candidates and promote the culture you wish to create for your employees.

#1 Repeat After Us: Post Local Content 

If you’ve been reading the Rallio blog, then you know that one of our top tips for amplifying your brand on social media is by posting local content. Although your franchisor might supply you with branded corporate content — which has its place — the only way to build an engaged local community is with real-life images from your location.

Particularly when it comes to recruiting employees, you want to provide a glimpse into your culture. What’s a day in the life like working for you? Show the authentic side of your location — the fun aspects, the team-building events, anything that shows off your location’s personality. A great place to start is with employee and customer spotlights and any candid, on-location snapshots that make you more than just another XYZ company.

Remember, corporate content is syndicated across all locations. It doesn’t differentiate you. Consider the people and local elements that make you different from other locations and from competitors. People will want to work for you not just because you have a great product or service, but mostly because you have great leadership, people and company culture.

#2 Make Your Employees Brand Advocates

The majority of employees today are already posting employer-related messages and media assets on their social media pages, according to a study by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research. Employee advocacy gives you a chance to leverage user-generated content to your advantage for recruiting purposes. 

You can even incentivize employees with various rewards for posting on your behalf. For example, if you’re hiring a salesperson, you can create a few local assets advertising the position. Pass them along to your employees, who can share the opening with their circle of friends and followers. You can then offer a referral bonus of some sort for any new hires that result from those efforts.

Drill down deep into employee advocacy, and you might see a need to clarify your company’s core values and how they’re shared and demonstrated throughout your business. When employees feel like your company truly lives out its core values and supports its employees, they’ll feel more compelled to share about their great experiences working for you via social media. 

As those posts get shared, it creates a positive public perception of your location. New recruits will be more likely to seek you out and apply if they feel confident you’re a good employer who values its employees.

#3 Be Quick to Engage and Respond

Customers today take to social media if they have a question, comment or concern about a business. Whether in the form of a comment on a post, a direct message or an online review, these comments have the ability to help or hurt your reputation among customers as well as job candidates. 

Being quick to respond to both positive and negative comments shows that you’re an engaged business owner who cares about your customers. If you’re slow to respond, get defensive or don’t respond at all, it sends a message that you don’t care. If you were a potential recruit, wouldn’t you want to work for a company that values its customers? 

Moreover, responding to your online reviews and maintaining an accurate Google My Business listing improves your local SEO. When customers conduct mobile searches, the GMB listing is one of the first things they see — along with all of the reviews associated with your business. Job candidates will see this information as well when they’re checking out your business.

#4 List and Boost Your Jobs on Facebook

The Jobs tab on your Facebook page is an invaluable recruiting tool for franchises. There, you can post your jobs and boost them to reach a wider audience with your job postings. 

You can also use Facebook Messenger to help screen candidates, and they can apply to jobs directly through Facebook. As of May 2018, there were 8 billion messages being exchanged on Facebook Messenger between people and businesses, according to Facebook data. Make sure you’re tapping into the power of Messenger by including it in your recruiting strategy. 

Get in the habit of using social media to find top talent, and you’ll create a consistent pipeline of qualified candidates while also building an engaged, positive company culture. Have you used social media in your recruiting efforts? Tell us more about it in the comments, and you may be featured in an upcoming blog post.


Categories
Social

Top 3 Summertime Social Media Tips for Franchises

Ah, summer. While the rest of the world is busy enjoying ice cream, swim parties and vacations, you still have a business to run — but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your summer, too. Summer is the perfect time to have some fun with your social media. If you implement a few best practices, you’ll have enough time to go enjoy an ice cream, too.

Tip #1: Get In Step With Your Audience

Depending on the type of business you have, your sales either ramp up or slow down in the summer, or maybe they stay fairly consistent. Make sure you understand the pace at which your audience operates in summertime so you can adjust your social media accordingly.

For example, let’s say your audience is mainly moms who stay home with their kids during the summer. In this case, their social media usage habits might shift as they adopt a different routine. Consider the following:

  • Maybe they’re not posting to or checking Facebook or Instagram quite as frequently during the day. Or maybe it’s the other way around. Check your analytics to understand when they are most active.
  • If they’re out and about during the day, maybe they’re looking for a business like yours, using their mobile devices to search. The “near me” searches they’re conducting are opportunities to drive online and offline traffic to your business. Make sure you have a Google My Business page created for your business and optimized for local search. Check and respond to your online reviews so that as you’re discovered in search, customers see positive reviews and a responsive business owner. Read this post for more information on setting up your Google My Business listing.
  • Look for ways to draw business into your location with summertime sales, offers and events that you promote on social media. Tie it in with summer holidays such as 4th of July, or in conjunction with upcoming events, like back-to-school. Boost your content and don’t forget to include hashtags to make your content searchable.

Tip #2: Warm Up Your Social Content

If you haven’t updated your content since wintertime, it’s time to freshen things up for summer. A few ideas:

Cover Photos and Highlights

Update your cover photos with a summery image related to your business. Your cover photo is often the first thing people see when they land on your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn page.

On Instagram, you can update the Highlight cover photos with a summer theme. Highlight covers are the small icons beneath your bio where you’ve highlighted your Stories.

There are many different free apps that will let you create fun, summery covers for your best Story highlights. On that note, be sure to update your Stories regularly with local content that keeps your audience up-to-date on all your summertime events, sales, specials and behind-the-scenes happenings!

Localized Content

Focus on posting local content with a summertime flair! Make your content specific to your location to build local community, and boost any posts that get great engagement. The more hyperlocal your content is — whether in summer or anytime of year — the better your chances of earning local business.

For example, snap outdoor photos and videos with your team. Feature your team members enjoying a day at the park, the beach or the pool. Give a glimpse of what happens behind the scenes.

You can also post photos and videos of your product or service being used outdoors or in a way that evokes feelings of summer. Ask your users to post their own content showing how they enjoy your products or services during the summertime — or ask for permission to snap photos of your customers.

This post from our client Pet Supplies Plus in Adrian, Michigan, featured a customer with his St. Bernard puppy. It got great engagement and included hashtags to make the content more discoverable:

Tip #3: Invite User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is one of the easiest ways to generate engagement and excitement around your brand without you having to do much. Invite your audience to post their own selfies and other photos showing how they’re enjoying your product or service in the summertime.

Further the engagement by asking them to like, share, tag a friend and tag your brand as they post. Add your own branded hashtag, and perhaps incentivize your campaign with some kind of reward. Be sure to thank your followers publicly for participating!

Another idea is to recruit employees and influencers who can help tell your brand’s story. They’ll post to their own social profiles for their followers and expose your brand to a wider audience. According to research conducted by earned content platform Olapic, 76 percent of survey respondents said they are more likely to trust content shared by fellow consumers over content shared by brands.

A fun summertime influencer campaign might include a “Story takeover” where your influencer posts a “day in the life” to your Stories.

Here’s a great example from swimwear and undergarment retailer Aerie. The post features blogger and influencer @AliciaTenise wearing Aerie swimwear and promoting her Story takeover, where she’d be wearing all her Aerie faves. The post also invites UGC by asking users to post their own favorites using the hashtag #MyAerie.

https://www.instagram.com/p/ByTRbbqBdBE/
Story takeovers and branded hashtags are a great way to encourage engagement and employee or influencer advocacy on your social pages.

Bonus Tip #4: Have Fun and Be Authentic

Hopefully, you’re not spending all of your time working this summer. As you’re out enjoying your life, share glimpses of it with your followers. Keep your content fun, light and uplifting. If it entertains, it’s post-worthy.

Categories
Social

9 Social Media Growth Hacks Your Business Needs in 2019

We’re almost halfway through 2019, and if you haven’t already taken a good look at your social media strategy, now is definitely the time. And never fear if you’re feeling behind — or if you’re lacking a strategy altogether. Today’s post is filled with social media growth hacks to help propel your franchise to the next level for the remainder of the year.

Growth Hack #1: Post and Boost Local Content

This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about posting local content. Your franchise location absolutely needs to be posting local photos and videos if you want to grow. Photos of behind-the-scenes activities and events, office parties, employee spotlights, customer testimonials, and product or service highlights or how-tos are all examples of local content.

This type of content out-performs corporate content and will help you gain more engagements and followers. As your following grows, expand your reach even more by boosting content to get it in front of more eyes. Even a modest budget will help you reach more of your target audience, driving traffic and sales to your location.

Growth Hack #2: Empower Your Employees

Employee advocacy is a huge part of social media today, as more and more employees take to social to post photos about their employers. It’s the kind of user-generated content that gives your brand social proof and builds trust with your audience. It also creates the kind of local content you need to boost engagements and follows.

To help encourage employee advocacy, for example, our Rallio mobile app allows users to give employees limited access to their social pages. They can simply upload photos, and then caption them and post to their social pages. We include a release form that travels with each photo so that any featured subject can sign off on the use of the photo.

Growth Hack #3: Study Your Analytics

You have to know what’s working and what’s not in order to create more of the kind of content your audience wants to see. Taking a microscope to your analytics pulled in from your social platforms and those displayed on your Rallio dashboard will help you continue to fine-tune your content as well as the audience you’re reaching through boosted ads.

Sometimes, something as simple as changing your call to action in a caption and in your boosted ads is enough to change your results for the better. Or maybe you play around with the time of day your posts go out so you can schedule them at more optimal times and days, when your audience is most likely to be online.

Get familiar with your social analytics so you can use them to your advantage.

Growth Hack #4: Go Live

Even the most mundane events can become exciting when you go live with them on Facebook or Instagram. Are you unboxing a new product? Have a big announcement to make? Going live gives you a platform to tell your audience all about it. Invite questions and comments, and get interactive with your customers. You can also simply post videos, which many people prefer over text content, either via native videos or by uploading to YouTube and then sharing those assets to your social pages.

If you’re feeling camera-shy, recruit an outgoing employee to go live for you! As mentioned in #2, empowering employees to be brand advocates is a great way to build trust, and many employees will love the opportunity to be in the spotlight. Just make sure that employee is knowledgeable and prepared before going live!

Growth Hack #5: Make It About Them, Not You

The majority of the time, your social media should be just that: social. Avoid being overly promotional, and instead make your posts about your audience. If it informs and/or entertains, you’re in good shape! If it sells, you’re probably going to drive customers away.

There are a few exceptions — say, if you’re running a contest or a giveaway, or if you have a great promotion that will benefit your audience. In that case, keep the social aspect of your content by inviting users to like, share and comment on your posts. For example, for a BOGO, offer, you could say, “Tag a friend who would love to get a free burger with you.” Always look for creative ways to present your offers that allow them to still feel social and personable rather than salesy.

Honest-1 Auto Care South Elgin boosted engagement by featuring a new employee.

Growth Hack #6: Respond to Your Online Reviews and Engagements

Have you ever left a review about a brand and not gotten a response? Kinda makes you not want to buy from them anymore, right? Whether a review is positive or negative, it’s imperative that you respond to all of them. It demonstrates good customer service and accountability, and it makes your customers feel like you value them. The same is true if a customer comments on a post or asks a question.

If you don’t already have a system in place to respond to your customers online, make it a priority.

Growth Hack #7: Employ Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger has come a long way in recent years. It’s no longer simply an inbox/outbox for conversations; brands are now using them to promote special offers, pre-screen job candidates, answer questions via customized bots, and handle a lot of the heavy social lifting for them.

Growth Hack #8: Snoop on Your Competitors

Check out your competitors’ social pages to see what they’re doing, what’s working and the type of audience they’re engaging with. This strategy works well on Instagram and Twitter, where you can easily click on their Followers tab to see who’s following.

Growth Hack #9: Always Evolve

There’s a danger in stagnation. Don’t get so comfortable with your current strategy that you fail to see what might need tweaking or anything you can do more of. Give yourself a solid month or two to get comfortable with implementing the strategies above, but then re-examine your strategy to identify opportunities to improve.

What are some other social media growth hacks you’ve tried and recommend? Let us know in the comments. As always, we’re available here at Rallio for all your franchise social media needs.

Categories
Content Marketing Social

21 Days of Engaging Content Ideas for Your Local Franchise

We’ve all been there — staring at your social media page and wondering what to post, posting something only sporadically, or simply avoiding the situation altogether. Don’t feel badly about it. When you’re busy running your franchise, sometimes creating social media content is the farthest thing from your mind.

There’s no need to spend hours trying to come up with ideas. We’ve done the heavy lifting below to give you plenty of ammo for the next month!

You can easily switch up or repeat these ideas, depending on how frequently you post, so you should never run out of ideas. Once you get into the swing of things, you’ll be able to watch your following and engagement grow week after week and month after month.

#1 Spotlight an Employee

Employee spotlights are a great way to tell your customers about your employees while also boosting employee morale. These spotlights don’t have to be formal, “employee of the month” types of posts. Sometimes, simply featuring an employee with a nice photo and caption is enough to attract great engagement.

You can talk about their work, their hobbies, fun facts, anything that makes them unique and shows how they positively contribute to your location. Maybe it’s the employee who goes about her job, day in and day out, with a smile on her face. Or the one who consistently delivers outstanding service while also juggling a hectic life outside work. Your customers will love to see this “other” side of employees they might interact with regularly but know little about.

#2 Feature a Customer Testimonial

Did you get a great customer review? Feature it as a post! Even better than that is if you post a photo of the customer (with permission!) using your product or service. Note: The Rallio mobile app has a built-in model release form so you can easily obtain permission from your photo subjects.

#3 Hashtag It

Hashtags make you more discoverable to your target audience and help put your brand in the mix around relevant conversations. They work particularly well on Instagram, where you can include them not only in captions, but also in your bio and stories.

You can (and should) build an entire strategy around hashtags. Depending on your goals, you can use your hashtags to attract new followers, increase industry exposure, riff off a day of the week (e.g., #WednesdayWisdom or #caturday), run contests, and even build brand awareness with a branded hashtag (more on that next).

Do your research to see what kinds of topics are trending around any particular hashtag before you use it — here’s a quick roundup of tools you can use in your research. Proofread ad nauseum, and look for any possible embarrassing misspellings that could ensue. And change the hashtag if there’s even a remote possibility of it getting morphed into something different and unintended.

Branded hashtags give your brand a personality, but be sure to incorporate other hashtags specific to your individual location.

Our client Pet Supplies Plus uses the branded hashtag #minusthehassle to make it clear how easy and hassle-free it is to shop at their stores. As we discuss in this post, branded hashtags can be used to promote your brand’s personality, special offers and other information specific to your brand. Read this post for more on choosing a branded hashtag.  

However, be aware that if your franchise brand overall is using a particular hashtag, you’ll need to incorporate other hashtags in your posts that call attention to your individual location. For example, some of our Pet Supplies Plus locations also use something unique to their city, such as #PSP(city name).

#4 Share Someone Else’s Content

Not all your content has to be created from scratch. Share content from a brand that complements yours, and you can build relationships while positioning yourself as a helpful resource for your audience.

#5 Highlight a Product or Service

Do you have a certain product or service you offer that customers don’t know much about? Use a social post to highlight it! Videos are an especially great way to explain how your product or service works, why it’s beneficial and how customers can use it.

#6 Play Off a Holiday

Create posts not only for calendar holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving, but also those that celebrate a certain “day” like Teacher Appreciation Day, International Women’s Day, Pi Day or National Puppy Day. You can take just about any “holiday” and relate it to your business, especially those that specifically speak to your customers.

Have some fun with it and get your customers involved, too. Ask them to post their favorite photos of XYZ — whether it’s their pet, their favorite pizza or their best Halloween costume. As your customers comment, like and share, it boosts engagement and reach.

#7 Run a Contest or Giveaway

Contests and giveaways are a great way to build your following quickly. One strategy is to partner with one or more complementary brands and offer a giveaway product or service. As part of the giveaway rules, ask people to make sure they’re following both brands and to tag X number of friends in the comments.

Be sure to add the post to your Story on Instagram to create even more traction. You can also go Live on Instagram and Facebook to promote the giveaway. You’ll be surprised at how many new followers you get. Then again, maybe it’s not that surprising — everyone loves free stuff!

#8 Post a Viral Photo or Video

Don’t overdo this one, because you don’t want to seem like you’re desperate for attention. But posting a viral photo or video is one of the quickest and easiest ways to gain engagement on your page. Maybe it’s a cute photo of a puppy or a baby, or any kind of media that has the “awww” factor built right into it. You can further your engagement even more by asking your audience to post their photos and tag you, too.

#9 Ask a Question

People love giving their opinions, so ask for them! You can either include a thought-provoking question in the caption of your post, or create an Instagram story with a poll sticker attached. Ask people to vote on two different options — for an outfit, for example. Then you can create a post featuring the results and take your engagement even farther.

Create a poll to invite engagement from your audience.

#10 Invite Them to Ask Questions

Instagram Stories give you another sticker option where your audience can ask you questions, too. Once you have a large enough following, people will love the opportunity to ask you more about your background, your preferences and your favorite things. You can then feature your answers as part of your Story.

Question stickers are a great way to interact with and build your local community.

#11 Make It Local

What are your local sports teams, hot spots, special events and things only people in your town would understand? What famous people grew up in your town? Who’s the resident historian or barista? This type of hyper-local subject matter is perfect fodder for your social pages. These posts are not only share-worthy, but they’re also great conversation starters that will boost your engagement.

#12 Create and Promote an Event

Did you know your Facebook business page has an Events tab? Go there and create an event for your location, and then boost the post to increase exposure. It could be a grand opening, a popup boutique, a food or drink tasting — anything that will draw a crowd. Boosting the post will get it in front of more eyes and encourage new customers to visit your store. When people RSVP, they’ll receive push notifications that the event is approaching.

#13 Post an Offer

Likewise, you can click on the Offers tab to create a discount or deal right from your page. Just click on the Create Offer button to be taken to a popup window, where you select the cover photo, discount type, the expiration date, the promo code if you have one, and the action you want customers to take — i.e., Shop Now, Call Now, Save, etc. People will get a notification when the discount is about to expire. You can also boost these offers for more exposure.

#14 Post a Job

Are you seeing the pattern? Your Facebook page has a Jobs tab, too. Go there and post your job openings. Boost them. Get more applicants directly through Facebook! You can even include your salary range and add your own application questions to prequalify applicants. Many of our Rallio clients use this strategy with great success, getting more applicants and generating buzz about their company.

Go to the Jobs tab to post job opportunities at your location.

#15 Post a Relevant News Item

Read your local newspaper and find something fun, lighthearted or thought-provoking. Create your own post about it and invite comments from your audience. A word of caution, however: Avoid anything overly political or religious unless there’s a strong business reason to do so.

Also, be sensitive to world events or anything happening locally. The last thing you want to do is offend someone by, say, making a joke about fires on the same day firefighters are battling a blaze in town.

#16 Talk About the Weather

Talking about the weather is generally reserved for meteorologists, first dates and elevator conversations, right? Well, there’s a place for it on social media if the weather is newsworthy and if you do it right. For example, let’s say it’s so hot outside that you’re offering a buy one, get one free offer on your ice cream or lemonade. Think of a way to relate the weather to your business, and you can get patrons in the door via social media.

#17 Gossip … Just a Little

Everyone loves feeling like they’re getting inside scoop. Maybe you post a photo with your significant other, or talk about your life before starting your business. Imagine sitting down with a friend and sharing a little-known part of yourself. There’s no need to go overboard, but even just a hint into the “other” you will go a long way!

#18 Play Off a Popular Social Trend

Remember the 10-Year Transformation? Or “the dress” (blue and black versus white and gold)? Create your own post to chime in on the fun. If you’re not already familiar with the current trending topics, you can check the Explore section of Instagram or Trends for You on Twitter.

#19 Caption This

Snap a photo of something weird, funny, unexpected or silly. Post it with a simple “Caption this!” and watch the funny comments roll in!

#20 Be in the Moment

If you look at pictures of kids, oftentimes the best photos are candids — not the staged photos of them in pristine clothes sitting perfectly on top of a tree branch, gazing off into the distance. The same principle applies to your social media photos. Candid, authentic, real photos will always be better than anything staged — and definitely better than any stock photo out there.

Try playing photographer for a day (or let an employee do it), and just wander around snapping photos that capture a feeling — maybe it’s your workers enjoying being in their element. Add a playful caption, and voila! There’s your post for the day.

#21 Recommend a Product or Service

Sometimes, shining the spotlight on someone else is a great way to make yourself look great, too. Think about some of the products or services you use that are complementary to your business, and create a review-style post to highlight why you love it.

You can tag the brand in your post — maybe even reach out to them to inquire if they’d be willing to do the same. For example, if you have a cleaning business and use a certain brand of cleaner, you can show before-and-after photos demonstrating how great it works. The brand could then share those photos on their own pages, increasing your exposure even more.

Caption Tips

Writing a great caption is a blog-worthy topic of its own (perhaps to be covered in a future post). For now, here are a few quick tips to help you write a caption:

  • Know your audience so your references and context won’t go over their heads, offend them or drive them away
  • Keep your brand voice and tone consistent
  • Infuse personality into every word (never be boring); emojis work well for this
  • Either keep it brief or have a reason for long-form content (check out @natgeo for examples of longer captions that work well for National Geographic)
  • Use hashtags related to your caption and brand; you can post them as a separate comment if you want to avoid cluttering up your caption
  • Be sure to tag any relevant people or brands in the caption to increase engagement
  • Use calls to action to invite people to comment, tag friends or answer a question

So there you have it — everything you need to begin posting great content today. If you work with a team, you can also divvy up tasks — for instance, maybe one person is great at capturing candid photos, and another is skilled at writing captions.

You can also outsource your social media to the Rallio Local team and we’ll handle all the posting for you if you provide the pictures. We can empower your team with limited mobile logins so your employees can become advocates for your brand.


Categories
Social

Top 5 Predictors of Franchisee Success

Q&A With Eric Stites, CEO and Managing Director of Franchise Business Review

There’s something exhilarating about starting your own business — nurturing it from the ground up and working relentlessly to make it grow. That’s true whether you start a business from scratch or join a franchise organization.

For some business owners, however, there’s a particular satisfaction that comes along with joining a franchise. Although there’s certainly something to be said for becoming an independent entrepreneur, there’s also a long list of benefits to becoming a franchisee.

Indeed, satisfaction among franchise business owners is at an all-time high, according to research conducted between October 2017 and March 2019 by research firm Franchise Business Review (FBR). Of those surveyed — which included 29,341 franchise owners — FBR found that the vast majority:

  • Enjoy operating their business (88% strongly agree to agree)
  • Enjoy being part of a franchise organization (87% strongly agree to agree)
  • Respect their franchisor (85% strongly agree to agree)
  • Are satisfied with their franchise (excellent to good overall)

Given the high numbers, it begs the question: What, exactly, is contributing to franchisees’ levels of satisfaction? We chatted with Eric Stites, CEO and Managing Director of Franchise Business Review, to get the inside scoop. Below are some of the major factors that predict success for franchisees.

Success Factor #1: Preparedness for Economic Changes

FBR has been measuring franchisee satisfaction since 2005-2006. Although initial satisfaction held steady in the earlier years, not surprisingly, it dipped during the recession a decade ago. Today, the numbers are higher than they were prior to that recession. What gives?

“A lot of factors go into satisfaction and engagement, but economic factors are big,” Stites explains. “When the economy is doing well, consumer confidence is high.” That confidence equates to an increase in people going out to eat, opting to buy services for their homes and overall spending more money — in other words, an increase in people seeking out franchise products and services. And the more people spend, the more small businesses benefit.

Because franchising tends to follow the ebbs and flows of the economy, the most successful franchisees are those who are prepared for any bumps in the road. The downside of a sluggish economy may be a slowdown in consumer spending, with the upside being a possible increase in franchise growth. When times are tough, people may be more fearful about job stability and more likely to take the leap into business ownership. The opposite also tends to be true: During an economic boom, people have less of a reason to leave their jobs and pursue the potentially risky endeavor of starting a business.

As a franchisor, your best bet is to plan how you’ll combat a dip in consumer spending while also aiming to boost franchise sales. Work to strengthen your brand’s reputation and confidence in your products and services — with the understanding that social media and online reputation play a large role in how your franchise is publicly perceived.

By strengthening your brand, you’ll help franchisees stand apart from competitors even if the economy slows — not necessarily with lower prices, but rather with great customer service, responsiveness to reviews, community engagement and company culture. Both the consumer and franchise recruiting sides of your business stand to benefit from a thriving, positive online presence.

Success Factor #2: Access to Marketing, Technology and Innovation

Key drivers of franchisee satisfaction include marketing, technology and innovation — that is, having access to the most forward-thinking programs and services. The franchise companies that continually invest in innovative technologies and systems are the ones that thrive. In turn, their franchisees are able to thrive as well because they’re able to gain and maintain a competitive edge.

“I always tell [prospective franchisees] to talk to the franchisor to understand the programs they offer, but also talk to franchisees to see how well those programs work,” advises Stites. Franchisors may talk at a “high level” about their marketing, public relations and social media programs, he adds, but talking to franchisees will provide a more detailed and realistic picture of how those programs are functioning at the location level.

Evidently, it’s an area that not all franchise companies get right. “In all the years we’ve been doing this” — surveying franchise organizations and publishing their findings — “marketing, technology and innovation always score the lowest.” However, the ones that score high on the innovation front tend to have a few commonalities:

  • They focus on the people. Successful franchise organizations live by the motto that franchisees are in business for themselves, but not by themselves. The most successful franchises involve franchisees in the process of implementing innovative new technologies and services. “They’ll use franchisees to test it first and prove ROI before rolling it out to the entire network,” Stites says. “If the franchisee feels like it was their idea, it will be much more successful than feeling like it was something mandated by the franchisor.”

    At Rallio, we’ve seen this process in action when we on-board new franchise brands. The franchisor will work with us to select a number of locations for pilot testing of our Rallio social media platform and Rallio Local agency services. After a testing period, usually around a month long, we’re able to show the franchisor certain success metrics such as an increase in followers and engagement, a boost in sales, a boost in online reputation, and/or an increase in new-hire recruiting numbers. From there, we can more easily get franchisee buy-in and roll out Rallio products and services brand-wide.
  • They’re adaptable. No successful business stays stagnant. If you’re not continually updating your systems as a franchise organization, you’re not going to be around for long. Keeping up with changing customer needs and expectations by way of innovative processes, programs, products and services keeps you ahead of the curve both as a franchise and at the location level. You’re also able to empower franchisees to keep reaching their target customer market and building a loyal customer base (more on that in the next point).

  • They focus on the customer. With new innovations, franchisees are better equipped to deliver better, more personalized customer experiences. The evolution of social media has given rise to changing customer expectations. Gone are the days of picking up the phone to voice a complaint or question; customers will simply take to social media. And customers who post brand-related questions or reviews on social media want their concerns addressed immediately. With better, faster technology and methods of replying to customers — e.g., the Rallio platform and our agency-style marketing services — franchisees are able to ensure rapid responses to customers.

Success Factor #3: Clear Communication Between Franchisor and Franchisee

The better the communication between franchisor and franchisee, the better the odds of success for all parties. Part of that clarity comes down to having easy-to-communicate programs and processes that any franchisee can easily execute with the proper support. Stites says the KISS principle applies: Keep it simple and easy to grasp.

Take, for example, the food industry. “If the menu gets too complex, then operating the business becomes too complex,” says Stites. The same is true across the board: From operations through marketing, if you can keep your systems simple, focused and duplicatable, then it’s much easier to plug newcomers into the organization and set them up for success.

With marketing, for instance, focus on three to five core methods and do them well, and franchisees will be more apt to try them successfully at the local level. Our Rallio Local clients are successful for this very reason. From corporate down to the individual franchisee, we help them execute a few key strategies focused on customer engagement and responsiveness on the major social media platforms, like this crowd-pleasing photo on one of our client’s pages:

This Team Member Tuesday post we created for our client Pet Supplies Plus got great engagement.

Another benefit of simple programs and processes is that franchisee recruiting efforts become more streamlined, too. Imagine your developers out in the field recruiting candidates and having to communicate a set of lengthy, complex procedures to prospects. There’s a high chance of something getting miscommunicated or overpromised — and, later, franchisees getting let down or overwhelmed by an overly complicated system. Now imagine them in the field selling a plug-and-play system instead, one that a dedicated, determined franchise candidate can pick up and run with. Which system do you think will be more successful?

“It starts with setting realistic expectations from day one,” says Stites. “It’s better to underpromise and overdeliver.” From a corporate level, ask yourself if you’re aware of exactly what’s being said by your development team out in the field. What are they saying to candidates? What expectations are being set? Sometimes the CEO or development executives don’t even know what’s being promised, adds Stites.

The danger of doing the opposite — overpromising and under-delivering — is real. Oftentimes, expectations aren’t set correctly when franchisors bring candidates on. “During the recruitment process, they talk about bells and whistles,” says Stites. Franchisees think they will open their doors and customers will flow right in (more on that next), and they’re later surprised to learn there’s much more work involved. Making sure everyone is on the same page will help to set the proper expectations and set franchisees up for success.

Success Factor #4: Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Although the franchisor is responsible for setting proper expectations, it’s also up to franchisees to do their due diligence — in terms of both the franchise in question as well as their own appetite for hustling to build a business. Oftentimes, franchisees buy into a franchise system thinking they’ll just swing the doors open effortlessly and customers will pour in. In reality, the work involved with building a business is the same regardless of whether it’s a franchise or an independent business.

“Whether it’s a franchise or non-franchise, it’s a ton of work [to start a business],” says Stites. “It’s the hardest job you will ever have.”

Although theoretically there are systems and processes in place with a franchise, there’s still hiring to do, operations to facilitate and marketing campaigns to launch. No matter how you slice it, you’ve got a business to run, and you either have to do it yourself or hire a team to do help. “A lot of people think, they hate their job and they will go into business,” not realizing the work and commitment involved, says Stites. “If you hate your job, you can quit. If you buy a franchise, you signed a 10-year or longer agreement. If you don’t like it, it’s much harder to unwind that.”

In addition to considering your own desire to work tirelessly for your business, it’s also important not to commit to a franchise based solely on its particular product or service. “People may get excited about the product or service the company is offering,” says Stites, “but the skills to be a successful franchisee could be very different from what the actual product or service is.”

For example, a fitness enthusiast may think they should open a fitness franchise just because they like the gym. However, from a franchise candidate standpoint, it’s more important to understand what makes a particular brand successful and how you personally can make your location thrive. As a franchisee, you’ll need to be out networking in the community, building relationships with customers and colleagues, and pouring your heart into all the behind-the-scenes efforts required to run a business — i.e., you won’t just be working out all day.

This realization that franchising is much more work than anticipated can cause franchisees to fail or plateau. If they achieve a certain level of success, they have to either keep going, or stay stagnant and risk becoming obsolete. Just as the franchisor must adapt to changing times, so must franchisees.

On the positive side, the benefit of joining a franchise system is that franchisees have access to an entire network of owners who can help provide motivation and support. As a franchisor, you can help your franchisees by facilitating a connected community. Underperforming franchisees should have a lifeline to the most successful franchisees, whether by phone or through an online platform, so they can share ideas and find out what they are doing differently. Says Stites, “The most valuable asset is the franchise network.”

Success Factor #5: Finding Just the Right Size

According to FBR, of the approximately 3,000 U.S. franchise companies in operation today, 69% of those companies are smaller franchise companies with fewer than 100 locations. When preparing to join a franchise, candidates should consider its size in addition to the factors above so they know what you’re getting into.

On the one hand, a smaller franchise may have more opportunities for growth because they’re not saturated in the market the way McDonald’s is. It could be well-suited for risk-takers seeking more entrepreneurial freedom and flexibility if the system is still in development. They don’t have it all “figured out” yet and may rely on the first franchisees to help establish processes and systems. On the other hand, a smaller franchise might not be ideal for those craving structure in a well-established organization. However, one can’t assume that just because a brand is large that they’re successful at the franchise level.

Ultimately, in addition to researching a potential franchise thoroughly, talking to existing franchisees about their experience can help in the decision making process. As a franchisor, the more you can communicate with franchisees and support their experience of business ownership, the more satisfied and successful they are likely to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Social

4 Steps to Measure Social Media Success

This much we know: Social media is no longer simply a “nice to have” in your business marketing plan. Your audience is already online, checking out your social profiles and online reviews, as well as conducting mobile searches for nearby businesses. You either ramp up your social presence or get left behind by your competition.

You get it. Other marketers get it. According to one survey of CMOs, marketers said they are spending 12% of their marketing budgets on social — a number that’s expected to rise 20% in the next five years.

What’s not so clear is how to justify the spend on social media marketing. The survey also notes that 44% of those same CMOs say they haven’t been able to measure the impact of social on their business. Although it’s simple enough to track followers, likes, shares and engagement, it’s not quite as easy to equate those numbers with sales or other metrics of success.

Before you throw your hands in the air and think social media isn’t working for you — or, on the flipside, that it is working just because you have a large number of followers — take a deep breath. Know that there are ways to measure your social media success, and you can start today — even if you’re among the 44% of marketers feeling cloudy about the kind of impact you’re having on social media. Read on for four steps to measure the effectiveness of your social campaigns.

Step 1: Define ROI

To measure your social media marketing success, you’ll need to do two things:

  1. Define your goals and tie them to outcomes. Your returns are the various outcomes that you determine are necessary for your brand.
  2. Identify what exactly your investment is, aka your budget you wish to spend overall and for each initiative. You dedicate time, resources and dollars toward social media — that’s your investment.

Together, your investment and the resulting returns (or outcomes) are your ROI. Some possible goals with desired outcomes and investment options include:

Your goals can vary based on any particular campaign, its platform and its associated budget. Some outcomes can be clearly measured in terms of money, such as an ad campaign that ties directly to an offer (more on this in Step 3). Others, like brand awareness, are more difficult to quantify but are still important to your overall marketing plan. The value of outcomes will need to be defined according to your unique business, leading us to Step 2.

Step 2: Assign a Value to These Goals

Let’s look at a hypothetical example to estimate the value of your outcomes. Imagine one customer is worth $100 monthly (you can insert whatever numbers are meaningful to you here, such as the lifetime value of a customer, or the average value of a purchase as a result of seeing an ad). Then you’ll compare that value against the social media marketing costs associated with lead generation through social.

Use the following formula to calculate ROI: return minus investment, divided by investment, expressed as a percentage. In the example above, let’s say you spend $100 on social media marketing in a month, including the time, resources and ad spend needed, and then you get 10 customers who made a purchase, totaling $1,000 in value.

$1,000 – $100 = $900

$900 / $100 = 9

9 x 100% = 900%

In this case, your return is 900%, which is a great return. You would probably want to repeat the same efforts, maybe even increase your spend, but again you have to look at how all your efforts are working overall and consider all angles. For example, what is your average close ratio when you talk to prospects non-digitally? Establish a “social close ratio.” How many engagements do you need to earn every day that equate to one engaged follower? How many engaged followers do you need to impact your bottom line?

Step 3: Continually Monitor Your Analytics

Your Facebook or Instagram promotion insights and Rallio dashboard give you a detailed view of post reach, post engagements, page followers and more, including both organic and paid efforts. While it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the many types of metrics available to track, you have to pick and choose which ones are meaningful based on your goals. For instance, if your goal is brand awareness, you might look at an increase in followers and engagement as an indication of growth. Other campaigns can be more easily attached to sales, such as boosted special offers that include unique tracking codes or those that incorporate Facebook Messenger as a sales tool.

For example, recently I saw an ad on Facebook for a buy one, get one free pizza at a local pizza place. I clicked the button to get the offer, and I received the offer as an auto-respond in my Messenger. The message invited me to opt in to email by replying back to the message. It also included details about any exclusions, participating locations and the expiration date. Best of all, when I use this offer, the server is supposed to click the “redeem” button in my Messenger app. How’s that for tracking ROI?

Not only did I request the special offer, but I agreed to ongoing communications from the restaurant by opting in to email. Before I have even set foot in the door, they’ve got my email address and have given me a reason to visit: free pizza!

This Facebook Messenger campaign from The Pizza Press opts me in for email offers and also gets me in the door with a BOGO offer.

As a side note, in this article, I discuss Messenger as being a major tech trend for franchise locations to utilize this year. With the hyper-local targeting you can implement with boosted ads, you can send out special offers that get seen by people in your community and contribute directly to your ROI.

Step 4: Adjust as Needed

What works on one platform or for one goal isn’t always going to be the same. It’s important to continually check your ROI so you know what’s working and what isn’t — and then adjust your strategy accordingly. Understand, too, that certain goals take longer than others. It could take several weeks to grow your following, while an ad campaign might last just a few days and can be easily measured afterward.

Your goals should be working together all the time to produce the outcomes you want. Understand, too, that you can’t always see the direct path from prospect to conversion — for instance, a new follower or a comment can’t necessarily be tied to a sale. However, the only way to start converting prospects to customers is by getting in front of them every chance you get — through social media, through building a local community, through paid boosting of your content, and through creating confidence and loyalty in your brand.

Over time, you’ll learn which campaigns work best and which areas deserve the most investment. The key is to have a robust online presence, combining both organic and paid efforts, that shows people you are a trusted brand. This way,  when they do come across your page, they’ll want to buy from you — whether now or after the 10th or 100th time they see you. Keep tracking your efforts and investing, and you’ll see the returns in time.






Categories
Social

3 Tech Trends Impacting Local Franchise Locations This Year

As a franchise location, your top priority is getting customers through the doors. The way you handle your local social and online presence dictates whether people will find and frequent your business — and technology can help your efforts to create a local impact. The following three tech trends are among those having the greatest impact on franchisees’ ability to reach their target audience, build community and create authentic connections with their customers.

#1: “Near Me” Search

Mobile search gave rise to “near me” searches, whereby people search for a business, product or service located nearby. If someone is looking for a pet store, for instance, they might type in the phrase “pet stores near me” or simply “pet stores” — and Google will suggest nearby locations. Even without the “near me” phrase included in the search, Google now knows people are looking for local places. In fact, it’s more likely that people will drop “near me” from their search, knowing that Google will serve up relevant search results based on a person’s geo-location.

Click the video below to see this process in action. Not only does Google pull up local search results, but it also shows online reviews associated with a location. Once you click over to the location you want, you can even tap to get directions and drive there on the spot (or, hey, grab a ride with Uber or Lyft!).

Make sure your business has a contact page on your website, plus a Google My Business listing.

According to Google, roughly one-third of all mobile searches are now location-based, as more and more people attempt to locate whatever they need in that moment — all while on the go. In fact, location-based searches have been growing 50 percent faster than any other type of mobile search.

The implications of this growing trend for franchises are huge in terms of driving local customers into their businesses. To ensure your franchise location shows up in “near me” searches, there are two important steps to take for local search optimization. First, make sure your website has a contact page with your address and phone number. Google likes to see a contact page in particular and will read the information in searches. Simple as that!

Next, set up a Google My Business profile, which will also ensure you show up on Google Maps(formerly known as Google Places). Your GMB profile is where all information related to your business will live in the Googlesphere — such as your name, address, phone number, website, location on the map, Google reviews and more.

Setting up your Google business page is a simple process you can get done in minutes. Add as much information as possible, including photos and videos, to make your business uber-searchable and to give customers a good glimpse into your location. In addition, ensure that your website is mobile-friendly so customers have a positive experience when viewing your site from their phones.

#2: Voice Search

A close cousin to “near me” search is voice search. With virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa and Google Home available today, not to mention microphone technology built into smartphones, many customers are now speaking their search terms instead of typing them into their browser.

The trend has been growing in popularity steadily over the past few years, with Google GEO Sundar CEO previously announcing that one-fifth of Google search queries are voice searches. Furthermore, 22 percent of people use voice search to find local information, according to an Internet Trends Report.

Because it’s faster to speak than type, queries may be longer and more conversational than typical search terms. Instead of saying “pizza places,” for example, someone might ask a question: “Which pizza places are open near me?” See below:

Voice search makes it easy to enter longer searches in the form of a question.

If you own a local business, that means you have a tremendous opportunity to be found via voice search. Just as you optimize your site for “near me” searches, do the same for voice search. Again, your contact page and Google My Business listing are critical to getting found, as are relevant keywords in your title tags, meta description, internal links and anchor text. These keywords can include phrases about your neighborhood, the names of nearby landmarks and institutions, and other hyper-local words.

Read more: How to diffuse customer complaints on social media

#3: Facebook Messenger

On Facebook, your customers can message your page directly with questions or comments via Facebook Messenger. With over 1.3 billion active monthly users, Messenger offers huge potential for connecting directly with your audience, creating community and turning prospects into loyal customers.

Consider the many ways to use Messenger, and you’ll quickly see it’s an invaluable tool in your overall marketing strategy:

  • Customer communication — Customers who message you via Messenger may be asking questions pertaining to your location, such as whether you have a certain item in stock. Respond to them quickly — just as quickly as if they had picked up the phone and called you — and you’ll generate brand trust and confidence that can equate to new customers and sales.
  • Reputation management — Similarly, customers may take to Messenger to voice their praise or concerns. Respond to these messages quickly, too, even though they are not public-facing. Unanswered complaints have the potential to turn into online reviews that everyone can see, not to mention the poor reputation you’ll be creating, so be prompt in handling any customer issues.
  • Employee recruiting — Find applicants, set up qualifying questions and allow candidates to apply directly online using Messenger. Using various bots, you can let Messenger prescreen candidates and send you only those who fit your employment criteria.
  • Sales — Configure Messenger to let customers purchase products directly through the app using chatbots and Buy Now features, and your live-chat experiences via Messenger can become sales opportunities. This breakdown from Neil Patel will help you configure Messenger to boost your ecommerce sales.

The above methods are just a few of the ways Messenger can help you stay engaged with your customers and build authentic connections in your community. Don’t overlook it as a way to further your franchise location’s local impact.

A Word About Online Reviews

Another critical element of your Google My Business page is your online reviews. As people use “near me” and voice searches or look you up on Facebook, they’ll be reading reviews to decide whether to visit your location. They’ll also be looking at how you stack up against the competition that’s showing up in those search results. The more five-star reviews you have, and the greater your response rate, the better you appear to potential customers.

That’s why you need to make sure every review has a response from your business. Whether a review is positive or negative, it’s important to take a few minutes every day to acknowledge your customers and make sure any concerns get resolved.

With positive reviews, a simple “Thanks for your great review, Jim! We look forward to seeing you again soon!” goes a long way toward building customer loyalty and goodwill. With negative reviews, best practice is to be polite, avoid getting defensive and offer to remedy the situation — sometimes, taking it offline is best rather than hashing things out online.

Even positive reviews deserve a response from the business, like this reply from our client Massage Heights Midtown Houston.

Keep in mind that your online reviews are available for anyone to see. That means the customer searching for “pet stores,” or your particular product or service, could land on your Google page, come across your reviews and make a buying decision without ever coming into your store or having a conversation with you.

In addition to Google reviews, be sure to monitor those appearing on Facebook and Yelp. Claim your pages on those platforms so you have control over responding to comments and reviews. Keep in mind that Yelp may penalize your business for requesting reviews from customers in exchange for credit, gifts or other incentives.

Instead of offering free gifts, consider incorporating a reputation management tool into your overall marketing strategy — such as our Revv app, which invites customer feedback and makes it easier to 1) encourage positive reviews on Yelp, Google and Facebook, and 2) take negative feedback offline.

Read more: Not responding to your online reviews and engagements? You need to read this

Conclusion

Technology can be your BFF if you know how to use it to your advantage for your local business. If you could use some help navigating your online reviews, Google My Business and other tech trends impacting your franchise, turn to the experts at Rallio and we’ll help you create an impactful local presence that sets you apart — not only in search results, but also in the competitive playing field.






Categories
Social

GaryVee’s Top Tips on Franchise Social Media Marketing

When Gary Vaynerchuk speaks about social media marketing, it’s best to sit up and listen, especially if you feel like your brand could use some help maximizing its online reach. The CEO of VaynerMedia was among the featured guests on a recent episode of MODRN Business Podcast, hosted by Rallio’s own Ryan Hicks, Vice President of Business Development.

In the episode, which was recorded before his keynote at the 2019 International Franchise Association Annual Convention in Las Vegas, GaryVee offers several tips to help franchisors and their franchisees get started in social media marketing. Read on for a look at a few of his top tips that any franchise system can undertake to make an immediate impact on social media.

Give More Than You Take

“People are often self-serving on social media,” says Gary, and that approach doesn’t do anything to win over your target audience. “Your content needs to bring value to the audience at no cost so they can go and do something with it.”

The most successful social media accounts serve up content that either informs and educates or entertains rather than going for the sale, says Gary. He adds, “There are no accounts doing well on social media that don’t do one of those two things.

Pro tip: Don’t over-promote. Promotional posts have their place, such as when you’re paying to boost a post or you have an exciting offer to share with users. You can’t post them every day, however. Keep the focus on them, not you, with the majority of your posts, and they’ll be more receptive when you share a special sale or promotion. If you need more ideas for daily content, see our post, 31 Days of Social Media Ideas.

Read more: Why Your Franchise Location Needs Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/532340386932497/photos/a.655440264622508/1130776187088911/?type=3&theater
Rather than pushing a sale, this post from Pet Supplies Plus in Naperville, Illinois, puts the focus on community engagement through highlighting Hugo the dog.

Make Local Content

Franchisees need to be producing local, engaging content like the post you see above. Why? “Because they want their business to grow,” quips Gary. “If you’re not making contextual content, you’ve lost.”

By contextual, he means that simply pushing out the same corporate content across all locations isn’t effective in terms of broadening your local reach. If you want to do business with people who actually live in your area and are likely to frequent your establishment, then you need to speak to them directly.

The “Hugo” post above from Pet Supplies Plus in Naperville, Illinois, does double duty by pushing out a locally focused post featuring a “neighbor’s” canine companion. By also asking its audience to post pet photos of their own, the post invites engagement and, because Facebook’s algorithm favors this type of content over generic posts, is more likely to be seen in newsfeeds.

Pro tip: Find your unique voice. Specifically, find a voice that exudes casual friendliness. Social media is not the place for business speak, stodgy words and sales pitches. The very term “social media” gives you a clue as to what kind of voice you need to have. You’re just a bunch of friends chatting it up.

Read more: 5 Tips for Improving Your Writing on Social Media

“That whole concept of vanilla from corporate doesn’t work,” Gary continues. That’s a tough lesson to learn for many new franchisees, who often join a franchise system because of the perceived structure. They may think that corporate will handle everything for them, including their local marketing, when in reality that’s a task they must undertake just as an independent entrepreneur would.

Adds Gary, “The reason so many people lose in the franchise world is that people think they’re in the turnkey business and they’re not.”

When corporate content doesn’t generate any engagement, leads or sales for them, they may think social media simply doesn’t work for them as a marketing medium. However, the solution is not to abandon social media, but rather embrace local, location-specific content. That is, original content that’s contextual to your five-mile radius is always going to disproportionately outperform generic content that isn’t meaningful to your local audience. “Like, you know the pothole on your street — that’s the joke you should be making,” says Gary. “The hot new yoga studio [in town], the principal in town who just celebrated her 50th anniversary — that needs to be your post.”

Pro tip: Don’t be a social media hater. The conversations are happening with or without you. Additionally, on social media, you have an opportunity to let your personality shine, inspire confidence in customers, entertain and educate your audience, and build customer loyalty. Lastly, you can better serve customers. Nowadays, when people have a complaint about a company, they take to social media to vent. The more engaged you are in the conversations happening about your brand, the more responsive you can be to their needs.

Read more: Why Your Franchise Location Needs Social Media

The key takeaway? Customers want to see that there are real humans behind the local social profile. Again, ask yourself if a post either informs or entertains. If it fails that litmus test, then it’s not providing value — and it’s probably not going to get any online engagement.

Furthermore, pay attention to what happens after you post. If people are asking questions, commenting, liking, sharing and leaving online reviews, you need to be involved in that conversation. When they engage with you, they expect to hear back — and quickly — especially if they’re voicing a complaint. Be polite, be engaging and be present so your customers know you’re listening.

By responding promptly to this positive Facebook recommendation, Honest-1 Auto Care South Elgin showed they are listening and care about customer feedback.

Pro tip: Respond to both positive and negative online reviews. In either case, it’s important that a customer feels heard. With positive reviews, thank them for taking the time to leave a review and mention something specific about the customer if you can, such as, “It was great seeing you as always, Jessica, and we look forward to your next visit.” With negative reviews, be sure to acknowledge the concern, address it without getting defensive, and take it offline if necessary. An owner’s response to a review has the ability to either generate trust in a brand or demonstrate lack of concern.

Read more: Not Responding to Your Online Reviews? You Need to Read This

Pick Your Platform

With so many different platforms, from Instagram to LinkedIn, how do you know which one will give you the best return on your marketing investment? While you don’t need to limit yourself to one platform, you can take a look at your demographics to see where they are spending their time the most, but don’t ignore other opportunities to branch out into other platforms. “LinkedIn has helped me quite a bit because it’s broadened my reach,” says Gary.

Pro Tip: It’s called “social” media, so be social. Your audience doesn’t want to see stock photos. They’ll scroll right past them! Instead, include snapshots (with permission) of your employees, customers, office environment and other real-life photos. Include not only special events such as birthdays and holiday celebrations, but also simple “day in the life” photos showing what happens in your office.

Read more: Franchise Social Media Best Practices: a Roundup of Our Best Tips

Bonus Tip: Get Your Employees Involved

A common barrier for franchisees is they lack the time and/or desire to post to social media, engage with their audience and respond to their online reviews. One solution is to let someone else do the work.

That might mean employing an agency such as the Rallio Local division to handle posting custom, local content and responding to comments and reviews. Not only does our team bring life to local pages, but they also help boost locations’ online reputation by ensuring timely responses to their online engagements.

You can also empower your employees to be brand advocates. Did you know that most employees are already posting comments, images and videos about their employers? Rallio technology allows you to give employees limited access to your mobile social profiles so they can do some of the legwork to snap great local photos and upload them to our platform.

Does your franchise use social media marketing to make a local impact? Why or why not? Drop your comments below.

Marketing experts and executives interested in being featured on the MODRN Business Podcast may reach out to Hicks at ryanh@www.rallio.com. To be featured or for guest blogging opportunities on the Rallio blog, contact karen@www.rallio.com. Additionally, for product or service inquiries, contact ryanh@www.rallio.com or support@www.rallio.com.

About Rallio: Rallio is a powerful combination of social technology and local agency. The Rallio team empowers local operators to ignite their social presence, with easy-to-use mobile technology that turns employees into brand advocates. Rollup analytics provide brands with complete control over their local social media and reputation presence and clarity into which locations and operators are performing the best.

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