Social media is a huge beast to tame. From deciding what type of content to post, which ads to run, who to interact with and more, it’s easy to get lost and confused. It certainly doesn’t help when channels get updated every week and there are always new features to test and try.

And when you think the beast can’t get any harder to tackle, it does when you are a franchise with multiple locations, pages, and need to continue to stay on brand.

But don’t get scared away, we’re here to help you conquer franchise social media once and for all.

To overcome the struggles of multi-location social media and conquer the beast, follow these three rules at all times.

Franchise Guidelines for Social Media

Rule #1. You must provide support and control content at all times.

Be a resource for your franchisees by making social media easy and content findable.

This rule speaks for itself, as all franchisors hope to stay on brand with their posts at all times. However, that is not what is always executed on franchisee pages. There are two scenarios that frequently occur and should be solved immediately.

• Scenario 1. The majority of the franchisees are inactive on social media due to the fact that they do not know what to post or have any on brand content to share.
• Scenario 2. Franchisees have taken their social profiles into their own hands and have begun sharing off-brand content.

Corporate can mitigate these risks and implement this rule by providing support and content to their franchisees in an efficient and effective manner. Leverage technology to provide guidance and support by placing all your locations on one social media management platform. Ease those who are not posting on social media into it by providing a tool where they can post and schedule on all five of the most popular channels with just a click of a button.

Alternatively, for those who don’t have any content to post, as well as those who are posting off-brand content, franchisors should utilize an asset management tool that provides easy access to approved, brand-forward content. Find software that houses images and copy that are brand-approved and give your franchisees the ability to pull and post from it.

Make this a double whammy by finding a social media workflow solution that allows you to do both, all on one dashboard.

Rule #2. You must consistently view analytics and monitor reviews.

Help your social media strategy advance to the next level by keeping a close eye on your advertisements and reviews.

Grow your social media post engagements, page following, and overall influence, by testing different content types and ads to see which ones get the best results. As a franchisor, you need to make sure that what your brand is promoting and the messages it is sending are resonating with your desired audience. Analytics are the key to unlocking this. Dive into them to see where the majority of your engagements are coming from, how old your audience is, what times they are the most active online and much more. This will allow you to restructure your social strategy to cover all these unique bases.

Maintain your brand and online reputation by efficiently managing reviews and customer comments. Replying to reviews and comments, whether positive or negative, shows your clients that you value their feedback and their experience with your brand. Ignoring a negative comment could cause your audience to become more upset, motivating them to spread their experience and talk down on the brand that you’ve built for months or years. Don’t let this happen to you.

53% of Twitter users and 21% of general social media users now expect companies to reply to their reviews or comments within 24 hours. Be sure to assign someone the role of replying to comments and reviews on a daily basis. However, with reviews flooding in every hour of every day, it could get difficult keeping track of all of them. Guarantee that you don’t miss a single one with the help of a reputation management platform.

Rule #3. You must build and grow local Facebook pages.

Set up individual pages for each of your locations to reach and connect with audiences at a local level.

People are using Facebook as a search engine more than ever, browsing for businesses and brands on the platform. It has become the go-to channel to search for local businesses, restaurants, and more. Since Facebook automatically creates local pages for franchises, you can’t leave them unclaimed or ignored. Local pages will often rank higher in search results than single brand pages. This is because major brand pages are targetted to the nation, while Facebook will list results based on your location. For example, if you are located in San Diego and search “tacos,” it will give you the following result

As you can see, none of the major franchises are listed, only taco shops that are nearby. Help your franchisees rank higher and make them findable by creating pages for each of their establishments. It is also important to stay aware and proactive on your automatically generated local pages because customers are able to leave reviews on those pages once it is created. Make sure you get notified as those testimonials come in by claiming the page as your own.

Franchise social media management doesn’t have to be hard. Follow these three rules to lay a strong foundation for your social strategy.
You are now equipped to defeat the beast that is social media.