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Huntington Learning Center Crushes Local Search and Social: Learn How

 

A localized presence is key to finding success in today’s digital marketplace. Social media now influences seventy-eight percent of purchase decisions, and of social brand engagements, three out of four happen at the local level. Similarly, 91 percent of consumers start a local search first when looking for businesses. If your multi-location business isn’t leveraging local search and social to its fullest potential, you’re missing out. 

 

Within this blog, we’ll recap our recent conversation with Huntington Learning Center and look at which local social tactics it leveraged to boost social media efforts and gain more high-valued engagements. By the end of this blog, you’ll understand what your multi-location business must focus on to crush the competition and stand out as an industry leader when it comes to maximizing a local presence. 

 

 

Search and Social Have Gone Local 

 

The data speaks for itself. Both search and social media have gone local. If you need further convincing, consider this – local posts, on average, see 67 percent more engagement than posts that are not considered localized. Consumers crave a connection at the local level, and a local presence on social media provides it. If your multi-location business doesn’t have all of its local social pages claimed, that is the first step. If your multi-location business already has a local social strategy in place, good for you, but there’s always room for improvement. While local social is one of the best ways to win more customers, it’s not as effective without a solid local search strategy. 

 

One out of every two searches now has local intent. Local listings on Google My Business (GMB) are crucial for your multi-location business to gain visibility through local search. Updated and accurate local listings will help your business rank higher on Google and provide consumers with the information they need about your business in relevant searches. Ratings and reviews are a component of local search as well. Ensuring that your company has a strong reputation management strategy will further boost your online visibility on Google. We’ll get into the specifics next. 

 

How Education Brands Are Performing in Localized Marketing

 

Local social and local search – combined – cover every step in the consumer journey. While local social focuses more on the discovery phase, otherwise known as awareness and consideration, local search aligns with the decision stage. A winning localized marketing strategy has a good balance of both local social and local search tactics. Our 2021 Localized Marketing Benchmark Report drives home this point further. The report examines how top multi-location businesses perform in the most influential digital channels, including local search, social, and ratings & reviews. 

 

SOCi also released a Top Education Brands in Localized Marketing Report, which focused specifically on the education industry. The report found that Huntington Learning Center was one of the top 10 brands for localized marketing performance. The average LMBR score for education brands was 40 out of 100, but Huntington Learning Center scored an impressive 50 points. When it comes to local social, Huntington Learning Center has 99 percent of its locations posting at the local level on Facebook and 38 percent posting on GMB, which is above the industry standard. Huntington Learning Center also has impressive metrics when it comes to local search. Huntington Learning Center is crushing it when it comes to local search and social. Is your multi-location business meeting industry standards or falling behind? 

 

 

Tactics Huntington Learning Center Used to Improve Localized Marketing

 

When it comes to responsibility between corporate and local teams, Huntington Learning Center uses a hybrid approach. This means that both Huntington Learning Center and their local centers work together to form a cohesive search and social strategy. Huntington Learning Center believes in empowering local teams with the toolset to develop relationships at the local level while also keeping some overhead from corporate. 

 

For instance, Huntington Learning Center schedules about five posts per month from corporate and encourages local centers to post their localized content a few times per week when it comes to local social. On the other hand, Huntington Learning Center leverages SOCi Listings to help manage and update local listings from the corporate level, taking some of the load off local teams. 

 

When asked about the most critical aspect of localized marketing, Huntington Learning Center emphasizes the need for connecting with their local communities. While corporate can give local learning centers all the marketing materials they need, with more than300 locations, corporate can’t create a connection at the local level. Huntington Learning Center also measures the success of their local search and social efforts to understand what’s working, what’s not, and where there’s room for improvement. For instance, Huntington Learning Center tracks engagement on local social media to see if their local content resonates with their target audience. Multi-location businesses can monitor ratings and reviews to see what customers are saying about your business. As a multi-location marketer, it’s essential to establish metrics to track before implementing local search and local social efforts to understand whether or not your efforts are worthwhile. 

 

Building Your Own Success Story With Local Search and Social 

 

Huntington Learning Center is living proof that an emphasis on local search and social media can propel your business to the next level. As mentioned previously, Huntington Learning Center leveraged SOCi to build their success, and your multi-location business can too. SOCi’s Social Solution enables multi-location companies to manage and deploy localized content at scale while maintaining brand consistency at both the enterprise and local levels allowing your business to achieve the hybrid marketing approach Huntington Learning Center utilizes. SOCi’s Social Solution also allows your multi-location business to elevate your digital presence for consumers – everywhere they are.

 

When it comes to listings, SOCi Listings helps Huntington Learning Center manage its local listings across all learning centers. SOCi Listings allows your multi-location business to manage your business listings at scale and effectively optimize your online presence and local search rankings. From syncing, updating, and managing your local listings to custom audits and profile recommendations, SOCi Listings covers every step of the process to launch your listings to the top of search results.

 

What’re you waiting for? You have all of the tools you need to make your multi-location business the next leader in localized marketing. For more information on how SOCi can help you crush your localized marketing goals, request a demo today!