With nearly 3.5 billion worldwide social media users active on a number of social platforms, reaching the right customer with the right message has become more challenging than ever. 

Multi-unit franchise brands looking to rise above the digital noise—and the competition—with sustained success must start at the local level with advertising that reaches the customer in a personal way where they shop, work, and play.

SOCi’s newest resource, The Franchise Guidebook for Localized Social Advertising, outlines what every franchise marketer needs to know to target audiences with local social marketing and its growth accelerator, localized social advertising. The complete guide delves into the power of a robust local social approach to unleash brand authenticity across the buying journey for powerful results. 

Why localized social advertising?

With the decline of trackable and scalable organic content across social media channels, most notably Facebook’s algorithm changes, it’s tough to engage new audiences, let alone stay connected to fans and followers, without local social advertising. These digital interactions influence a whopping 49 percent of in-store purchases and outperform national brand advertising when it comes to customer engagement.

The guidebook makes the case for multi-location brands to shift to a paid local social strategy and outlines why investing in a social media management tool to personalize the customer experience is a smart investment for every franchise.

Localized social advertising gives multi-location franchisors a powerful weapon, at-scale, to create hyper-local messages with an audience-focused strategy that relies heavily on the individuality and reputation of each location. The guide underscores the value of SOCi’s centralized platform to coordinate multi-location marketing efforts and address the three critical areas of localized social marketing (LSM): a local social presence with a consistent brand voice; monitored and responsive online customer care; and growth boosted through high performing content and local ad campaigns. 

SOCi Ads PLUS is the only solution that allows franchise brands to create one new ad creative, then dynamically include local copy, unique images, and localized URLs with just a few clicks.

Facebook – THE platform for localized social advertising.

Google and Facebook dominate search and social networking, jointly controlling around 60 percent of the more than $129 billion in U.S. digital ad spending. The Franchise Guidebook builds on findings of SOCi’s recent State of the Market: How Localized Social Marketing Impacts Multi-Location Businesses that revealed most brand engagement happens on the local level.

The Franchie Guidebook focuses on localized social advertising strategies on Facebook, where an estimated 74 percent of the U.S. users log in every day and two out of three consumers visit a Local Business Page at least once per week. Most paid social budgets are spent on Facebook Ads and Facebook Boost. The Guidebook outlines the differences between the two paid features and nuances to maximize ads for multi-location brands and franchises. 

Different locations require different approaches. 

The Franchise Guidebook covers the various ways Facebook ad objectives optimize a campaign for a specific result or goal and emphasizes the need for audience targeting, retargeting, and geofencing, a location service that triggers an action when a device enters a pre-defined virtual geographic area. 

Social media is an extraordinary marketing tool with unlimited potential–and easy to get wrong. Multi-location marketers can take advantage of Facebook ad metrics to optimize ad campaigns and ensure money is well spent. The Guidebook recommends franchise marketers set aside time every week, month, or quarter to track the metrics and compare tactics and results for different franchise locations. 

The Guidebook also outlines common mistakes and tips to avoid harming your digital presence with poor reviews, inaccurate business information, and low social media engagement. 

Pitfalls include: 

• Inconsistent branding
• Generic content
• Talking without listening or responding to your customers 
• Failing to segment audiences properly or geofence online ads 
• Ad fatigue
• Ignoring local analytics.

In the competitive world of franchising, social ads – accompanied by clear objectives – targeting, and results tracking open up a world of innovative opportunities to attract and engage customers with your brand’s story. Localized social advertising allows brands to cost effectively combine corporate resources with local store-level expertise to consistently manage interactions across an entire franchise business. Together, with a centralized mass-management tool, franchisors can shine as a national brand and deliver a competitive edge to franchisees in an ever-changing social media landscape.

Download the Franchise Guidebook for Localized Social Advertising