Why Is Social Media Marketing for Franchises So Important?

Social media marketing for franchises is vital to any franchise marketing strategy in this day and age. In the traditional sense, social media provides you with a space to market your products and services and offers businesses a platform to engage with potential customers.

When looking at social media for franchises, platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook allow franchisors to connect with and engage potential franchisees.

With close to a million franchises operating in the US alone, franchisors looking for potential candidates must seek innovative new ways to reach these candidates. Social media marketing is one of the best ways to do this. Make sure you choose the right platforms to target, though; you need to know where you can find potential franchisees. Creating client personas is an ideal way to map out who your potential candidates are and where you can find them.

In 2022, there are 4.59 billion active social media users worldwide, and this number is forecasted to reach 6 billion in 2027. The great appeal of social media use in marketing efforts stems from its ability to reach large audiences in a matter of seconds. In fact, 81% of marketers find that investing as little as 6 hours a week in their social media marketing efforts leads to increased traffic.

Social media marketing is touted as one of the most cost-effective ways to reach potential consumers, and in this case, potential franchisees. Targeting advertising conducted through social media allows marketers to ensure that their message reaches the right people, which means you’re likely to spend less money on unqualified leads.

As experts in social media marketing for franchises, IDS outlines some key things you need to know about marketing your franchise opportunities on social media.

Understanding Social Media Marketing for Franchises

B2C businesses have been leveraging social media to their advantage for years, but many franchisors are just beginning to recognize the benefits of social media marketing for franchises. Franchisors can utilize social media to call attention to unique value propositions like discounts on franchise fees, highlight the relationship between their brand and current industry trends, announce the opening of new locations, and share franchisee success stories.

Franchisors can also leverage social media to take advantage of the powerful methodologies of inbound marketing. By anticipating and answering potential franchisee questions on your social media platforms, you are developing a sense of trust between you and these possible candidates and providing them with the information they need at their fingertips.

IDS has laid out a five-phase approach that you can follow to scale up your social media marketing efforts.

• Phase 1: Take time to understand your business, identify market trends and locate competition.
• Phase 2: Establish a multi-faceted, scalable social media strategy to position your brand across multiple social channels
• Phase 3: Create strategic content to promote on your website and social channels.
• Phase 4: Implement paid content promotion and social media optimization strategies.
• Phase 5: Rely on reporting techniques using marketing automation platforms and your CRM to track the ROI of the previous phases.

The final phase is possibly the most important of all; you won’t know the success of your content marketing efforts until you measure them. The information you glean from your reporting can be used to optimize your social media marketing efforts to ensure that you continue reaching the right people in the right way.

It’s also essential to develop a corporate social media policy. Franchisors should consider updating their social media policies to ensure they’re providing clear guidelines for acceptable online behavior for all employees who might be posting about their brand. When developing a social media policy, you must consider all aspects of your business and its goals.

Look to the IDS Team for Premium Franchise Social Media Management

At IDS, we are a leading provider of franchise social media management services. Our comprehensive suite of social media services ranges from organic to paid, and we pride ourselves on the return on advertising investment we can provide our franchise clients.

Here is a breakdown of the services we have to offer:

• Organic campaigns: Our franchise social media marketing experts know what it takes to grab attention on various platforms to increase traffic. Our team knows exactly how to develop strategic, organic posts designed to have the maximum impact on the prospective franchisees you need to target.
• Paid campaigns: Just like search engine marketing, there are many benefits to utilizing paid campaigns on social media. Paid campaigns help you better reach your audience, and we’ll be provided with information on which posts were most effective so that we can tailor future posts to your prospective franchisees.
• Reputation management: Regardless of the size of your franchise, or the industry you’re operating in, your business is likely already being reviewed on social media. Our reputation management services can help strengthen your positive image among prospective investors.
• Follower development: Everyone on social media realizes they need a broad audience of followers to make an impact. Franchisors are no exception. We’ll utilize our franchise social media marketing skills to help you find prospective franchisees and engage them with your content.
• Social page optimization: Keeping your social media page relevant and visible to prospective franchisees requires careful optimization. Our team knows how to delve into the nitty-gritty of social media platforms to ensure that your page reaches as many qualified prospective franchisees as possible.

At IDS, we help our clients manage their social media and online reputations to present their best, most authentic selves to potential franchisees.

Contact us today to find out how our digital marketing company can improve your existing social media platforms!