What Social Media Can Do For Your Franchise
Social media has opened up countless doors for organizations looking to expand their marketing efforts. Organizations can now, more than ever, take on their own personalities and develop relationships with their customers.
So why is social media so effective? Because it’s a two-way street. Your can put your brand on display in any way you want and facilitate discussions that will expand your online visibility. If you’re a social media pro, you’re also your customer’s best listener. People like feeling heard so interacting with your customers online is a great way to build trust and earn loyalty.
Challenges You May Face
Now with all of the benefits that stream from the kingdom of social media, there also come challenges. As a franchise you may find yourself feeling daunted by the idea of implementing a social media campaign. Properly applying social media as a marketing technique means investing time and money into strategies as well as having a strong sense of brand awareness.
When looking at your franchise as a whole you can easily take into account that they have a variety of locations, each under different management. Although the brand is the same, without guidance, each different franchise manager is likely to present your brand a little differently than the last. Attempts to localize content combined with different presentation styles can result in each of the local pages carrying a different brand voice. This will water down the strength of your brand and your attempts to market it.
Here’s Your Solution
So how can you utilize social media to stay ahead of the game while protecting your brand voice?
One powerful solution is a branding guide. Now a branding guide can be as complicated or simple as you like. But for the most part, the more detail the better.
A branding guide can be distributed to each individual location and define exactly how you expect employees to interact with your online audience. Train your employees to interact with customers on social media just as they would be expected to with customers standing right in front of them.
Your branding guide should clearly specify the voice and tone for your brand. Is your brand voice professional? Trendy? Playful? Whatever it is, stick to it. Your tone is a little different than your voice. The tone of your brand voice may change depending on the situation. What tone does the organization take in day to day conversation with customers online? What tone does the organization take when responding to negative reviews?
The guide can also include color schemes, fonts, and examples of copy that uses the brands voice. The more detailed and clear your branding guide, the more direction your individual franchise locations will have for their social media efforts.
If you’re not utilizing social media, your brand isn’t going to thrive. Don’t let multiple locations overwhelm you! Putting together a few simple ideas for a branding guide is a huge step in the right direction.