As one client recently stated, “I want potential franchisees to experience what my current franchisees are experiencing.”  

Prospective franchisees are searching for information well before they pick up the phone or take your call. Be found! More blogs, Fan Pages, and other platforms populated with your content means more candidates will find your brand and your story.  Showhomes has had an amazing increasing in franchise sales this year partially due aggressive social media efforts.

In the below example, I am marketing and developing new business for the “Java121” Coffee Franchise Company. I’m using the Engage121 app to share these stories across all platforms (Facebook Fan Page, our blog, Twitter, and any other platforms I choose). As the same time, I’m cross-pollenating that same content for all of my current franchisees’ platforms as well!

I compose a bit of content and perhaps share a link to an article. Note that with Engage121’s merge fields, the content will be customized for each franchisee.  

 

Next I choose all or any franchisees on whose behalf this message will be sent. Also, I choose all or any platforms to which I’m posting:Done! We have just shared that content, with a link to more information about our coffee to all of my corporate brand pages, blogs, and Twitter accounts as well as all of those pages, blogs, and Twitter accounts belonging to every franchisee in the system. This message about our product, brand, and system is out there! If I had 250 franchisees, this content would have posted to over 1,000 individual sites instantly. 

Smart marketers and franchise development pro’s are not limiting these stories to only focus on products and services. They are sharing the success stories about franchisees’ booming businesses to attract candidates who wish to be a part of that opportunity.  

You must seek out discussions held by potential candidates. This is something impossible to do just a couple of years ago! Using Engage121, I am searching not only Twitter, but also virtually all social media platforms, hundreds of thousands of blogs and traditional media (newspapers, TV, magazine, etc.). 

I ran a quick search of the phrase “start my own business” and found 34 people tweeting that phrase just the past 24 hours! These are leads I need to engage! Note, you may also filter your results by state, county, or city for targeted exploration. I can engage this person in conversation immediately. Introduce yourself and start the conversation!  

       

 
I can “tag” anyone if find, so here I’m tagging someone as “candidate”. This is useful for keeping up with large groups of individuals and listening to what they’re saying later on. 

I have updated a past post with more upcoming conferences, panel discussions, conventions, and events for professionals working in Public Relations, Marketing, and Social Media.
  
Instead of adding this just as a new post, I’m making this an easy to find page – see upper right corner of this blog or click here for the full schedule:
http://jackmonson.com/social-media-pr-conferences-calendar/
 
 If you are organizing, sponsoring, or attending a PR or Social Media conference not listed, please let me know via comment here or send me an email at jmonson@enr-corp.com. I would love to add any event of interest. Thanks!

 
From Engage121′s “Speak” page, I choose FANlet.

 
 
Begin writing a question and multiple-choice answers. My poll asks parents what’s the most enjoyable cartoon for them to watch with their kids.

 

After choosing POST, FANlet asks if you would like to Tweet this link to the poll via your Twitter account. Choose YES!

 
 
A check of my Fan Page shows the poll is up and already drawing readers.

 

 
On the Evaluate page of Engage121, notice that this poll can be added to our FANlet tracking. Not only can we track votes, but we will be able compare these votes with your website traffic or any other metric you pipe into Engage121.  

If you are a managing Social Media marketing or PR and would like me to further walk through the above steps, reach me here:

@jackmonson

jmonson@enr-corp.com

312-658-0600

Here's an entire classic Bugs cartoon edited to today's standards...

So that leaves us with today’s popular and, in some cases, educational cartoons on Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and PBS. While there’s no Daffy Duck in this crowd, I do find myself laughing along with my daughter, humming their songs, and noticing lines that were obviously written for parents.   

Please vote for the cartoon you find most enjoyable or maybe most tolerable for YOU to watch with the kids:   

Phineas and Ferb   

Little Einsteins   

Handy Manny   

Spongebob Squarepants   

Fairly Odd Parents   

Dora Explorer   

Go Diego Go   

Super WHY   

Martha Speaks   

Backyardigans   

Wonder Pets   

Word Girl   

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse   

VOTE HERE   

 
Here are the results from last week’s FANlet poll asking who within any organization should drive social media engagement.
 

 
The clear winner: Marketing. I had anticipated a better showing for Public Relations / Communications, but clearly the majority of voters chose Marketing.  Also, I’m glad to see many votes for Customer Service, which is so important to have involved in the conversation and is an excellent social media entry point for organizations looking to solve immediate business issues.

• Public Relations / Communications
   
• Marketing
   
• Advertising
   
• Customer Service
   
• Other
   

http://bit.ly/cHHEf0

Recently I’ve been working with several companies to create such programs using mobile/local check-in apps Foursquare and Gowalla. It’s quick, easy, instantly measurable, and cost is incurred only if you choose to give away prizes or offer discounts.

It’s also perfect for any retailer, restaurant, car dealer, or other multi-unit company to which it’s important to continue to give the best customers a reason to return to the store, shop, or showroom.

Many retailers and other local businesses are jumping on board Foursquare and offering a special deal for their Foursquare Mayors. These businesses are moving in the right direction as far as an easy and cheap very basic loyalty program. BUT there are a couple of problems with relying only on Mayorships:
•There’s only one Mayor; why limit a program to one customer?
•Who is the Mayor at most shops or stores? Yes, it’s usually a barrister, bartender, clerk, or other employee.

 
For this exercise, we will be Java121 Coffee, and we’ll give away a free cup o’ Java to our top two customers checking in this week. 

1. Listen to what your customers are already doing. Are they checking in on Foursquare already? Whether you already have lots of check-ins or not, let’s go get some more! Speak out, Shout, Tweet and post to your blog and Fan Page about the fact that you will be giving away a free cup of coffee to the two most frequently-checked-in customers this week. Here I’m doing this for 3 locations simultaneously and across many platforms via my Engage121 application:

 
2. At the end of the week, evaluate the activity and find your top customers via Foursquare or Engage121:

 
3. Send out a message naming your winners (let’s leave out last names for now!) plus perhaps a direct message to those winners:

  
Remember the 3 basic steps of any promotion:

Tell ‘em what you’re going to do

Do it

And tell ‘em what you did!

Extra value: Imagine the potential customer who has not (yet!) been to your store. Or, the customer who is on Facebook or Twitter, or perhaps sees your blog, but is not on Foursquare or Gowalla. You still have conveyed a message to those folks that something fun and valuable is happening at your store(s).
 

If you are a managing Social Media marketing or PR for a single location or a multi-unit company and would like me to further walk through the above steps, reach me here:

@jackmonson

jmonson@enr-corp.com

312-658-0600

I have updated a past post with more upcoming conferences, panel discussions, conventions, and events for professionals working in Public Relations, Marketing, and Social Media.
 
Instead of adding this just as a new post, I’m making this an easy to find page – see upper right corner of this blog or click here for the full schedule:
http://jackmonson.com/social-media-pr-conferences-calendar/
 
I have pulled this info from events that I will be attending or at which I will be speaking along with some help from many friends who supplied the info on their upcoming speaking engagements. I also found many of the details using a cool media relations and event planning tool, The AP Planner. 
 
If you are organizing, sponsoring, or attending a PR or Social Media conference not listed, please let me know via comment here or send me an email at jmonson@enr-corp.com. I would love to add any event of interest. Thanks!
 

Go search Twitter right now for the phrase “social media strategy” and see who is trying to sell you snake oil. It’s not pretty!  A few Tweets every minute pop up by someone using that phrase.

I cringe every time I hear or read the phrase “Social Media Strategy”. It’s still being used frequently by so-called Social Media “Experts”. By the way, that’s a bogus term too, but that’s well-covered ground here and at many other places.
 

There is no such thing as Social Media “Strategy”.
 

You have a business strategy and perhaps a communications strategy and hopefully a communications plan.

Your Social Media tactics are a means to execute those strategies just like any other tactic or activity. Social Media can be a platform, avenue, channel, or tool.  
 
I have had many organizations tell me “We don’t yet have a Social Media strategy.” My reply is usually, “Do you have a telephone strategy?” Of course not; you use a telephone to make the connections and build relationships to achieve your business goals.

It’s the same with Social Media!

I hereby pin this badge of dishonor on anyone claiming to be a Social Media Strategist or Expert.

I’ve participated in, spoken at, and attended several social media and public relations conferences and roundtables in the past year and the same question comes up to each speaker at every session: What’s the future of social media?

The answer lately has always been MOBILE. I think we can all agree on this.

I continue to add, though, that the second question should be: what else? And the answer is LOCAL.

 
What do I mean by local? Well, you are always local. And if I’m near you, I’m local too, right? To quote Buckaroo Banzai: “No matter where you go, there you are.”

The mobile users of social media are growing daily. They are not sitting at home or in the office thinking about your brand anymore. Those users are at your locations and want to connect, shout, check in, and tell stories about your brand. Even more, they want to tell stories about your brand specifically at the 123 Main Street location in Anytown USA.

PR Pro’s have a short window of opportunity to take advantage of mobile meeting local. Without proper promotion of what’s happening at your (or your client’s) local outlets, stores, offices, franchisees, or dealers, you are missing the intersection of Social, Mobile, and Local.

 
So, you’ve already set up Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, and a blog for your brand. Now you must do three things:

1. Set up individual fan pages, Twitter accounts, and blogs for each location.

2. Engage customers (or potential customers) at the local level via any platforms on which they are conversing.

3. Share their content with the rest of your community! A bit of content from a customer regarding the 123 Main Street location of your brand is much more powerful than anything else you can create!
 

The true power of local PR is delivering results and achieving business goals not by just Tweeting about the brand on a global or national level, but also by keeping friends, fans, and customers informed about events happening at each outlet, store, location, or community.