One or Many?
For several years most successful digital marketers with multiple locations or franchises have “gone local with social” and built a social media page or account for each location. This continues to be the winning strategy with Facebook.
But a trend I’m seeing from brand marketers is to merge multiple local Twitter accounts into one account for all brand awareness, news, and customer feedback for the entire brand. The areas where Twitter is currently most useful are increasingly being housed centrally instead of for each individual location.
What about all of the other platforms and channels? Which are best for a local presence versus a national brand voice? Here’s my recommended number of pages your system should have:
Facebook: 1 brand page + 1 page per location
Google+: 1 brand page + 1 page per location
LinkedIn: 1 company page per brand
Instagram: 1 account per brand
Snapchat: 1 account per brand
YouTube: 1 channel per brand
Twitter: 1 account per brand
Why is there a difference for Facebook and Google+? Why should these two – and only these two – have multiple pages? It’s the local or regional presence that is resonating on Facebook with local engagement and converting search results on Google to local store traffic. Think of Facebook and Google+ pages in the same way you would think of websites for each individual location or franchisee. Even for service brands like cleaning and maintenance services without a storefront, conversations and conversions are happening locally through these two platforms. But, the other platforms are skewing to centralized, national brand engagement and conversations.
Multiple Departments?
What about multiple Twitter accounts for multiple departments or functions within a brand? No – not even a separate account for “customer service.” Your brand on Twitter is your entire brand. Customers don’t care about your fiefdoms!
The multiple Facebook and Google+ pages should only be location-specific and nothing else. From a national level there should only be one page. Far too many franchisors still employ separate Facebook pages for consumer marketing and franchise sales marketing. As discussed at this year’s IFA convention in the Facebook for Franchise Sales session, don’t have a separate page for Fran Dev! Use targeted ads and boosted posts to hit candidates with specific messages about owning a franchise.
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