How to Increase Franchise Sales with Social Media

Social Media tools are improving marketing and sales efforts for small businesses every day. Nowhere is the impact greater than within franchise systems.

Not only are smart franchisors driving traffic into outlets’ locations and onto websites, but they are also driving recruitment of new franchisees using social media channels.

Here are two simple ways we can engage prospective franchisees: sharing our story in order to attract new interest and exploring the social web for new leads with whom we should connect.

I. Speak and Share – Tell Your Stories

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.

II. Explore and Find New Connections

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.

Also note that any leads from traditional sources that you’re managing via a CRM system or other means should be imported into this application so you can listen to and engage via their social media hot spots as well!

The Future of Social Media is Mobile and What Else?

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.

5 Tips for PR Pros Using Social Media Tools

Thanks to Stephanie Krol and PRSA Chicago for inviting me to participate in the discussion “Making Communications More Effective with Social Media Tools” along with these all-star panelists:

MJ Tam, Chicagonista
Rick Wion, McDonald’s
Reid Lappin, VOKAL Interactive
Adam Keats, Weber Shandwick
Gini Dietrich, Arment Dietrich

For anyone who couldn’t make it to the event, here are a few of my points regarding social media tools for use specifically by PR professionals:

1. As PR practitioners, it is your duty to learn how existing and new tools can help your clients. No more saying “I just don’t have time to keep up!”

2. Use and learn new Social Media tools before your clients or executives do. What is an expert? Frequently, it’s someone who just has a jump on the information.

3. As you learn about a new social media platform or tool, sign up and try for a minimum of 30 days. You may find that it has little use for you personally but it may be a useful channel for your brand or clients to engage stakeholders and customers. In any case, 30 days will give you enough of a history to be able to intelligently advise clients about including this new tool in their tool box.

4. Take some time to reevaluate your personal usage of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and any other platforms. I’ve spoken with many PR pros who still think they should a) trust privacy settings and 2) not connect with clients or bosses. I find that to be extremely narrow-minded and misses opportunities.

If posting personal material that your clients should not see is more important than making a deeper business connection, than perhaps you’re in the wrong business. Stop worrying about privacy settings – which need to be changed on Facebook constantly – and be transparent!

5. What’s the Future of Social Media? All of the panelists agree that the future is mobile. I add that the future is mobile and local. Users are flocking to mobile app versions and it’s time for your brand to engage customers at the local level.

Think about how PR can deliver results 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.

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