Social Channels Driving Business for Franchisors

I am excited to share a bit of a preview of one panel at this year’s IFA FranTech. This is the 4^th annual event (formerly FranCamp) focusing on Marketing and Technology for Franchises.

I am even more excited to be moderating a panel of Franchisors including Paul Segreto, CEO of Franchise Source Brands International, and Gina Svendsen, Director of Marketing of Scooter’s Coffee.

We will discuss the most successful social media channels that franchisors and franchisees are using to:

Market their brand to consumers
Drive traffic to franchisees
Engage with potential customers
Acquire leads in these channels

If you’re looking for a conference to hear self-described “experts” drone on and on about how cool they are, then this is not the session for you.

No PowerPoints. No phony stories about how Harvard Business School was holding them back. No sales pitches.

This will be an open discussion with CEOs and CMOs chatting with you about what’s working for them in social media and what’s not.

See you in Denver!

FranCamp 2012: Mapping Your Customer’s Route to Your Store

As we’re winding down the summer and gearing up for a big retail season, I thought I would share my presentation from Franchise Social Media Camp (FranCamp) from back in May. The topic was leveraging social platforms for Franchise systems.

One slide (#6) that lead to some good discussions with attendees is the view of social platforms compared to your franchisees’ stores. Think of it as a map. What platforms are you using as roads to get to other platforms? And, more importantly, what’s the route to get foot traffic in the stores? Are you sharing links on Twitter to draw consumers to an app on Facebook for coupons that drive store traffic? Are you using Google+ or Facebook start a discussion and then sharing video that lives on YouTube that has a great call to action? There are many more combinations than there are platforms! Remember, some channels may be a better or faster route for your customers than other routes.

<div style=”margin-bottom:5px”> <strong> <a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/JackMonson/francamp-2012″ title=”FranCamp 2012″ target=”_blank”>FranCamp 2012</a> </strong> from <strong><a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/JackMonson” target=”_blank”>JackMonson</a></s

FranCamp 2012 from JackMonson

FranCamp 2012 Registration Open Now

I’m please to helping my friend Deb Evans organize FranCamp – The Franchise Social Media Camp – once again this year. Last year’s turnout at the Nashville event was so well received that we’re expanding the agenda for our May 4 event in Atlanta. Please check out the FranCamp registration page now and check out the description below from our FranCamp website.

FranCamp

We realize that social media is a rapidly changing field and many marketing professionals, CEOs, franchise development staff and franchisees lack a clear roadmap for where to start with social media and how to weave together all the relating pieces that make up a successful social media and online content strategy.

What FranCamp is Not

If you work in the franchise industry, you know that franchise conferences are often full of vendors making pitches for services and products. Sometimes the information is helpful and it rarely goes into the real ‘recipe’ for using social media.

We want to change that.

What FranCamp is About

Everyone who works in franchising is affected by social media and the last thing any of us need is a speaker talking about ‘why you need to be using social media’ or big picture talk about ‘social media strategy.’ What franchise professionals hunger for is simple: real, actionable steps anyone can take that will make a HUGE difference in your marketing.

If you want to educate yourself on the best of current thinking and learn the real recipes that work from the most advanced franchisors, franchisees, consultants and experts in the field of social media, this is a one-day conference you can’t afford to miss.

You won’t get sales pitches. You’ll walk away with a very sophisticated level of understanding about ALL of the pieces of a successful social media strategy.

FranCamp follows the wildly successful PodCamp format – a low-cost, one day event fully loaded with a fast paced and aggressive agenda full of super-helpful content. What you will get is a good education in almost all of the relevant topics that marketers must understand to make good decisions. If you want to launch your own campaigns and make sure your marketing department is pointed in the right direction, this is for you. If you have a budget and need a better level of understanding about social media related issues so you can make good hiring and vendor decisions, this is especially for you.

Who Should Attend

Anyone who works in franchising: Franchisors – CEOs, COOs, VPs of Marketing and VPs of Franchise Development. Anyone who deals with franchise sales and lead generation, anyone who handles consumer side marketing should attend. If you work in the marketing department of a franchise system, this is for you. If you own a franchise and want to learn more about how you can boost your local marketing, this is for you.

Limited Registration

Registration is open and is limited to one hundred attendees. This is a high-power and intimate session. FranSocialCamp is designed to by inexpensive – total cost for flights, hotel and the $149 per person, making it one of the least expensive social media conferences in the country. Less costly doesn’t mean we skimp on content – you’ll have a hard time finding a better and more packed agenda than this one.

Breakfast and Lunch are included on Friday. Tuition comes with a very cool FranCamp T Shirt and copies of all presentations.

WKRP: Thanksgiving Turkey Drop

Arthur Carlson WKRP — “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

Several years ago, I had the privilege of meeting Gordon Jump, aka Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson of WKRP in Cincinnati. He was passing through town on a PR tour for Maytag (he was the Maytag Repairman in the commercial campaign at the time) and did a live studio interview at the radio station I was programming.

What a pro! Mr. Jump was a PR person’s AND a media outlet’s perfect interviewee: he promoted the Maytag event for which he was the guest, and also was open to reminiscing about his WKRP glory days. It was near Thanksgiving, so he gave us his best on-air recreation of his classic quote from the WKRP turkey massacre episode. He was thankful for having such a good run and for still acting and portraying fun characters.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
-Jack Monson

Oh, the humanity!
-Les Nessman

Social Media Conferences 2012

The number of Social Media conferences continues to grow each quarter. What’s growing even faster is the number of conferences, summits, and conventions that are industry-specific that are now completely social media marketing focused. I am continuing to pull together as many as possible into one compiled social media conference list and have updated it well into 2012.

If you are organizing, speaking at, sponsoring, or attending a show that is not on this list, please comment here or email me at jmonson@engage121.com and I will add it!

Where Is The Next FranCamp?

Franchisors, franchisees, agencies, and suppliers all had them same initial feedback as soon as Franchise Social Media Camp – FranCamp – wrapped on Saturday:

When is the next FranCamp? And, where?!?

The FranCamp organizing team got together immediately to discuss, but we want to hear from the Franchising Community as to what areas of the country make the most sense for busy marketers and development pros. Please take a minute to tell us your choice for FranCamp cities.

Click Image to Take Poll and See Results

The desire of so many attendees to continue this discussion may have been based on the tight focus of all speakers and presenters. The discussions were neither too introductory nor too technical. All presentations and roundtable discussions were geared to giving everyone usable social media tactics to put in place immediately.

This was a refreshing change from the IFA’s recent attempts at having social media panels and presentations at the annual convention, which were very elementary for many franchise marketers.

All of the presentations from FranCamp Nashville were streamed live on USTREAM and available to you for viewing now. These include:

Deb Evans, Computer Explorers – Engaging Your Company

BJ Emerson, Tasti D-Lite – Social Loyalty Programs

Thomas Scott, Brand Journalists – Business Blogs

Nate Griffin, Man of Action and Aimee Romero, Love and Science – Organic SEO

Joe Mathews, Franchise Performance Group – Social Franchise Development

Jack Monson, Engage121 – Twitter Tactics

Paul Segreto, franchisEssentials – LinkedIn Strategies

Jennifer MacDonald, WIN Home Inspection – Online Videos & YouTube

AK Stout, Saying It Social – Facebook Strategies

Ashley Betzendahl, Goddard Systems and Robin Scott, Computer Explorers – Franchisor and Franchisee Q&A

One final note – several attendees have asked to see the Engage121 case studies I mentioned. Please see links here for case studies of franchise system Edible Arrangements and iconic brand Amtrak.

Thanks to everyone for their time and attention. See you in whatever city you want to bring FranCamp to next!

Google+ for Brands

Last week at Social Media Breakfast Chicago, I was pleased to lead a lively discussion with several smart marketers and community managers on Google+. Everyone is in the planning stages and waiting to see exactly what Google has in store for brands hopefully still this year!

It feels like Google+ is moving forward ever so methodically. There is now an API available though it’s limited to public data at the moment. In fact, this week I connected my Google+ profile to my Engage121 account.

The group relayed stories how their brands and clients are anxiously waiting for the business pages to be rolled out. Here is a list of things you can do now to prepare.

1. Get in and use it as a personal profile now to get the feel.

2. Get your colleagues and valued connections from other platforms to join now and learn together. Share some posts with each other or start a Hangout (my favorite function!).

3. Start setting up circles of your brand’s communities. Think of segmenting them just like you would segment targeted mailing lists. We are assuming that one could share circles built in one’s personal profile over to the brand, so much of your targeting prep work can be done here and now.

4. Start collecting Google+ profiles now of your customers, industry experts, and other important influencers – just like Twitter handles in 2009 or phone numbers in 1940.

5. Get your photo to show up in Google searches. This is a great little tip I found from the always-informative marketing blog by Jim Connolly.

6. Watch what the beta test brands are doing. Check out Ford.

7. Connect with me on Google+ and we’ll all figure it out together!

This Saturday at FranCamp in Nashville, I will be leading a roundtable lunch discussion on Google+ for Franchise Systems with my friend Deb Evans. If you’re in the area and interested n social marketing or franchising – or just want a good reason to go spend a day in Music City – please join us! Agenda and registration details below:

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