If you have ever worked with a franchise business, you know how challenging multi-location social media management can be.
From having numerous page administrators, all with different visions of what should go on your page or not, to various events in different locations, it can be challenging to keep things streamlined while maintaining a consistent brand voice across the board.
However, when you empower your social media franchise marketing with the right tools and strategies, you can enable your multi-location brand to succeed and hopefully reach more people than ever before.
In 2024, studies show that there are more than 5 billion social media users worldwide, so they certainly shouldn't miss out on a successful social media strategy for multi-location businesses.
In this article, we'll examine 9 ways to empower your business' social media accounts for success and provide 2 examples of successful social media marketing in the wild.
Let's get started.
#1 Determine your brand voice
A unified brand voice is the first thing a multi-location business needs for success. It's not easy, but it is certainly achievable.
A brand voice is a company's distinct personality and tone in all its communications. It will reflect its values and connect with its audience. Every brand should have a different brand voice from other brands, just as humans do, because that's exactly what makes a brand unique and stand out from other brands.
Brand voice is important because it helps create a consistent and recognisable identity, which will help build customer trust and loyalty.
When done correctly, a strong brand voice differentiates a business from competitors and reinforces its message across different platforms.
Keep in mind that this is not something you will be able to whip up overnight. You will need to analyse the brand, its mission and values, what it represents, and set clear expectations of how you will portray that to the general public through your tone, language, and writing style.
#2 Create strong brand guidelines
Once you determine your brand's tone of voice, it's time to create strong brand guidelines. By strong, we mean brand guidelines that are extremely well laid out and answer any and every question that anyone reading the brand guidelines could possibly have.
Keep in mind that studies show that 85% of organisations have brand guidelines, but only 30% are consistently enforced, which can certainly be linked to a lack of the brand's overall success.
Some key elements that should be in every brand guideline are:
- Tone of voice
- Writing style
- Typography
- Visual Elements
- Content guidelines
Let's take a quick peek at what that might look like in action.
Source: Creative Starbucks
Starbucks is an excellent example of a brand with strong guidelines. The image above explains the difference between being expressive and functional and how each works with the brand.
Source: Creative Starbucks
In the same brand guidelines, Starbucks shows how the voice of expressive and functional works with their brand in action.
Setting firm examples like Starbucks did is a great way to keep your multi-location brand voice easy to adapt and use across the board.
#3 Roll out a unified brand voice in all locations
Implementing a unified brand voice while handling social media management for multi-location businesses is simply not possible overnight.
Expect the process to take time, and understand that grace will be needed throughout.
To set your business locations up for success, ensure that anyone who may still post on social media receives the right training and education to understand the brand's voice.
To keep things especially consistent, you should even consider centralising content creation.
You can provide each location with a set of posts they should roll out every month.
The best way to do this is to invest in a platform that allows you to manage multiple locations simultaneously. With Sendible, you can simplify content creation by creating one set content calendar and scheduling posts on different social media platforms. Suppose you have multiple locations for one business due to a franchising opportunity. In that case, this is certainly the best and easiest option.
If franchisees, like restaurants, have local events they would like to feature, they can simply contact the centralised social media content team and have them roll out a post that aligns with the brand's voice.
If the franchisee still wants to post themselves, you can provide them with a content calendar that meets the franchise's brand guidelines and allow them to post unique posts for local events by following the training and education they received on brand guidelines.
#4 Determine the right platforms for your multi-location accounts
Not every social media platform is going to be right for your brand. The more isn't exactly the merrier in this case.
Take car dealerships as a great example of this.
A car dealership will probably excel on Instagram and Facebook since it is very photo-based, and people want to see actual photos of the car they may purchase.
If the same car dealership posted similar content on LinkedIn, it might not see the same success. Every platform can succeed if it aligns with your social media strategy and goals.
Analyse all the different platforms before investing heavily in one that might not be the best for your franchise's social media goals.
#5 Plan and schedule your content in advance.
A surefire recipe for failure in social media is to try and create a fresh post every day and manually get it out.
If you want your franchise's social media accounts to succeed, take a day to plan out an entire month's worth of social media posts.
Use a scheduling platform to schedule posts at the best-performing times for your brand. Sendible has a spectacular scheduling tool that will help you get your posts out and stay consistent across all your franchise's social media accounts and platforms.
#6 Set out how you will engage with your audience
The worst thing a brand can do on social media is create killer content, have people engage with their brand, ask questions and…
Crickets.
The brand does absolutely nothing to respond or engage with its audience.
For your franchise's social media accounts, be sure to set best practices for handling inquiries and addressing feedback.
If possible, set out some standard responses that any authorised user can respond to ensure that your franchise's brand voice remains consistent across the board.
Answering and engaging are synonymous with being victorious on social media accounts, so don't let your franchise's social media accounts be left behind.
#7 Measure your success through goals and KPIs
Sometimes, what you think may work best for your brand falls flat on social media and does not perform as expected.
To ensure that you are doing the best for your franchise's social media accounts, set goals and Key Performance Indicators relevant to your social media and brand voice.
Set realistic and measurable goals to truly evaluate how well something performed.
#8 Tap into effective analytics and reporting
The only way you will really know if you are reaching your social media goals and KPIs is to track your social media performance by analysing data.
With an automated tool like Sendible, reporting results to franchisees and stakeholders becomes easy. Sendible allows you to automatically send curated reports without having to manually create reports every month. It certainly is reporting made easy.
#9 Always re-evaluate and be willing to pivot when needed.
Remember that with every social media goal you set, you must evaluate your strategy and see if it works. Not everything will succeed from the get-go, and that's okay.
What's important here is that you are willing to admit that a strategy may not have succeeded. You can pivot to ensure you still meet your goals for your franchise's social media accounts.
Being humble and willing to change can keep your agency a step ahead for success.
Successful social media franchise accounts out in the wild and why they work
#1 Honda
Source: Honda Facebook
Honda's 2030 vision statement states, “We serve people worldwide with the joy of expanding their life's potential, and we lead the advancement of mobility and enable people everywhere in the world to improve their daily lives.”
Why this works
Through their social media accounts, you can see how their brand voice aligns with this vision. The brand showcases its functional and expansive features, which reflect the mobility of people's day-to-day lives.
Key takeaway
With every social media post, ensure that it aligns with your franchise's vision, mission, and values. Tap into your strong brand voice to help achieve this.
#2 Subway
Source: Subway Instagram
Subway has a very thorough vision with several aspects. One key aspect is to continue to evolve its menu of great-tasting, nutritious options and provide access to nutrition and healthier lifestyle information.
Why this works
On Subway's social platforms, the brand shows how it innovates and provides healthy and nutritious options for its customers.
Key takeaway
Ensure that your franchise's social media account aligns with all aspects of your brand. Show your brand's pride for what it does for its customers and preach it across social media accounts.
Wrapping it up
Yes, creating franchise social media accounts with a unified brand voice can be challenging. However, with the right strategies in place and the right tools to enable you to create unified content, you can help your franchise's social media accounts flourish.
Ready to take your social media management to the next level? Our team of experts will be happy to share tips and tricks on using Sendible to your advantage.
