Social media is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes, and franchises are no exception. In fact, social media can be an especially effective way for franchises to reach their target audience and grow their sales.

Social media marketing utilizes social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok to create new market exposure. Through social media, franchises can retain existing customers while dialing into an interest-specific demographic they may have never seen as a viable target audience.

With the proper understanding and know-how, a franchise can market products and services with a far more personal approach. And personal is what franchise social media marketing is all about.

 Here’s a quick summary:

1. What is Franchise Social Media Marketing?
2. Finding Your Target Audience 
3. Creating Engaging Content
4. The Trick With Targeted Advertising
5. Understanding How To Monitor & Analyze Results
6. Our Final Word

1. What is Franchise Social Media Marketing?

Franchise social media marketing is a genre of marketing that consists of a detailed marketing strategy and an action plan across multiple social media platforms. 

The content is often curated to optimize brand awareness, inform service/product understanding, and create a relatable persona surrounding your franchise and overall business goals. Successful social media marketing will always reach your target audience.

2. Finding Your Target Audience:

You may ask yourself what a “target audience” is and why reaching them is more important than a simple increase in general public views and brand awareness. 

By definition, a target audience is a specific group of consumers most likely to have an emotional connection or physical need for your service or product. By design, the target audience is who your franchise is made to serve.

The target audience can be dictated by many categorizing traits. Such traits include but are not limited to; age, gender, income, location, interests, and a myriad of other potential factors. 

The point to remember is that your franchise will go through ebbs and flows of what is “trending” in any given demographic. Your target audience is not always the group you imagined upon the conception of the business or even the expansion of a new franchise location.

Learn and grow with your target audience, and new opportunities to expand your reach will arrive organically. 

3. Creating Engaging Content:

You have probably heard the saying “content is king,” and in the world of franchise social media advertising, that statement couldn’t be more true.

 What does it mean to create “engaging” content? Engaging is an umbrella term that really means that people are interacting with what you share, which means an increase in likes, shares, comments, and more.

But how do we know what will perform best? Below is a list of ways you can increase engagement for your franchise business. 

1. Share blog posts with an engaging active voice
2. Develop branded how-tos, tutorials, and tips for your product/service
3. Publish industry headlines that engage readers
4. Create engaging videos that contain a call to action
5. Take advantage of trending topics and challenges
6. Leverage user-generated content with the user’s consent
7. Show your brand personality with memes and GIFs
8. Conduct an interview with an industry expert
9. Once a month, put a spotlight on your customers 
10. Give your customers a look behind the scenes
11. Create previews of upcoming offerings and sales
12. If applicable, do an unboxing video for your product 
13. Run contests and giveaways for new and existing customers
14. Host and promote your live events to further brand image
15. Be authentic to your franchise; customers can smell fake from a mile off

This is a great list of suggestions, but knowing the information and implementing it are two different things. If your franchise needs help to make an impact on social media, consider a consultation with SocialMadeSimple.

Explore SocialMadeSimple’s Resource Center for ways to help your franchise make a big splash in the social media pool!

4. The Trick With Targeted Advertising:

As we touched on earlier, finding your targeted audience for your franchise business can be difficult, and it can take an exuberant amount of time and effort on your end.

You may have one sales demographic in mind, but as your franchise expands its brand personality on social media, you never truly know who is going to respond to your branded content and massaging.

Here is a to-do list to help better understand your franchise target audience.

1. Analyze your current customer base.
2. Conduct Market Research
3. Study who shops at your competitors 
4. Work with influencers and content creators that meet your franchise’s persona 
5. Narrow down who your target audience is NOT
6. Use Google Analytics
   

5. Understanding How To Monitor & Analyze Results:

Successfully running a franchise social media campaign is a big win for your business, but the true victor walks away with more than an increase in sales and engagement. The real winner is the franchise that can monitor, analyze, and learn from the numbers.

There are many tools and resources that industry professionals use. Meta offers Blueprint courses and certifications to help you best utilize Facebook and Instagram.  

If you don’t have the time or desire to become a certified experts, you can hire a Meta Partner Agency, like SocialMadeSimple. Feel free to connect and even trial our services with a free 90-day pilot program.

6. Our Final Word:

Franchise social media advertising is an ever-changing and growing practice. And, learning the landscape and tools can be an overwhelming task for a franchise, large or small. 

But at SocialMadeSimple, we can help you find the right path forward and empower you and your franchisees to connect to the right audience to tell your story. We ensure that your franchise marketing strategies are cohesive and are the foundation for reaching a franchise’s ultimate goals.

To achieve measurable success with your franchise marketing investment, get started with SocialMadeSimple’s free franchise social media marketing pilot program.