According to a FRANdata study, approximately 300 new franchisors join the marketplace each year and hundreds more are still in the infancy stage of their brand lives. While most franchise brand managers remain hyper-focused on getting ever complex marketing campaigns aligned, there’s a tendency to neglect one critical area of importance – a manageable, strategy-based set of policies for effective social media activation and engagement. 

 

All franchise brands can benefit from a thorough review of goals and best practices that address the intricacies – and opportunities – of social media. Let’s start by focusing on five key areas of opportunity. 

 

Creating sharable and engaging content   

Ideating campaigns that entice audiences and pique interest is no longer the hardest part. Now, brands must master the art of creating quality content that is readily shareable (a) to reach a wider audience and (b) to engage them in a more elevated brand experience. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, there are certain guidelines that can boost engagement and shareability greatly: 

  • Focus on producing high-quality, aesthetically pleasing images and video content with striking graphics and visuals.  
  • Craft captions that spark a better connection with your audience, initiating conversation by asking thought-provoking questions or eliciting feedback. 
  • Develop compelling, human-interest storylines to connect emotionally with your audience, highlighting real-life people, user-generated content and other relatable content.

 

Prioritizing social media community management

In its purest form, social media community management is the practice of connecting brands to audiences by creating meaningful moments. It is how brands can engage others in like-minded conversations and build trust. Your community managers, as brand representatives, must maintain a consistent voice and deploy strategies such as: 

  • Generating prompt but thoughtful responses, showing genuine interest and acknowledging your community’s input, efforts and achievements. 
  • Developing and adhering to standards to maintain a healthy and safe space for others to speak, celebrating diversity and encouraging inclusion. 
  • Hosting “surprise and delight” and other activations where your audience can interact with you in real time – e.g. contests, live Q&A sessions, polls, etc.

 

Balancing proactive and reactive on social media

Building a strong digital and social presence may differ somewhat for each brand as audience demographics, brand sentiment and product/service offerings all play into what informs an effective strategy. So how do you know when you should stick to a cadence of pre-planned content versus jumping on an emerging trend or topic? The truth is it’s not black and white, it’s typically a careful mix of both. Tactics for creating a proactive and a reactive social media plan include:

  • Proactively create a roadmap for your social media calendar based on research and a deep understanding of your audience as well as what type of content they expect to see.
  • Use social listening tools to track brand sentiment and find out what topics are important to your audience. Simultaneously, implement a reactive approach known as social monitoring, where you actively are tracking brand tags and mentions to respond to those who best engage with you on social media. 
  • Monitor and selectively react to trending news topics that are peaking people’s interest, even if it extends beyond your industry! From the latest TikTok sensation, for instance, or hot album release or National Day, don’t be afraid to test out a few creative ideas so long as they are rooted in what you know will resonate with your audience. 

 

Following best practices for social listening

Brands today can access a world of information on how their audience feels about products or services. It is one thing to hear such conversations, it is another to listen actively to them. By deploying social listening tactics and tools properly, brands can create meaningful connections more easily, gain a competitive edge and potentially prevent a crisis before it occurs. Developing an effective, targeted strategy should include: 

  • Determining which platforms most align with your audience as each comes with its own advantages and insights. 
  • Creating a keyword search that is truly representative of your brand, products or services, industry and competitors. 
  • Acting wisely on discoveries – i.e. replying to questions and feedback in a timely manner and incorporating your findings into future product and marketing strategies.

 

(Re)assessing your comprehensive digital strategy

The digital landscape is evolving constantly, and so should your strategy around digital touchpoints and outreach. Yet how often should strategies change, and how can you tell if what you devised is effective? It is important, first and foremost, to consider: 

  • What business goal or objective are you looking to achieve? Each social platform offers a different outcome, and you must be able to relate the outcome to what you are aiming to achieve. If a certain social media strategy is not helping you achieve that goal, you are wasting time and energy that could be spent elsewhere. 
  • Who are your current and ideal customers? Similar to different platforms not being geared to the same goals, they also reach differing audiences. If you are looking to activate on multiple platforms to engage with a wider audience, the messaging might be similar, but the type and forms of content you may have to customize.
  • Who are your biggest competitors, and where are they active online? There is a lot to be learned from others in any industry. Taking a deeper dive into a competitor’s social presence – and performance – could help you identify possible pitfalls and opportunities to gain a competitive advantage.

 

As with everything, upfront research and development are as crucial as testing and optimizing your efforts. Slow and steady progress is key to longer-lasting, more sustainable success for your brand on social.

 

Scott Parker is the CEO of Social Factor, a Social CRM and Strategy agency that helps enterprise social media teams move from digital chaos to human connection. Social Factor streamlines the digital CX journey by handling various operational challenges, like strategy, technology, engagement, and intelligence, to create authentic and safe social spaces.

Prior to Social Factor, Scott spent a decade as the Senior VP of Marketing Innovation for Warren Douglas Advertising. There, he helped grow the company from the ground up, including creating departments for Client Services, Media, PR, Social Media, Web Development, and Analytics while also managing the agency’s largest client. Over the last 18 years, he’s worked with world-recognized brands, including Tyson Foods, Essilor, Verizon, Cisco, Google, LinkedIn, Toyota, Smith & Nephew, and many more.

Scott completed his accounting, economics, and music undergraduate degrees from Harding University and the University of Memphis. He earned concurrent master’s degrees in business administration from SMU Cox School of Business and arts administration from SMU Meadows School of the Arts, and in 2015 completed the
Stagen Integral Leadership Program. Outside of work, he volunteers as a youth sports coach and enjoys a wide array of sports, music, and books.