Connect the dots between enterprise marketing, planning, strategy and content with your local business's reach, relationships and trust. Is your social media strategy local? It should be, this ebook explains why. Start empowering your local channel.

Local Social Media Strategy for the Franchise

Franchise social media planners in branch-based organizations can take advantage of significant multipliers by going local in a comprehensive social approach. There are three key phases achieve results. This paper will lay out the steps, techniques and rewards of adopting a local social business initiative.

McKinsey reports that, social media is the "only form of marketing that can touch consumers at each and every stage, from when they are pondering brands and products right through the period after a purchase, as their experience influences the brands they prefer and their potential advocacy influences others"

McKinsey's research also shows that a direct social media recommendation from a peer generates engagement rates some 30 times higher than traditional online advertising does.

Franchise systems and organizations are particularly well suited to capitalize on social media.

The question becomes, how do we best implement social media? Your franchise may have remote offices, dealers, franchise locations, or agents, or some mix.  For ease we will refer to these as "branches".

Branch-based organizations have decided to invest in local markets by placing people, products, inventory, services, and the brand closer to prospects and customers. Historically, local merchants have used word of mouth, advertising and PR to promote their businesses.  They were slow to embrace social media and did not know where or how to get started. Many enterprises, eager to leverage the new social media capabilities, set up fan pages and begin to tally up likes, checkins and followers. Yet, the value of a corporate fan was extremely low. Something was missing.

To answer this question, research firm Mainstay Salire recently conducted a study employing web crawlers and analytics to track and compare social media activities of corporate fans vs. local fans.

The study uncovered two interesting findings. First, local fans had five times more reach than corporate fans. Additionally, local fans were eight times more likely to engage with social media than corporate fans. Combining the depth and breadth at the local level led them to conclude that a local fan was worth 40 times more than a corporate fan in value to the enterprise.

Planning A Localized Social Media Strategy

What can you expect in rolling out a localized social media strategy? Check out this free E-book on How To Roll Out a Localized Social Media Strategy and explore the phases in local/social media marketing.