Is your social media team still feeding two sets of social media profiles – one for customers and one for franchise development? Let us help to simplify your life: It’s time to consolidate social media pages and put all the best content on them.
Whether your franchise is on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, Pinterest or all of the above, it’s a lot of work to tailor content for each platform. And it’s twice as much work to sustain and manage separate pages for consumer and fran dev audiences on multiple platforms.
The good news is both audiences will benefit from – and even find interesting – your best content. So why would you make more work for yourself?
Messaging Is Not That Different
We understand: Your customers and franchise candidates are different audiences. However, they likely have more in common than you realize.
A Curious Jane scientific study conducted last year showed that nearly half of current franchisees were customers and fans of the brand before they purchased their location. According to the study, 45% of the franchise owners surveyed said they were customers of their franchise brand before they became franchise owners, and 37% said they first heard of the brand because they were customers.
So, when you are talking to customers, you also may be speaking to potential franchisees. Naturally, franchise prospects want to know about new products and services, how you market your brand and your commitment to customer service – all messaging you would plan for customers.
Additionally, much of the content normally shared to fran dev social pages is of interest to consumers, such as new markets in development and new locations opening.
Pages Are Competing Against One Another
Unfortunately, when you manage multiple social media accounts, those pages are competing against one another for your audiences’ attention. You also might be confusing users who are searching for your brand page – or a local franchise page – and end up on the fran dev page. It’s often hard to tell, because the names that come up on a platform search are so similar. And when a user visits a page, the content is similar enough that they may not notice.
If you consolidated pages, you would not only have fewer pages to manage and produce content for, but you also could stop worrying about consumers or franchise candidates landing on the wrong pages.
The best news is that, if you combine pages, you will not have to continue to produce two sets of content for corporate pages. You will just have a lot more interesting and relevant content to share on your social media page.
A Few Words About Franchisee Pages
If you consolidate consumer and fran dev pages, a side benefit will be more time to work on content to benefit your franchisees. Not all franchisees are comfortable with social media, so this provides terrific support – and ensures consistent and timely messaging – throughout your entire system.
You can encourage franchisees to boost their own social pages by:
- Posting photos and videos of their teams, projects, displays and more in the community and store or job sites. Don’t forget photos from job fairs, charitable events, etc.
- Creating short videos of before-and-after projects their teams complete.
- Responding to reviews (good or bad), comments left on posts and direct messages.
Streamlining your social media pages is a simple way to provide more relevant content to a broader audience and reduce confusion for users looking for more information on your brand on social networks. Consolidation also provides your social media team more time to help franchisees boost their own social presence.
