Social media can be used to promote and advertise your franchise opportunity and to recruit new franchisees. It can be very effective in reaching new recruits and starting conversations if you have the right strategy. These are six key points to keep in mind when creating your strategy.
Understand your audience
Social media success is dependent on your ability to understand your audience, whether you’re selling a product or service. While you may know the ideal franchisee for your company, it is important to get to know them to identify and attract them to your network. What drives them? What motivates them to purchase your franchise? What are their objections and obstacles to buying your franchise? What social media platforms do they use to connect with you and see you?
It’s easier to understand your audience. Knowing your audience will help you to know what content they like, what information they want to see, and where to target them. While you don’t need to be connected with everyone on social media, finding the right franchisees to help your business is important.
Create a strong brand presence.
Social media is more than connecting with your family and learning about your friends’ weekend activities. It’s where inspiration and discovery happen. Franchisees will look at your business online to assess how it sells and how well it sells. Your social media accounts should reflect your personality, regardless of what industry it is. Your social media should be appealing to customers but also showing potential franchisees the potential to grow their business.
Create your LinkedIn profile
Pay attention to your LinkedIn profile. You will be surprised at how valuable it is. It would help if you kept your LinkedIn profile up-to-date (you’d be surprised at how many people don’t), and it should be a way to connect with potential franchisees. Join groups, start conversations, create content, and stay active. Discuss franchising as an industry and your franchise. LinkedIn is a great place to express yourself and your personality. People do business with people, not brands. Your profile on LinkedIn should reflect your interests and talents. Who will sell you and your franchise to LinkedIn if you still need to?
Create your online network
Social media should not be about broadcast. Social media should not be used to broadcast. It should also serve the purpose of building relationships and networking, just like in real life. You can use the tools on these platforms, but they should not be used for selling. LinkedIn allows you to join local networking groups and search for franchisees in the area you are interested in. To network, you can also join other local groups and communities. Remember to sell as well as to contribute. Instead of being an annoying presence telling others to invest in your franchise, you want to attract the proper attention.
Make sure you use the right platform and the right tools.
While social media platforms may have some similarities, they also have many different features. You should treat each one differently because you have a diverse audience. You can use the tools available on each platform, such as hashtags, groups, and live broadcasts. You can combine them to increase your profile.
You can be on some platforms. However, you should be there where your audience is. For your franchise customers, this might mean you should be on Facebook and Instagram. However, you will need to be there on LinkedIn for your recruitment purposes. To ensure your content is relevant to each platform, you should adapt it to each.
Use paid advertisement
Paid advertising is not free but can be very cost-effective if used strategically. Using the right platforms, targeting, and messaging can help you get your franchise opportunity before the right people. You can monitor and manage your budgets and let media learn about your audience to optimize your campaigns. However, your messaging and audience must be well-thought-out. While platforms can optimize, they are only as good as understanding your audience and how you communicate with them.
