Brands - Getting Started with Local Social Media 

Leveraging local social media is fantastic for creating brand authority and loyalty for national brands. When it comes to local businesses, local social media is not only a key tool for driving both online and offline traffic, but it is also one of the primary vehicles to build a loyal local following. It can get it in front of a broader local audience that is likely to patronise your business.  

Although media campaigns on national TV and radio, and even print marketing can still build brand awareness and reach a broad audience, today’s consumers prefer a two-way-media experience. Local social media provides an unparalleled opportunity for national brands to create the authentic connections their customers crave while growing visibility and revenue at the same time. Research that examined the performance of 230.000 locations tied to multi-location brands found that:

Brands that post unique content from each store see a 67% increase in engagement compared to those that simply syndicate content from the parent corporate page.

We could go on and on about the benefits of local social media but when talking to brands, knowledge of these benefits isn’t always enough to get them started. There are a number of challenges that national brands can face in taking the leap to start local social media that can sometimes be seen as blockers. Our CEO, Michael Nolan, has written some interesting insights on how he has seen these challenges being overcome which is definitely worth a read: Challenges to supporting Social Media for Franchisees

Let’s delve deeper into the practical steps that brands can take to help them with starting social media at a local level.

These are 5 things we recommend looking at first to help brands get started:

‍

1. First off, you need to think about your local social media strategy.
   You can read some tips on how to go about this in our Guide to Making Local a Priority in your Brand’s Social Media Strategies.
   
   
2. Next, you need to think about gaining access to your local pages in order to post and/or advertise.
   This step is sometimes admin-heavy if you have not prepared for this before, but once it is done, it never has to be done again (yay!) and your social media governance can run smoothly from then on. For some Meta-related tips on this, read our guide on How to Structure your Meta Business Manager.
   
   
3. Digital marketing knowledge at a local level.
   Social media is always evolving. new social networks, constant updates and new advertising rules make it a full-time job to keep up with. Ensuring your stores are trained in what does and doesn’t work on social media is imperative. Brands need to make this as easy as possible and remove all of the grunt work from retailer's shoulders. There are many things that brand teams can implement to help grow a store’s social media knowledge at a local level, read our top tips here: Turn Your Local Retailers into Social Media Experts!
   
   
4. Finding the right tool that can handle scheduling and monitoring your local pages at scale with speed and efficiency.
   
   
5. Assigning a budget for local social media.
   This includes; team resources for local social media, budget for the right tools to make it easier and budget for local advertising.
   Sponsoring local posts is a proven strategy for growing profits and earnings. It’s easier to implement when you already have an organic social infrastructure. 

‍

Let us help you supercharge your brand’s social media and ensure that each of your locations is helping grow your reach and increasing your overall sales!

‍