Over the past two months, I have presented in several webinar series and have spoken to various groups about using social media within franchise organizations. Specifically, about [E-IDEA] that was originally posted on LinkedIn and on this site in June 2009. As I’ll be completing the Frantelligence Webinar Series with Franchise Business Review this coming week, I thought it appropriate to repost the original [E-IDEA] article.

[E-IDEA] Five Steps to Social Media Success

I recently responded to a LinkedIn discussion post on one of the franchise groups. The discussion was “What do you see as the biggest challenge this year in franchise sales and development growth?” I thought this the perfect opportunity to present my five steps to social media success and responded accordingly.

The biggest challenge will be to capitalize on the influx of interest generated through social media.

As today’s franchise candidate has become more sophisticated, educated and technologically advanced than ever before, many will spend a great deal of time within social media, exploring franchise opportunities.

To effectively capitalize on this interest, franchisors will need to embrace social media as an integral component of their overall franchise marketing and development strategy, and integrate the same with traditional strategies. A firm commitment of time, money and other resources must be dedicated to the initiative.

Oh, don’t think it would work by having someone play around with Facebook or Twitter without a strategy in place. That definitely won’t work. Instead, it’s going to take a concentrated focus, or as I fondly describe as [E-IDEA], the acronym for franchisEssentials five step process to social media success.

1. Exploring different aspects of Social Media, including Social Networking and key Web 2.0 technology that creates excitement and brand awareness within your industry segment.
2. Identifying primary and secondary targets – Who will be targeted to purchase and/or visit your franchise locations? How deep do the target groups go and are there collateral groups that can be tapped?
3. Developing a Strategy and Plan of Action – Customized to specific targets in accordance with franchise development goals and objectives?
4. Executing the Plan – Putting the plan in motion including monitoring, managing the process including new content and updates. Keep it fresh!
5. Analyzing & Quantifying the Results – Is it working? Do you continue straight ahead or repeat the process from the beginning? What are actual results in franchise sales and system revenue?