As a lead-in to this week’s webinar, Franchise Social Media – Beyond the Basics, we defined Franchise Social Media and re-introduce franchisEssentials e-IDEA concept as a simple process to embracing social media within a franchise organization. Today, we will begin to break down the e-IDEA process by defining the first two parts, Explore and Identify.

Explore

In the initial stages of a developing a Franchise Social Media plan, it is essential to review current levels of general social media proficiency throughout the organization. This includes the franchisee base as well. Determine not only who within the organization is proficient, but within which social media platforms they excel. Be sure not forget the enjoyment factor!

For instance, if franchisees are utilizing videos and photos effectively within their efforts, it’s safe to say that video and photo sharing should be integral components of the franchise social media strategy. Explore further for individuals within the organization that enjoy photography and video production. Having these individuals interact with marketing professionals bring new perspective to the process, especially as they will also bring practical perspective of working within the franchise organization at different levels.

The same holds true for individuals within the organization who are most proficient and passionate about training, and are fully versed on internal training processes and procedures. It lends to being able to bring other aspects of social media to the table – webinars being the most obvious. The less obvious, but very effective includes internet radio for podcast replays or on-demand access, and video again, for sharing simple or more complex information.

Upon exploring various types of social media, and social media tools, and in determining the proficiency and enjoyment/passion levels within the franchise organization, it is then the correct time to step into the Identify stage.

Identify

Here’s where Franchise Social Media really starts to make practical sense as this stage fosters thought about the ultimate objectives of the franchise organization. Most believe this stage is entirely focused on identifying targets. However, identifying targets is only a portion of this stage.

Identifying objectives within a franchise organization is where Franchise Social Media separates itself from basic social media as there are typically many objectives to define, including increasing business at the franchisee level, improving brand awareness, creating interest in the franchise opportunity, and developing or strengthening communications throughout the system. Much of this process is unique to franchising as franchise law and the franchise relationship both need to be taken into consideration. Proceeding ahead without these considerations could result in significant consequences at various levels.

In identifying objectives, it’s most likely apparent there are multiple targets to attract. Within the consumer proposition the targets will be customers, but are they retail customers, business customers, or both? For franchise lead generation, there may be multiple targets that could be attracted in different ways. For example, attracting a transitioning executive may take a different approach than attempting to attract a transitioning executive from a specific industry segment.

Next, in this stage is identifying where all these targets communicate and congregate online. This is often an ignored component of a social media strategy, and one that would specifically lead to the strategy being non-effective. After all, what use is it to broadcast a message if it is not known where to broadcast the message so it will be heard by the target audience? Identifying the online locale of the target audience is critical to the success of the program, but it’s also critical to identify if the target audience is communicating within that locale.

Tomorrow, we will breakdown the next two steps in the e-IDEA process, Develop and Execute. The following day, we will explore the last step of the process, Analyze.