Margie Barkley: How to easily manage social media for multi-location businesses

Have you ever wondered how companies with multiple locations use social media? It’s not about demographics or different countries. We’re talking about franchises and stores that have multiple locations within the same country. This article will share tips on how to manage social media for businesses with multiple locations.

Coffee Houses are multi-location businesses.

Starbucks, the world-famous coffeehouse chain, will have 9,265 stores operated by the company and 6,608 licensed in 2022. San Francisco has 93 Starbucks.

As with most businesses, the majority of locations also have their own Facebook page. This allows them to inform you of any store-specific updates, changes or offers. You don’t really care if Starbucks is 50 miles away from you is closed for a whole week to do renovations.

Each localized location is given its own page ID and has unique features such as Facebook check-ins, reviews, recommendations, and the ability to create unique content for their store. Location pages allow Facebook users to find local businesses in the search results, and also allows businesses to create specific content for a local audience.

We know that businesses with multiple locations often manage their social media accounts from a central location. A central marketing person controls their brand’s message and content strategy. Other businesses, however, may have teams that are localized to create content unique. They still use a shared calendar for their approval process.

Restaurants, hotels and retailers are all examples.

What are the challenges of managing multi-location businesses?

1. Manage Google Business reviews for each location

The reviews are often specific to one location. The branch office can answer these reviews, such as “I ordered coffee, and it was very cold”, “The server was rude, and unhelpful”, or, on a nicer note, “I would like to thank Mary for helping to settle my toddler at your restaurant”.

Google Business reviews, whether positive or negative, should be responded to promptly. These reviews are displayed on Google and can influence a user’s decisions.

Wouldn’t it be easier to manage Google Business reviews if they were located in the same location as your social media profiles?

You can also find out more about the solution by clicking here.

Agorapulse’s Google Business Integration allows locations to monitor and respond reviews from one location. Add Google Business as you would a social media profile.

Post directly to your Google Business Location – like this.

This was published to our Google Business profile. You can schedule Google Business updates just as you would social media posts, making it easy to plan special promotions, celebrations or updates.

2. Social media communication between the HQ and other locations

Communication can be difficult when managing social media accounts across multiple locations. Spreadsheets, emails, Slack and CSV files derived from native social media reports are all common. This is time-consuming and can lead to mistakes, delays or oversights. Agorapulse has features to help streamline your workflow for managing social media across multiple locations. Agorapulse’s dashboard has features like Saved Replies, Roles and Assign.

You can find out more about this by clicking here.

It’s simple to determine who is responsible for certain tasks by using the platform roles. A user in Agorapulse can be any of the following roles:

Admin. An admin can do everything. They can listen, cast spells, publish, invite and approve. Editor. Editors can publish and approve content, and they can also pull reports. Moderators cannot invite team members, or add social media profiles. Moderators can’t post content or create reports. They can monitor the content and watch the inbox. Guest. They can also schedule content. Guest. A guest is in read-only mode. The guest cannot publish or make changes to content but can still view it.

What does this mean for the teams that manage social media for businesses with multiple locations?

Here’s a real-life use case

Jackie is a baker in a franchise. She is a cake baker and makes great ice-cream. She’s not really into social media! She took some lovely photos of her customers enjoying their new homemade ice-cream, and posted them to Agorapulse as a Moderator. These posts will not be visible because she is a moderator. They can be given to an administrator who will edit, approve, and post the posts. Jackie’s photos and posts will be in line with the brand tone and legal requirements, but still retain some localized content and individuality.

The social media managers can also assign items from their inbox to the team for guidance or follow-up. This is particularly useful for serious complaints that may require the attention of legal or compliance departments. You can schedule future posts and assign them to be approved before publishing. Share notes, track actions, and find out who is communicating, without having to send long emails. Users of the Shared Calendar can reject or accept individual posts.

They can also create standard replies for comments and questions. The HQ can create as many saved replies as they need, so that the regional offices and locations can use this information without having to send emails or log into Slack. HQ can update saved replies and add new ones. Localized branches are also able to create their own saved responses.

It is also simple for headquarters to view scheduled posts, comments and inbox responses at any time for locations. It allows each branch to be independent, while protecting the brand.

Did you know that Agorapulse offers a mobile application? Some regional branches and locations may be using tablets or mobile phones. Using the mobile app they can create content in the field or at the store, and then send it to be approved or published. The app allows them to see the latest Facebook review from that annoying guy sitting at table 8.

3. Are you a mess when it comes to organizing your assets? It’s real.

Unorganized asset folders are one of the most annoying things in social media. You can’t find what you need. Regional locations are often unable to access logos, designs, or images when they need them. Another issue regional branches and franchises may face is finding information about their store. Where are our menus, photos, maps, directions and contact information? Social media management demands a large volume of assets, which need to be readily available.. right now. How can we make this work for businesses with multiple locations?

You can also find out more about the solution by clicking here.

You can organize content on your brand and create folders in the Library with Agorapulse. Your team will have access to it. This can be done in any way you choose. You can sort by platform, asset types, date, or team/location. For example, “Sue’s Team” in the Park Lane Store. You can create draft posts and save Canva designs for later use. You can also do this in the Content Library. A drafts folder makes it easy for teams to translate the content if they need to post it in an alternative language.

With the search and filter options, you can easily find and insert what you’re looking for.

You can upload your team’s content by selecting Upload from Library when you are writing your post.

Discover how to manage and publish all your assets in one place.

Tip: When publishing posts, use “labels” to quickly see which content is performing better in each location or territory. You can access your data later by adding a label. Labels can be added to your profile to track topics such as “Summer offer- Park Lane Branch”.

4. Want to know where social media is working best?

We love some friendly competition between locations! You can use Google Analytics to track your sales on social media. It’s exciting to see social media departments competing for the best reviews, highest engagement and fastest response time. These metrics are important because they can lead to tangible benefits, such as promotions and pay increases. How can you prove your store or location performed better than others?

You can also find out more about the solution by clicking here.

You can select from the following types of Power Reports with Agorapulse:

Label ReportAggregated report by profileAggregated report by networkAggregated individual and aggregated reportIndividual report

Individual Report is the option to generate a report specific to your branch. You can also choose Aggregated and Individual Power Reports, which will combine data across multiple location profiles to analyze it while showing your own metrics.

Aggregated reports combine metrics from selected social profiles. (They can be multiple Facebook accounts if you wish!) The aggregated reports provide an overview of your performance. By selecting aggregated reports, you can combine metrics from all of your social profiles.

5. You want to customize your social media posts fast

For businesses that have multiple social media pages, it is common to schedule identical posts on all of them. Social media managers may need to make minor adjustments to each of their posts before scheduling. Publishing posts can be a time-consuming and tedious task.

You can also find out more about the solution by clicking here.

Agorapulse’s Custom Fields feature allows users to quickly schedule multiple posts, and customize each of them with customized text. Custom Fields allows you to insert predefined values into your posts, such as dates, addresses and signatures. It’s also super easy to use.

You only need to:

Open up the Composer and select the Field picker ManagefieldsNewfield.

Create your own custom field, and choose whether you want it applied to your social profiles, groups or organizations.

This feature allows you customize your posts quickly to make them relevant to your location.

Social Media Marketing Tips for Multi-Location Businesses

It is not the exact same thing as managing social media profiles for one location or a single brand. Here are some tips for multi-location social marketing:

Create a realistic and workable social media strategy to achieve franchise marketing KPIs. In order to make it easy for multiple people to manage your social media channels and achieve your KPIs, your strategy and direction must be clear. Store your brand guide, your social media guidelines and your tone of voice in your Agorapulse Library. This document should be a guideline for the online communication of your brand. If possible, designate a single person to oversee your entire social media operation. This person will be able to analyze all data, inform everyone about trends and best practices, and ensure all locations are performing well.

Do you manage social media accounts of multi-location companies? Start with a demo here.