Five Local Social Media Tactics to Expand Your Business
Your business has a great concept, reliable service and a loyal customer base. So what's next? Whether you've created your own brand or you're a small franchisee of a bigger enterprise, in today's digital landscape you'll need an additional ingredient to give your brand that extra boost of awareness: local social media.While it is getting easier to reach mass audiences, it's also getting much, much more difficult to establish your presence on social media among the noise of countless other brands. This is why you need to go local.Proven tried-and-true by top-performing Buffalo Wild Wings franchisees, below you'll find five local social media tactics that Rockbot recommends to accelerate local brand awareness for your business and give you the option to expand.Why local social media?
Despite having access to endless information, your consumers still cling to their local roots and are drawn to brands that tickle that nostalgia. For example, according to over half of adult consumers (52%) are more likely to eat at a restaurant that supports their local community -- something even large corporations should (and increasingly are) tapping into.Engaging your local community online can mean the difference between thriving with a positive brand image and simply maintaining business. The best global brands are also the best local brand -- here's how the become truly local brands:
- Partner with community groups.
First thing's first. What better way to connect to the customers in your community than to physically engage in multiple facets of their local life?
Local SMBs and franchisees are increasingly involved in charitable initiatives or strategic sponsorships of neighborhood organizations for both the in-person exposure and the social media ripple. Partnering with community groups, from local merchant cooperatives to little league teams, reaches local consumers in authentic contexts and provides custom social media content that you can share. Everybody wins by you making your involvement well known in the community!
- Commit to local-first content.
What's local-first content? As you post to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, your blog, and so on, start prioritizing messaging that specifically highlights local happenings and references over generic brand messaging -- this increases consumer sharing and humanizes your brand.Consider that you are a San Francisco consumer scrolling through your social media feed. You are much more likely to forward an invitation to "Telegraph Hill's Applebee's 49ers Game Happy Hour Special" than to "Try Applebee's New Menu Item!"Location matters.As the Internet evolves and people learn how to navigate it more effectively, search engines are putting way more relevance on location-based searches. So while McDonalds may have once come up first in a search for fast food across the world, today the same search would garner different results in California (In N Out) vs. New York (Five Guys). Especially with the rise of smart phones and mobile searches, localized SEO is becoming not just more powerful, but necessary.
