Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2016 | Page 27

on users’ interests and needs. Loyal customers will see content ranging from design and household tips to décor suggestions for specific spaces and trendy color
combinations. The house painting brand
uses “edutainment” to introduce itself
to potential new customers with service
offerings that educate in an “attentiongrabbing manner,” says Kinney. Her team
uses video and movie and television parodies, color transformations, animated gifs,
and blog articles with tie-ins to holidays
and pop culture events.
Connect with your marketing
Costa Vida Fresh Mexican Grill used all of
its social media platforms to successfully
cross-promote last November’s launch of
a new mobile online ordering and reward
program aimed at the brand’s Millennial
and Gen X customer base.
The fast casual chain employs Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Google+
in its social media plan and tweaks its messages based on the particular strengths and
attributes of each medium, says Ashley
Moody, Costa Vida’s director of marketing.
Twitter, for instance, highlights the brand
in the moment, Instagram gives followers
a personal behind-the-scenes look, and
giveaways and promotions suit the Facebook forum and lead customers back to the
Costa Vida blog where readers can learn
about holiday entertaining hacks or “10
Signs Your Soul Mate Is Actually a Burrito.”
Engaging and relevant content is the
goal to a winning social media strategy,
says Moody. “If it is centered too much
around the brand, it gets boring,” she says.
“You have to change it up.”
Connect with your franchisees
Social media marketing is also making it
easier for brands and their franchisees to
present a united front with a consistent,
yet locally customized message.
When CruiseOne rolled out a yearlong automated social program at no cost
to franchisees in 2015, more than 320
franchisees enrolled in the first 10 days.
The program blends a flexible mix of inspirational quotes, exclusive offers, and
general travel tidbits based on research
about how its customers and franchisees
use social media.
“What we heard is that franchisees
wanted to have more time to actually sell
the products we offer, and not necessar-

Want To Be
More Social?

Try these tips from Valerie Kinney,
CertaPro’s vice president of marketing:
• Deliver value-added content that
will resonate with the individuals you
want to reach. Don’t interrupt the community experience they want to have
on social media, be part of it.
• Pay to play. Allocate funds to promote your content and have it reach the
individuals in your target demographic.
• Build on what is working. Evaluate your metrics and base your future
strategies on them. ■
ily become expert marketers overnight,”
says Reed. “We needed to help support
them and make sure it was simple and easy
enough to execute on, and also understand
the customers we wanted to target.”
CruiseOne’s social strategy has been
accompanied by franchisee education
on the importance of interacting with
customers to optimize and supplement
a cohesive message, but in a warm and
engaging way.
“You have to make sure your personality comes through and to personalize your
mess