While most of us know that there are benefits to social media, we may not know how it can translate to a stronger brand and business. Here are six ways franchisees can get more leads using social media.

Although not necessarily a direct revenue generator, social media is a great engagement tool and a funnel to attract more leads. When your business creates attention-grabbing content, chances are that your followers share this with their friends thereby increasing your brand’s awareness. Your post may even go “viral”, which means it will spread like fire and gain you much exposure at a minimal cost unlike advertising.

Another reason for franchises to be present on social media is “blended search”. Search engines now pull in all the relevant results from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Places, photo tags, blogs, and YouTube videos. (Try typing in your franchise name plus location and see what comes up.) That’s a massive reason for you to jump in and manage your social media presence – imagine what you may be missing out on!

6 ways to grow leads on social media

 1. Engage with your followers by sharing a tip, cool deal, or news about that is relevant to them. As people engage more with your brand, you’re on top of their mind before they make a buying decision and they are happy to refer you.

 2. Tie in offline campaigns with those online. For example, if your franchise ‘Best Cheeseburgers’ is giving away cheeseburgers at the supermarket, make sure you have an online campaign in place: “We’re spreading the love this weekend at the blah supermarket. Come in for your fave treat #cheeseburgers!”

3. Produce a video series to hook them. A video series works similar to an email series where you send a daily/weekly dose of cool content to garner interest. The video can be to your fans through your social media tools from Facebook, your website, and even You Tube and then the world could become your audience.

4. Employ social media ads. The new Page Post adverts in Facebook have click-through rates as high as 3 to 6 percent (a rise from 0.02-0.08 percent). A tip: If you’re advertising on Facebook use the right hand side ads but make sure you test and measure them. There are tricks to making sure your ads are seen – from words you use, to highlighting an ad.

 5. Realise that social media is a two-way lane. Anyone can have their say and you cannot stop them from doing it (neither should you). A cheap tactic brands employ is to ignore negative feedback. Huge mistake!

 6. Combine social media with search engine optimisation (SEO). One way to do this is inputting ‘Alt’ tags for all images on your webpage and optimising it for keywords. Similarly, use the most popular or rich keywords in your image titles. Also consider linking all social media accounts with other pages such as Google+ (you have a Google+ profile, don’t you?) or even forums, whenever given an opportunity.

Social media may seem daunting at first, but it is really another tool for communication and brand exposure. By combining it with a clever marketing plan, you can attract, engage and retain your prospects – and this has a direct impact on the bottom-line in your business.

Maria Abadilla, director and chief reviver at Revive Projects, is passionate about helping franchises attract, engage and retain their clients through marketing, communications support, training advice and social media policy development. Visit www.reviveprojects.com.au