Social media can present many challenges for national brands that want strong consumer connections at the local level (automakers, fast food chains, grocery stores and the like). How do you connect with customers at the neighbourhood level but maintain national branding and messaging control through a channel like Facebook? And how can a local franchisee use a company’s Facebook page to showcase local offers when head office is using it for national branding messages?
Several companies are working towards a balance between these opposing needs. The UPS Store launched a new initiative Wednesday that aims to align its national Facebook presence with its franchisee’s pages.
Each of The UPS Store’s 360 franchise locations now has its own Facebook page that is jointly managed by the national office, its agency, Reshift Media, and the local franchise owner. Using Facebook’s “Parent-Child” infrastructure, the UPS Store is able to publish content to each of its pages, while still allowing franchise owners to customize their pages and offer customer support in local markets.
Michelle Cameron, national marketing manager for the UPS Store in Canada, explained that some UPS Store locations previously had Facebook pages but messaging wasn’t consistent. The company knew consumers were using Facebook and other social networks to search for UPS, find store information and ask customer service questions. It wanted to find a way to manage accounts on both a local and national level before it made a deep investment in social.
Last fall the company turned to Reshift to find a way to do this. The agency built software it calls the Social Brand Amplifier to provide additional management services on top of Facebook’s Parent-Child functionality.
Mahmoud Ghali, vice-president of technology at Reshift, said the software lets brands centrally publish content and manage reporting and notifications, but also gives local franchises the chance to manage the page if they have the time and resources. “Setting up hundreds of local Facebook pages is not ideal if you don’t have the resources to actively manage each one,” he said.
Reshift now plans to use the software with other clients who have multiple locations.
Cameron said The UPS Store is also working with the agency to train franchise owners in social management.
