Here’s a copy of ‘Using QR Codes’ we prepared for FranCamp:

Pay special attention to the QR Code mistakes and Top 10 things you should use QR Codes for!

What do marching bands and Facebook business fan pages have in common?

Facebook reviews tab on a business fan page

Facebook realizes that social media networks have a mission to make the user experience as good as possible. With its new timeline profile – hopefully a precursor to the next version of business pages – Facebook has put all of the relevant information on one screen and made it easy to scan through a wide variety of posts and content.

Facebook rightly believes that when you line up your content so it creates ‘a company front,’ you have a better chance of creating a positive image and helping customers and fans get what you do.

Today, Facebook activated a header message for admins on business fan pages with this content:

Is this good for business?

Yes. This means companies can now embed reviews as a visible part of what social media experts are calling ‘curated content.’ Rather than tucking them in a sidebar or separate page, they are now sprinkled in with the normal content stream. Because you can now add and remove posts and make some items more visible than before, you will have an increasing ability to leverage your reviews.

Your reviews are a critical part of your ‘company front.’ We are in the age of the expert opinion and more than anything you can say, your customers are influenced by what your customers say about you. They are going to be much more visible on your profile.

You’ll have until Oct 31, 2011 to copy down your reviews from your business review tab and DO COPY THEM DOWN! Keep them; you’ll want to repost them on your upcoming business timeline and you might want to use them in other social marketing.

Session highlights:

• Identify the opportunities for integrating conventional loyalty programs with social networks and LBS applications.
• Learn how to deploy a successful location based campaign in order to recognize and reward loyal customers.
• Discover lessons learned and how Tasti D-Lite has enabled customers to help build brand awareness.
• Learn how to celebrate with your customers around their social and location-based activity related to your brand.

This informative session will be led by BJ Emerson, Tasti D-Lite VP of Technology, at 8:45 am on Saturday, October 22nd. See full agenda.

In his recent publication “Creating a Franchise Sales Tipping Point, 10 Keys to Successful Franchise Recruitment” he stated the following in Key #6: Cost effective lead generation strategy:

We don’t believe franchisors are doing enough to help their own lead generation causes. Prior to 1990, before the internet had any impact on lead generation, half of all new franchisees would learn about the franchisor through some previous connection to the brand. The new franchisee could have been a friend or family member of an existing franchisee, a satisfied customer, or an intrigued supplier. As franchise opportunity Websites and broker networks gained influence, franchisors became more reliant upon this consistent and seemingly effortless influx of leads. In the process many franchisors have lost their ability to reach out and actively network for new franchisees. Why learn to fish if the fish are already jumping in the boat?

But the fish aren’t jumping as often as they used to and smart franchisors are going to relearn how to fish. There is one large pool in which all potential franchise candidates swim: the internet. And intelligent, meaningful, relevant, and entertaining information is the bait!

How Twitter Really Works:

1. You post content and none of your followers read it.

What?!? They don’t read it!?! At all?!? Hold on, it’s about to make sense.

2. Then, when anyone, follower or not, searches for a name, keyword, topic, or hashtag, they see your content.

So when we all say great content is key, we’re not kidding. High quality, high value, interesting content – with an attractive headline or catchy wording – is much, much more important on Twitter than your number of followers. Remember, all of those followers aren’t really reading everything you write. Sure they say they are, but Tweeps are nice like that.

More to think about: RTs not only matter, but also perhaps are the most important thing besides quality of content. We used to think about RTs as a great way of your content getting shared into new groups of people and communities. But, no one is reading all of your followers’ Tweets either. Or your followers’ followers’ Tweets. But, once again, it’s all about search. If anyone searches about your topic and sees multiple RTs pop up with your content, I’m betting that it will get read and your links will get clicked more often than if it only shows up once.
So, remember these Twitter points:

Interesting content      =   Most Important

Searchable Tweets      =   Very Important

RTs of yours        =   Important

Number of followers =   Not so much…

And, as franchisees outside consumer-driven brands, typically within concepts providing products and services to the business community continue to flounder in their attempts to integrate social media in their B2B sales efforts, the ideal social network is being used ineffectively, if at all – Yes, LinkedIn!

Now, many will debate thatLinkedin could be improved in many areas. But from the standpoint of establishing and developing relationships, key elements in working with franchise candidates and business professionals, LinkedIn is King!

In developing LinkedIn Strategies in a franchise environment there are key factors to consider:

• Understanding the platform is a must
• First impressions matter
• There’s something to be said of truth, trust and transparency
• There’s a great deal of space within LinkedIn – use as much as possible
• Engagement is the goal, but the right to engage must be earned
• Integrating LinkedIn within marketing and development plans for optimum results
• Apps are there for a reason – use them effectively
• It’s more than polite and courteous to share

The above factors are derived from The Triple P Tripod Theory – Personalization, Participation & Patience, as developed and defined by Paul Segreto.

Deb is a firm believer that to motivate you have to be motivated and motivational.  The economy and franchise budgets are still hurting. Everyone has been affected by the downturn of the economy but what franchisors did during the downturn varies. Deb approached social media and yes jumped on that bandwagon looking for innovative and creative ways to leverage social media to position COMPUTER EXPLORERS. Success does not happen overnight and it does not happen alone. It is a team effort starting from the top of the franchise system involving the corporate team and filters through to franchisees and eventually to the customers.

Social media takes time and sometimes money but first it needs to be understood, by the leader. The small business owner or franchisee with one or two employees is a leader. The multi-unit franchisee is a leader as well as the franchisor. Every leader needs to make the business decision if social media should play a role in their organization marketing plan. Whether the decision is to outsource or use someone in house for social media marketing. The leader needs to be enthusiastic about the use of social technologies and motivational. More importantly, the leader needs to make the decision about how and what to leverage. Not all social technology platforms will fit and not all will bring a return.

Don’t allow yourself to be influenced by what you think you know. Successful businesses today require creativity, innovation and the ability to change. Deb will share openly how she approached the use of social media when it was still uncharted waters, the resistance she received from franchisees and the path and tools developed to turn skeptics to enthusiasts.

This is not to suggest that Franchisors are misguided with their questions and concerns. Cautions range from tarnishing brand image, losing control of content, lack of Franchisee time to upkeep a Page, and more. While these are legitimate concerns, with the proper tools and education, AK has been able to put many of these fears to rest and demonstrate to both Franchisors and Franchisees alike that the benefits to a local Facebook presence are worth the perceived risk.

And it’s not always just the Franchisors with reservesations, Franchisees have their own apprehensions. Who will maintain the Page? How will I get people to ‘Like’ my Page? What if someone says something negative? What should be posted? How will I keep my fans engaged and interested? That is a lot to think about – however, if you step back and tackle each question one at a time with a strategic plan, the beast that is Facebook, begins to transition into a much more tamable animal.

As if Facebook Business Pages weren’t enough to think about, Facebook has another feature, a very local feature, that individual Franchise locations must be aware of – Facebook Places. When Facebook Places were introduced in August of 2010, the creation of Facebook Place Pages for a business was put into the hands of the consumer. For Franchise locations that occupy retail space – consumers can check-in on Facebook via their mobile device. When the very first check-in to a location occurs, a Facebook Place Page is created and then each subsequent check-in is logged on that Page. Let’s stop and think about that for a moment. Suppose the Franchisor has decided that individual Franchise locations will not have a Facebook Business Page or the Franchisee has decided that they don’t want to market on Facebook – if a Facebook Place Page was created because consumers were checking in – there is no longer a choice – that business now has a Facebook presence whether they wanted to or not. The questions then arise, do you know what people are saying about your business and do you know what you need to do to take control of your presence?

During her session at FranCamp, AK will address the above mentioned questions and concerns as well as provide actionable tips that both Franchisors and Franchisees can walk away with in order to utilize Facebook for business to the best benefit of the local Franchise location as well as the Franchise system as a whole.