Tag Archives: franchisor blogging

Franchise Industry: No Value in Social Media

I heard it once more. It gets my blood pumping. Rather than debate the issue with 500 words of text from my mouth, let’s let these companies (from an email and blog) put a stamp on the issue:

Blendtec is famous for its bevy of inexpensive “Will It Blend” videos posted on YouTube and shared by millions.

Adobe maintains a list of interesting company related websites and conversations on the social bookmarking site Delicious.

Best Western sponsors a blog, “On the Go with Amy,” where the author travels the country writing about her experiences.

Cadence recently relaunched its website that now prominently promotes the company’s community.

Cisco hosts 12 blogs addressing a variety of audiences for their global business.

Coca Cola Conversations is a blog written by company historian Phil Mooney that focuses on Coke collectibles.

Dell leverages a variety of social media platforms for customer engagement, including an island in the virtual world of Second Life.

Ford publishes news releases with lots of multimedia content and employs a social media news release format to display them in their newsroom.

Fujifilm recently launched a social network to build a community of photo enthusiasts around its newest camera.

GM uses blogs to communicate directly with its customers around topics ranging from design to green tech.

H&R Block created a Facebook fan site to aggregate its social media activities, engage customers and offer tax advice/resources.

HP used Twitter to power a scavenger hunt at a recent conference.

HSBC built the HSBC Business Network Most-Networked-Executives to connect entrepreneurs using blogs, videos and forums.

IBM was the first large enterprise to embrace employee blogging and now boasts thousands of blogs related to every facet of its business.

Intel has also developed many social media touch points with its software communities, which includes blogs, Twitter and virtual worlds.

Intuit sponsors the Tax Almanac wiki, where anyone can find and contribute to this resource for tax information.

Jeep connects with customers via a community page with links to photos on Flickr, the company’s MySpace and Facebook pages and a list enthusiast groups.

JetBlue employs social media as part of its training for JetBlue Airline-Mergers University, as this video explains.

Johnson & Johnson uses this blog to show another side of the company, with frequent video posts and interviews.

Lenovo launched “Voices of the Olympics Games” to aggregate posts from the athletes competing in Beijing.

Marriott CEO Bill Marriott An-Interview-With-Ian-Schrager posts regular updates and stories from his travels to Marriott properties around the world to fuel the content for this entertaining blog.

McDonalds maintains a blog to highlight the company’s corporate social responsibility Forget-Social-Responsibility Jan-08 efforts.

National Geographic uses Google’s new virtual world, Lively, to bring people together around its new show, LA Hard Hats.

New York Times is beta testing a Firefox add-on that allows users to share and comment on stories through a decentralized social network.

Nike started a social community on Loopd to connect athletes interested in surfing, BMX bike racing and similar activities with the brand.

SAP sponsored a global survey of social media professionals to learn more about social media worldwide.

Sears partnered with MTV to create a social network around Back to School shopping.

Southwest Airlines employees share their stories and communicate directly with customers through the “Nuts About Southwest” blog.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog is the example most often cited for what the CEO blog can be.

Starbucks started MyStarbucksIdea so that customers can submit ideas for the company which are then voted on by other users, the best of which will be implemented by the company.

Toyota started its own virtual world to promote its products in Japan (site is in Japanese).

Visa launched The Visa Business Network application on Facebook to connect small business users and to help them promote their businesses to a larger community.

Wells Fargo blogs target two audiences; one examines the company’s history and the other is for students interested in getting their finances in order.

WWE has a Facebook application The-New-Faces-at-Facebook , among other social networking tools and widgets, to bring fans closer to the action.

Xerox blogs address several of the company’s core B2B constituencies.

Zappos uses Twitter for employees to communicate with Zappos customers about their shared love of footwear.

And yet, there is one giant problem with this list – where are the franchisors?

Go Where The Franchisees Are

Why would you ever hire a PR firm? For brand exposure? For franchise leads? For marketability? All of the above, duh. Well, I have a secret way to get in front of the audiences you want, in addition to scoring great stories courtesy of your PR firm.

Again, send cash donations to, Nick Powills…Kidding, of course.

Today, reading the morning news, as I usually do with my coffee in the morning, I came across a blog post that asked a question about what franchisees should watch for when looking for the right entrepreneurial opportunity. There were a few comments, but the discussion hadn’t been touched. Upon deeper research, I found that the blog was highly read, and easily picked up in the search engines. So, what did I do? I advised my clients to post a comment and answer the question while providing a link to their site, their title, and their concept.

In the future, I can take their thought and turn it into a press release; a blog post; a interview opportunity, but in the mean time, I wanted to teach them something about progressive communications – you CAN reach your audience with a simple comment post.

A good franchisee is going to do their homework. They are going to research franchising. So, what if during their research, while reading a story on franchising, they see an educated response from a franchisor? And what if that franchisor is not pushing their brand in their face? What if they are showcasing their knowledge, and support, by simply communicating with the reporter? And what if, their publicist, in turn, contacts the reporter and then offers their client as the expert for anything franchising. Instant publicity and at what cost? A few minutes of their time – which is completely worth it because all franchisors LOVE talking about franchising.

My first step is to see how my clients respond to the questions (of course I can provide editing assistance for them). My second step is to take that answer and publicize it on other stories around the Net; my blog; and to journalists. Instantly another source of PR was born.