Step 3: Support and train
Shopkeepers often employ young staff who can handle social media just fine, but that is in their private lives. Using social media for business purposes is very different. It is crucial to support and train the entrepreneur and his/her staff well. Provide e-learning opportunities and tutorials on creating and posting content. But certainly do not forget to prepare them for local webcare and community management. Without support and training, your local project may die a silent death. You could also think of a helpdesk, for example, so that the entrepreneur can always contact a specialist inside or outside your company if in doubt.
Not everyone is cut out to create content for social media. You need to be able to design, write, and think like a marketer. So make sure you facilitate the local entrepreneur and his/her team. For example, make a number of content posts available every week that they can place and promote themselves. Or provide clear templates for your content, so that the entrepreneur can get started with it themselves.
Of course, local marketing on social media works best when the stores, in addition to your brand content, also work with content themselves, as in the previously mentioned example of SPAR. home business opportunity seekers Facilitate them in every possible way, for example by making logos, house style and images available.
We all know that social media is of little use without advertising. The organic reach decreases in favor of advertising . Certainly with the Facebook networks (Facebook and Instagram), but also with newcomers such as Snapchat. It must be said that the organic reach of local pages is often a lot higher than for large brand pages. This is partly due to the fact that local shops have a smaller, more loyal follower base. The bond you have with a local shop is logically greater than with a brand on a national level. But advertisements are indispensable. With a few hundred euros per month, a local entrepreneur can already achieve a considerable reach and therefore really make an impact in his/her environment.
Step 6: Measure results
All social media networks – whether it is Facebook, Pinterest or Snapchat – are looking for ways to measure and link both online and offline results. This still seems very difficult. But even now, a lot of data is already available. Take a look at Facebook Insights, for example. There you can see what the unique reach (and reach frequency) of your local stores has been. But Insights now offers more. For example, you can see per store what the busiest visiting times are in your store, and what the busiest day is (based on GPS tracking that Facebook uses). And you can see which age groups are often present in your store. The actual increase in revenue/store traffic is, as mentioned, (still) difficult to measure. The retailer plays an important role in this. His/her feeling is decisive.