What to Know About Optimizing Your Franchise’s Ads for Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram

When it comes to advertising your franchise, social media is a solid place to start. The first step in where to advertise is recognizing who your ideal franchisee is and where they spend most of their time. Are they socializing on Facebook and Instagram, networking on LinkedIn or scrolling a food blog on Instagram? Whatever the case, it’s important to tailor your ads for each platform so you’re reaching prospects effectively. 

Content Optimization

For the most part, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn advertisements serve the same purpose, but there are rules informing each platform that are necessary to follow for having effective content. For example, images: It’s okay to use the same image to advertise on each platform, but that image should be sized in a way that’s optimal for each platform. On Instagram, images should be square, and on an Instagram Story they should be rectangular to fit the length of a mobile device. Improper sizing can relay a message to your prospective buyer that your company is out-dated or unwilling to keep up with the rules of internet advertising, and it may deter them from wanting to learn more about your brand. 

But content optimization goes further than just image cropping. Consider other factors, like the language used in ad copy and the types of images you choose to use. The key to proper branding and content comes from understanding your audience and how they want to be communicated to. 

Master Your Audience and Know Where to Reach It

The first step to mastering your audience is knowing who your ideal franchisee is. Are they young and up-and-coming in their career, are they seasoned business owners or are they coming out of corporate America looking to take charge of their career? Once you’ve nailed the demographics, then you can start advertising. If you’re looking to recruit a younger demographic, Instagram is likely your best bet. Its highest percentage of users are 18-24, but the 25-34 group is right behind them. If it’s a more professional crowd, you may have luck reaching people networking on LinkedIn, where the majority of its users are 25-34. Facebook presents the opportunity to have a further reach with demographics across the board — making it a good place to start advertising and seeing who is interacting with your ads.

Social Media Advertising is Pay to Play

Social media ads are sold in an auction format, so there’s no set amount to pay for each ad campaign, but it’s a good idea to keep a budget in mind. Based on the ads you create, the ad manager on any platform you’re using will recommend what your pay-per-click budget is based on the goals of your ad — engagement, click throughs, impressions and lead conversions. Several factors impact the performance of your ad, including clickthrough rate, relevance, the target audience size, time of day and where you’ve placed your ad. All of these factors will help inform your cost per click and can help you determine how to better budget your ad spent in the future.

Organic Posts Should Inform Your Ads

Your ads seek to motivate people to franchise with your brand and click through to learn more about what that opportunity means for them, but paid-for ads shouldn’t be your only efforts to reach prospective franchisees. You should have a regular stream of organically posted content that informs them on who you are, what your brand does and what its products are. Some of these posts will resonate with your audience and others won’t, but tracking which posts get the most likes, clicks, shares and comments will help you curate stronger ads. Use what you’ve learned from organic posts to refine your ads to maximize potential leads.

Measure and Report Results

Measuring who you’ve reached, how many people clicked on the ad and how many leads it generated is a key part of proving the value of your ads and the time spent creating them. Taking the time to review the analytics from your ads will also help you learn more about what worked and what didn’t. Perhaps people clicked through on more video ads than they did static images, or maybe you thought your ideal franchisee was on Facebook when really you had better luck on LinkedIn. Whatever the case, knowing where your most effective ads are and what they look like can help you direct your budget towards better campaigns that will generate the most qualified leads.