The State of Franchising: The IFA Discusses the Present Landscape and What the Future Holds

What’s hot in the franchise world, and where is the industry headed as we enter spring? We asked the experts over at the International Franchise Associationto give us some insight on what they’re seeing in various areas of the franchise universe as we head deeper into 2013. [caption id="attachment_6283" align="alignleft" width="118" caption="Dan Gibson"][/caption] Dan Gibson - Senior Director, Marketing & Digital Communications What do you see as the biggest trend in social media right now?  Mobile emphasis will continue to be the trend in 2013. Brands will make big efforts to make sure websites, apps, social networks and paid media all reach mobile devices (phones, tablets, etc.) with the best user-experience possible. This will be especially important as the use of mobile devices, especially phones, continues to increase in emerging markets. Which aspects of the mobile experience are important for brands to remember when planning to increase their mobile presence?  The most important is speed. It has to work and it has to work quickly.  When I’m trying a new app, I’m not waiting that long. It needs to have a smooth and clean interface; you don’t want the app trying to do too much. There are so many things you can do with an app, so it’s important to first determine what you want it to do. It needs to be clean, it needs to work, and it needs to work fast. It has developed to the point where people are using their mobile device in all sorts of places and only have a couple minutes to do so. It’s getting narrower in the sense there is so much more competition. It used to be if you had an app you were cutting edge, but now it’s if you don’t have an app then you’re missing something. This is the same kind of pattern websites went through a decade or so ago. If you don’t have a mobile application, or a website that correlates well to a mobile presence, then you are already behind. Are there any new social media platforms emerging that could steal some of the focus from sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest down the line? Any underground social media platforms brands should make sure to pay attention to?  If I knew what the next Facebook was, I’d invest in it now and be living on an island somewhere. No one saw Pinterest coming, it kind of came out of nowhere and it’s continued to grow pretty rapidly. Google+ has taken a lot of negative press in the past, but I don’t know if that is as accurate any more. It now has the second largest user base next to Facebook and Google is going to keep pushing it onto the general public. I think with a lot of Google products, they don’t necessarily do the best marketing for their own goods.  A lot of times they come out with something new and people aren’t quite sure how to use it.  But they do have some innovative ways to connect with consumers, and with the amount of negative press Facebook seems to generate with privacy issues, people are always looking toward an alternative.