Localized Social Marketing: the future for multi-location brands

Reviews, direct messaging, local pages… Together, these services make possible what is now called Localized Social Marketing. Take note of these three words, because for multi-location brands, they are the future. Let’s find out why, and what the best practices are!

Social media as a touchpoint

Social media has by now become an almost essential part of all our lives. And of course it is also increasingly relevant to consumers’ purchasing journey. As a result, it has become a fundamental part of our marketing strategies, as well as of the customer service we can offer.

The evolution of social media is bringing brands and their customers ever “closer,” opening up real opportunities for interaction and dialogue. Consumers expect this kind of exchange and want personalized experiences. They love leaving comments and reviews, giving advice, sharing… but they expect reciprocity from the brands they devote their time to. They want interaction and personalized service. If not to them as individuals, then at least to their local community. Local presence, not just physical but also virtual, is therefore becoming ever more important.

Social platforms keep responding to these new needs with dedicated features: reviews, direct messaging, local pages… Together, these services make possible what is now called Localized Social Marketing. Take note of these three words, because for multi-location brands, they are the future. Let’s find out why, and what the best practices are.

First, a few statistics to bring the importance of Localized Social Marketing into focus: 70% of consumers turn to social media and review sites as a form of customer service, ratings and reviews are now the number-one factor consumers use to decide which business to choose, and more than half of consumers say they have ignored a brand because of its rating or the reviews it had received.

Stores’ local pages

So social media is the new frontier of customer service, and ratings and reviews are essential. Nothing too surprising so far. The real point worth noting is that for this kind of interaction – semi-direct communication with the brand – users are now turning increasingly to local pages, bypassing corporate ones.

Whether it’s a store’s GMB listing or its local Facebook page, this is the kind of page consumers rely on when they want to reach out to the brand, leave a review or comment, or read other customers’ ratings.

On Facebook in particular, local pages are becoming increasingly popular. They now receive twice the “impressions” (the number of times published content is viewed) of corporate pages, and almost three-quarters of total user engagement.

In short, multi-location brands that aren’t yet making full use of the power of Localized Social Marketing are missing out on huge opportunities for visibility, interaction and communication with consumers, and enhanced customer service… What’s more, especially on Facebook, local pages have by now become an element of a brand’s online presence that consumers expect (almost demand). In short, they are a must, not a nice-to-have.

Best practices:

When it comes to best practices, the most important things to keep in mind are the following three. Content, which must (at least in part) differ from what’s published on the corporate page and be aimed at the local customer base, i.e. at the specific store and city/area, not at all of the brand’s customers. Personalized interaction with users, which means both responding to public comments and, even more importantly, being quick to reply to direct messages. And finally reviews, which always need to be kept an eye on (or rather two), showing appreciation for positive ones and taking action on negative ones, so they don’t end up damaging your image.

The RetailTune platform:

Our platform makes it possible to standardize how reviews are displayed and managed, creating comparisons between those found on different platforms to identify key issues, as well as making it possible to automatically transfer positive reviews from one platform to another and reply to individual reviews, all from a single dashboard.

Claudio Agazzi, Founder & MD at RetailTune.ai