Author: Rallio

How to Engage Authentically With Your Social Media Followers

Post author By Rallio
Post date October 7, 2022

Social media growth is something most franchise brands, independent business owners and influencers are striving for, but it doesn’t come easy. It requires thought and effort. If you use social networking as simply a means to an end (aka sales) and not as a way to connect with your customers, you’ve failed. You need to work on building relationships with your customers. They will become your brand loyalists and help grow your brand organically. This article will lay down some simple tips on how you can engage authentically with your social media followers on Facebook and Instagram.

Why Engagement Matters

Engaging authentically with your social media followers is important for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it’s the only way to truly understand what your audience wants from you. Social media is an incredibly powerful tool for brands, but in order to use it effectively, you need to know how your audience interacts with your content.

Engaging with followers also allows you to build trust with them. People are more likely to follow brands if they feel like they’re being heard — and conversely, they’ll be less likely to follow if they don’t feel like their voices matter.

Lastly, engagement helps build your reputation as an expert in your field or industry. If people see that others are responding positively to your content or following your brand on social media, they’re more likely to check out what you have going on and give you a follow, too. Your reach can expand exponentially as more and more people engage with you and vice versa.

Tips for Great Engagement

The way you engage with your followers on Facebook and Instagram is the most important part of your social media strategy. Yet engaging authentically is easy to say but hard to do. It’s a constant challenge because of all the noise on social media, especially if you have a business that relies on word-of-mouth recommendations.

The good news is that it’s not impossible to do well — even if you’re starting from scratch. Keep reading for all the tips you need.

1. Know your audience

The first step to engaging authentically is knowing the audience of each of your social media accounts. For example, if you have an Instagram account for your food truck, knowing that most of your followers are young professionals makes it easier to tailor content that appeals to them — such as pictures of healthy snacks or quotes about healthy eating habits — than it would be if most of them were foodies who enjoy eating fried chicken and potatoes (no judgments!).

2. Write great content

You can’t be effective at social media marketing unless you’re using it to provide value to your customers, and that means creating content that’s useful, interesting and engaging. But what does that mean? How do you write content that’s worth reading? How do you know if your content is working? Let’s explore some strategies for creating great social media posts that will encourage engagement and increase sales.

✔️ The best way to get people talking about your brand is by sharing relevant information that will interest them personally and professionally. If you’re a restaurant owner, show mouth-watering photos of your top dishes. If you’re a florist, share photos of your bridal arrangements for an upcoming wedding. The point is to make it personal to your brand so people will want to engage.

✔️ In most cases, use short sentences and paragraphs. People will be more likely to read your posts if they’re not too long or complicated. There can be exceptions, and sometimes, you may need more words to communicate something important — say, if you’re spotlighting a team member. In those cases, going longer can work to your advantage. But if you’re just sharing a photo of a favorite burrito, the image speaks for itself. Consider the content of the image or video you’re sharing to write your captions appropriately.

✔️ Use bullet points, numbered lists and emojis when appropriate, so readers can scan quickly scan your content and get the gist.

✔️ Use a combination of images, videos and links. Having a mix of content keeps things interesting for your audience.

3. Respond, and do it quickly

When it comes to social media engagement, responsiveness and speed are of the essence. The faster you respond to comments and messages, the more likely you will be to keep your followers happy and engaged. Note: Most customers expect a response to their social media posts within 24 hours.

Among the brands that do respond to customers on social media, research shows that most of them are doing a satisfactory job of answering their customers promptly. Beyond the speed of response, however, there’s another issue: Many complaints are never answered, according to Convince & Convert. The data is enough to have led C&C to create a formula for responding to customers: “Answer every customer complaint. In every channel. Every time.”

It’s not just complaints you need to mind, either. Messages, comments on your posts, reviews and more — whether positive, negative or neutral — all need a response or acknowledgment from you as the brand. Having a social media management platform like Rallio will allow you to pull all engagements into one dashboard so you never miss anything and can be responsive in real time. You can also make use of chatbots and auto-responses on your website and Messenger to let customers know answers to basic FAQ as well as when they can expect a response from you.

4. Be yourself

When you’re establishing a new brand or business page on social media, it can be tempting to try to be everything to everyone. You might start out posting about the things you love and then switch gears when you realize it’s not resonating with your audience. Or maybe you’re trying to be funny one day, then serious the next.

The problem is that this strategy will turn off some of your followers while leaving others confused about who you really are. Instead, aim for consistency and authenticity by sticking with a single voice that feels authentic throughout all of your social media channels.

This doesn’t mean that every post needs to sound exactly alike — in fact, using humor or being serious can help build an interesting persona for your brand — but there should still be some consistency between posts so that people who follow you know what kind of content they can expect from you each time they visit your page or check out one of your posts.

5. Don’t feed the trolls

One of the biggest challenges you may face as a social media marketer is how to deal with negative comments and trolls. It’s important to note that there are two types of trolling on social media: The first is when someone is mean or rude to you in order to provoke a response. The second type is when someone tries to derail your post by commenting about something completely unrelated or unrelated to your brand, perhaps trying to get eyeballs and followers on their own pages.

If you’ve ever posted something on social media and received some nasty comments, you know how demoralizing it can be. You have several options for dealing with trolls, including:

Ignore them. As long as their comments are not hateful, inflammatory or vicious, you can ignore the trolls. They will eventually get bored and go away.
Block them. This won’t always work because they can create new accounts. But you can always try it as a first step.
Hide the user and/or their comments. On some platforms, you can hide comments from view (see this page from Facebook) or hide the user — as on YouTube, where you can hide a user without blocking them. Essentially, any comments they make will go into a void, so they can shout all they want and nobody will hear them. For more on hiding a user or their comments, check on the specifics of each platform.

Engage Authentically to Build Your Brand

If you’re a small-business owner, chances are that you’re using social media to promote your business and build relationships with customers. But if you don’t engage authentically with your followers, you’ll lose their trust and interest.

Engaging with your social media followers is essential for building their trust in your brand. When you engage authentically with your followers, you’re keeping them in the loop about what’s happening in your business. This can help build rapport and strengthen customer relationships.

If you don’t know how to engage authentically, it may seem like a daunting task. Feel free to reach out to us via rallio.com for help creating and managing your social media marketing strategy.

Tags social media marketing

Social Uncategorized

Ads Rejected on Facebook or Instagram? Here’s Why

Post author By Rallio
Post date September 20, 2022

Have you ever tried to post an ad on Facebook or Instagram and had your ads rejected? This happens more often than you might think, and it can be a frustrating experience — especially if you’ve put a lot of time and effort into your ads. At the end of the day, your perfectly designed Facebook or Instagram Ads could be gathering dust in your campaign archives. To make sure they see the light of day and get you the return on ad spend you’re after, follow our tips below for using words and imagery that won’t get your ads rejected.

Why Are Ads Rejected?

When you publish a Facebook ad or an Instagram ad, it goes into Meta’s queue for review, a process that takes anywhere from a few minutes to a day or more. Typically, most ad reviews are complete within 24 hours, depending on factors such as whether it’s a holiday.

If Meta’s review detects an issue, your ad will display as Rejected. While this isn’t ideal, it doesn’t mean that your ad will never be approved. You can view your ad account status and any rejected ads through your Ad Accounts section.

Here, you can view further details about your ad and address any issues. Typical policy violation issues include the use of prohibited content, such as grammar and profanity violations or language that refers to a person’s personal attributes — that is, anything that could come across as too intrusive. Other possible issues could include social and political issues or sensational content. If you believe the ad is in line with Meta’s advertising policies, you can request another review; or simply try to tweak the ad to get it approved.

Your best bet is to get your ads right from the get-go so you can get your ads up and running as quickly as possible while also delivering the best experience for your target audience. Below are some possible reasons for ads being rejected and ways to ensure a smooth ad production process.

First Names

Facebook and Instagram don’t allow you to use first names in your ads because they can be perceived as spammy or intrusive. If you’re trying to target someone based on their name, it can come across as creepy or overly personal. Avoid this issue altogether and make sure you don’t get your ads rejected by excluding personal identifiers like names.

Religious Affiliations

While it’s not against Meta’s policies to include religion as an ad topic, you will want to avoid any language implying that you know a person’s religious affiliation. For instance, don’t say something like “Meet other Christian singles in your area”; make it general by rephrasing as “Meet Christian singles here.”

Other Personal Identifiers

There are many areas that fall under the category of being too intrusive or personally identifiable for your target audiences. Ages, gender identities, sexual orientations, mental and physical disabilities or disorders, and voting status are just a few of the touchy subjects where you need to be cautious with your wording and avoid anything that implies you know certain details about your audience.

For example, your language cannot imply that the reader is within a certain age group; you can’t say something like “Now that you’re in your 50s, you need this product.” Instead, rephrase it: “People in their 50s love this product.”

Financial Status

Avoid mentioning anything that implies you know a reader’s financial status. Instead of “Are you struggling to pay your bills?” try “Saving money is easier than ever with our software.” Are you catching on to the idea that you can’t say anything that makes Meta think you’re creeping on your customers’ personal information?

Social and Political Issues

Running ads on anything related to social issues or politics requires a special approval process first, so make sure you read through the requirements and request approval before attempting to run these kinds of ads. Anything from climate change to elections and social issues falls under this area. Also, be aware that these ads will include a “Paid for by” disclaimer for people to see.

Misleading Claims

If you are making any claims or quoting any statistics in your ad, make sure they are easily provable. While it’s fine to tell prospective customers about the potential benefits of using your products or services, nothing you say should be misleading or make any exaggerated claims about potential results or the expected time frames for success.

Before publishing ads, it’s always a good idea to review any claims or statistics in your copy. If you can’t prove the claims or if they’re demonstrably false, remove them from the ad copy and use another tactic to promote your brand.

Poor Grammar

A missing comma or a misspelled word is not ideal, but they are not necessarily grounds for an ad being rejected. However, you’ll need to avoid deliberate grammar and punctuation issues when you’re attempting to make your ad stand out. For instance, you cannot capitalize alternating or random letters, and it’s best to avoid accented letters if possible. To be safe, keep your copy clean and free of unnecessary punctuation or unusual use of letters, and remember, you can always use emojis to make your ad more noticeable.

Avoid Getting Your Ads Rejected

If you’re looking for more information about advertising on Meta platforms, take a look at this page. And remember, keeping your copy free of anything too personal will help to speed along the ad approval process. As always, if you need any help getting your ad campaigns up and running, reach out to us at rallio.com for help.

Tags ads, facebook, instagram

Reputation Social

Align Your Franchise Social Media Marketing Across the Brand

Post author By Rallio
Post date September 10, 2022

Franchise social media can be a fantastic way to build a community and reach new customers, but it’s still a relatively new marketing platform for many franchise brands. The challenge is that when your franchisees are using social media in their own way, it can lead to inconsistent branding and damage the brand’s reputation. It can also lead to challenges when building a local presence and engaging with these customers, who are used to a different level of service. Here’s how you can align your online presence across all of your social media channels and train franchisees to get their social media marketing aligned across the brand.

Use Technology for Social Media Management

As any business owner can tell you, sharing content across various social channels can be a time-consuming task. Logging in and out of different platforms, coming up with social media content, and engaging with followers is a full-time and one that most businesses don’t have time to tackle. And international franchise businesses that aim to expand their footprint outside of the country may face additional challenges when trying to organize and manage their social media platforms due to language and cultural differences.

By using a social media SaaS platform like Rallio, marketers can manage all aspects of their social media presence from one place. It allows them to schedule posts, monitor analytics, track engagement and more without having to log into multiple platforms every day. It also empowers them to engage directly with customers when they leave comments, post online reviews, and send direct messages to the brand — ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.

Keep a Consistent Brand Image

When it comes to franchise social media marketing, important to maintain a consistent brand image even down to the location level so that your brand does not become fractured. In addition to using Rallio’s technology, which allows franchisors to set global permissions based on their needs, there are several ways you can ensure consistency across all your locations:

Identify your key messages and themes

Make sure they are consistent across all social media channels. This will help you be more effective at driving engagement and conversions.

Develop a social media policy

The policy must outline how franchisees and their employees should use social media accounts on behalf of your company, including guidelines on what types of content should be shared, how often, and who has permission to post or upload content on behalf of the business. The policy should also outline what they can’t say or share on social media accounts and explain why these policies exist.

Ensure that each location has its own branded profile pages

This includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms where they’re active. With unique pages, franchisees can show off their own personality through photos and other content and attract local business.

Set up a system for posting content at each location

Whether you hire a third party or create an internal team, make sure there is consistency in the images and messages being posted across all locations. This will help develop brand recognition and allow customers to feel like they know your brand well. It also helps establish trust between your company and customers by fostering consistency across channels.

Keep it local and engaging

It’s important to personalize content depending on what works best in each market or region within your franchise network — whether that means local news, events or weather updates — but don’t forget about developing unique content tailored specifically to each location as well. For example, if one of your locations has a great new chef or menu item, create a post that features the chef and their famous dish.

Build an editorial calendar for content sharing across all channels

Make sure that each piece of content is aligned with your company’s overall voice and tone and offers value to your audience — whether it’s tips for running a successful business or educational resources for customers or prospective employees.

Pay Attention to Customer Care

Social media is a critical medium for franchise brands to strengthen relationships with stakeholders and potential leads in today’s digital economy. It’s important to pay attention to customer care, as many people use social media as a customer service channel. Here are some tips:

Be responsive, but don’t overreact

You should respond quickly, but don’t panic if you aren’t able to answer immediately. Aim to reply to comments, messages and reviews within 24 business hours.

Don’t fear negative feedback

It’s inevitable that you’re going to get some negative comments on social media. And while a lot of people think that if they get negative feedback, their brand will be damaged, it’s actually the opposite! Use it as an opportunity to respond professionally and show everyone you’re able to resolve issues gracefully. You’ll earn your followers’ trust — and hopefully even more sales!

Use the right tone

The tone of your replies should match the flow of the conversation — if someone asks for help or has a complaint, respond in an empathetic tone; if they’re just making small talk, respond casually.

Provide value

Responding with basic information like “I’m sorry” or “Thank you” isn’t enough — you need to provide value by offering actionable advice or resources that will help them solve their problem or make them want to do business with you again.

Align Your Brand and Reap the Rewards

The franchise industry is continually shifting its marketing focus toward social media, and it’s safe to say that it’s going to continue to be a central part of most franchise marketing plans in the future. By investing time in social media and laying the groundwork now, you can build an effective franchise brand on multiple platforms. Social media will likely continue to expand into other digital channels in the future as well, so it pays to be prepared. Contact us at rallio.com to schedule a demo and start taking advantage of having a single platform for all your social media marketing needs.

Social

7 Tips for Better Fall Photos on Social Media

Post author By Rallio
Post date September 6, 2022

When you’re thinking about taking photos or videos for your business, there are a lot of things to consider. Do you want to show people your product? Will you be using it in an ad or on your website? Are there any specific colors or themes you want to highlight? And when it comes to fall photos, you have even more options. The colors are so beautiful and warm — why not use them to promote your business? We’ve rounded up seven tips for better fall photos that will help you take stunning pictures for your social media pages and attract local business.

1. Use Natural Light

Natural light is the best kind of light because it’s free, easy to find, and, depending on the time of day, flattering for the subject of the photo. You don’t need expensive equipment or fancy lighting setups; just be creative with what you have available to you.

If you’re taking photos outside, try shooting in the morning or evening when the sun isn’t directly overhead or below your subject — this can make for shadows on faces. If you’re indoors, make sure that the light is shining in front of you, not behind. For example, film yourself while facing a window, not the other way around.

2. Highlight Your Community

You can take a picture of just about anything with fall in the background, but why not include some of the things that make your city unique? Think about what makes your community special, like the city hall or a landmark building. If possible, try to find an angle from which the building is prominent in the foreground of your photo.

The best part about this is that it doesn’t have to be a big city. There are many towns and small cities that have a lot of character and charm. If you live in a smaller town, use this as an opportunity to showcase what makes it unique.

3. Keep It Simple

Fall is the perfect time to experiment with different types of photography and techniques. It’s also a great time for creating more artistic images that reflect the season. However, if you want to create an image that will attract customers’ attention and make them want to follow you on social media, keep it simple.

Just because the leaves are changing and the weather is cooler doesn’t mean you have to get fancy with your photos. You can take great pictures with just a smartphone or point-and-shoot camera, along with unique angles and subject matter. For example, if you’re taking a photo of an apple tree at harvest time, try lying down on the ground so that you can get a close-up shot of one of its hanging fruits or the foliage above.

4. Feature Your Fall Favorites

The best way to show off your fall offerings is with a simple photo or video that showcases the product or service itself. This is a great opportunity to feature your business’s fall favorites such as unique products or services, along with special fall promotions.

For example, if you own a bakery, show off some of the seasonal treats you’re offering such as pumpkin pie, apple cider donuts, gingerbread cookies and more.

If you’re a florist, feature some beautiful fall flowers like mums, chrysanthemums and sunflowers. Or if you own a clothing boutique or accessory store, bring out all the scarves, hats and gloves that are perfect for this time of year.

Service-oriented businesses can take before-and-after photos featuring their work or how-to videos explaining how to DIY a project. Adding value to your followers’ feeds ensures they will keep coming back to see your content, helping you increase your engagement and reach.

5. Go Behind the Scenes

Show your followers what it’s like to run a business by including images of employees at work or behind-the-scenes shots of how your products are made or delivered to customers. Make sure there’s something interesting going on in the shot; if all you’re showing are a few products on a shelf, it doesn’t make for a compelling image — instead, try including a customer or an employee in the photo.

These photos come across as more authentic and help to build credibility among your followers. When they see that there’s a real human behind the face of the business, they can begin to connect with you on a more personal level. This is great for local business — and for building your brand on social media.

6. Use Props Sparingly

Fall is a great time for using props — think trees, pumpkins, leaves and anything that will bring out the colors in your photos while still staying true to the season’s theme. Just make sure not to overdo it with too many props or things that don’t fit with your brand; it will just look cluttered and messy. A good rule of thumb is to find things that are already in nature and use them as your backdrop. For example:

Leaves

This is an obvious choice for fall photos because it’s such a popular season for getting outside and enjoying nature. Fall leaves are bright and colorful — just like your business’s social media pages should be! Use them as filler or fill up an entire photo with them to create a cohesive theme.

Pumpkins

If you’re looking for something more festive than just leaves, pumpkins are a great option. From carved pumpkins to fresh ones with stems attached, there’s nothing wrong with having too many pumpkins around when you’re shooting.

Local Trails or Vistas

Have any favorite trailheads or lookout points nearby? Head out with a few co-workers, friends or family members to capture scenes of nature and share them with your followers.

7. Plan Ahead

Be sure to plan ahead so you can take advantage of photo opportunities at local community events, fall festivals, and other local happenings. Are there opportunities to set up a table and conduct some local marketing? Many organizations will let you set up for free or for a small vendor fee.

Remember to mark these events down on your calendar, and be sure to get permission to film at the event or photograph attendees if needed. The Rallio mobile app includes a release form that people can digitally sign and give you instant permission to share on social media. Don’t forget to ask for their Instagram handle so you can tag them — and, hopefully, they’ll share your content with their network, too.

Better Fall Photos Mean More Engagement

From real pumpkins and corn stalks to fall music festivals, there are plenty of ways for you to incorporate the sights and sounds of autumn into your social media photos. With the help of a few props and the right location, you can capture the fun of fall and share it with your followers.

Plus, with better photos, you’ll have better engagement, helping you grow your local business. In the end, you don’t need to invest in a lot of new props or equipment to take better fall photos. With just a few unique items here and there, you can boost your engagement on social media without spending a ton of money. And that’s empowering, especially when it comes to boosting your local business.

Tags social media marketing

Social

For 5 Years Running, Rallio Is a Top Franchise Supplier

Post author By Rallio
Post date August 22, 2022

For the fifth year running, Rallio has once again been named a Top Franchise Supplier by Entrepreneur magazine. This list recognizes top companies that provide services and support to franchisors and franchisees in 11 categories, including Marketing, in which Rallio ranked #7.

To determine who the Top Franchise Suppliers are, Entrepreneur surveyed more than 900 franchisors to learn which service providers they and their franchisees use and what their satisfaction is with the quality, cost, and value of those suppliers’ services. Each supplier was scored based on the results of this survey. Rallio’s ranking on the list illustrates its position as a trusted service provider in the franchise community.

To view the full ranking, visit entrepreneur.com/franchise/top-franchise-suppliers. The list can also be seen in the September 2022 issue of Entrepreneur.

Rallio has worked tirelessly over the past few years to fine-tune our franchise social media technologies and services, launching a newly revamped version of the app to best serve our clients. Our accomplishments are represented not only by the Entrepreneur Top Franchise Supplier listing, but also by our inclusion on the Inc.com list of fastest-growing companies, our client testimonials, and our continual efforts to offer best-in-class service and support.

Curious as to why franchises consistently choose Rallio as their Top Franchise Supplier of choice? Take a look at the top 5 reasons below.

#1: Team, Not Just Technology

Our Rallio Local clients are busy running their businesses, and they recognize they don’t have extra time they can dedicate to social media. Taking this huge responsibility off their plate by automating the process of content creation, review responses, and inbox management allows them to focus on doing what they do best. Meanwhile, we can do what we do best — and help them grow their social media presence while we’re at it.

By the way, review responses are more important than you think. Not only does responding to all of your reviews improve customer relations, but it also helps to boost your search engine rankings and improve local SEO. We recently wrote on the importance of online reviews and how they relate to SEO here and here.

#2: But Also … Technology

The Rallio technology makes everyone’s lives easier, both for clients and our own in-house team. Here’s a small sampling of what our platform can do:

Provides one centralized dashboard with one login for all platforms. All your brand assets live here so you can easily find them. Syndicate, publish or schedule social content to your entire brand or a subset of locations.
Gives greater control over your brand message. Implement permissions if you want content to go through an approval process, or allow franchisees to bypass those permissions.
Captures customer feedback from major review platforms that you have connected in Rallio and allows you to respond from your dashboard. Easily track your brand-wide and localized response rates.
Includes mobile technology to easily upload new images to your database. Activate employees with limited login capabilities to allow them to upload images and extend your reach on social media.
Stack-ranks all of your locations to see who is performing the best on social media and who needs more support. Tap into insight on your brand averages, outliers and comprehensive digital reputation.

Our clients can choose to be as involved as they like, and our clients love having the freedom to choose the level of service that works best for them.

#3: True Partnership

We’re more than just a Top Franchise Supplier. We’re a team of people who care about our clients. We work hard for them because we, ourselves, know what it’s like to build a company from the ground up. Rallio started in 2013 with just our CEO and his co-founder running the show.

Through the years, we’ve grown and become successful — earning spots on Entrepreneur rankings and others — because we’ve stayed committed to solving our clients’ problems, including those who needed help navigating the pandemic. If you were to walk into our office in Irvine, California, you’d see on the wall: “Don’t sell anything; solve people’s problems.”

Having a service provider with this kind of mindset allows you to rest easy, knowing everything is being handled for you. Rather than feeling pressured or anxious, you feel at ease. And that’s a priceless feeling, especially during stressful times.

#4: Thought Leadership

Working with Rallio means you’re working with a diverse team of experts with backgrounds in content marketing, franchising, entrepreneurship, sales, social media marketing and other disciplines.

Our clients can count on us for the most up-to-date recommendations in social media marketing. Whether through our blog, our personal conversations between clients and strategists, or our Customer Support team, we do whatever we can to help our clients navigate social media.

Our Vice President of Business Development, Ryan Hicks, is also a Certified Franchise Expert. He runs the MODRN Business podcast and is actively involved in the franchise community.

Ryan has participated in several conferences, events and webinars featuring prominent brands within the franchise community, including the Springboard Event for Emerging and [Re]Emerging Franchisors. (Again, we’re solving problems.) This year’s event is set for September 28-30, 2022, at the PHL Marriott in Philadelphia.

#5: Fun

Take a look at the videos and photos on our @rallio Instagram account, and it becomes obvious that we’re much more than just thought leaders and experts. We’re a team that prides itself on a culture of fun, teamwork, mutual respect and innovation.

Our clients love working with us because we bring life to their social media pages. We’re all about making sure there’s no boring content getting posted.

We’re both highly creative and intelligent. Passionate and purpose-driven. We know which fork to use for a fancy meal, but we’re just as happy to put away a box of mac ‘n’ cheese. (Is this starting to sound like a dating profile?)

It’s simple. We’re fun.

The Significance of the Top Franchise Supplier Listing

Entrepreneur describes the methodology behind the Top Franchise Supplier listing as follows:

“The franchise industry is really much bigger than just franchisors and franchisees. There are a multitude of companies — commonly known in the industry as suppliers — that provide services that help those franchisors and franchisees to run their businesses successfully. And our annual ranking of the Top Franchise Suppliers seeks to recognize those that do it best.

To determine our annual ranking of the Top Franchise Suppliers, we surveyed more than 900 franchisors, from emerging brands that just got started to established companies that have been franchising for decades. We asked them to tell us which service providers they and their franchisees use, and to rate their satisfaction with the quality, cost, and value of each supplier’s services.

We scored each supplier based on the results of the survey, and the top-scoring suppliers in each of 11 categories made it into the ranking.”

To us, the significance of this ranking cannot be understated. We’re excited that once again, our clients see value in our products and services. Our hope is to help even more new clients in the coming year.

About Rallio

Rallio is a powerful SaaS platform combining cloud-based social media technology, artificial intelligence and employee advocacy. As the supplier of choice for franchise organizations and small businesses, Rallio enables multi-location brands and SMB operators to optimize their social media engagement, while managing their entire social media presence, online reputation, and online directory listings in one dashboard for all locations. By automating agency-like services and employee advocacy across their social media pages, brands multiply their reach exponentially and experience rapid month-over-month growth on social media.

Tags Top Ranked Social Media Company

Reputation Social

Guide to Customer Service on Social Media

Post author By Rallio
Post date August 17, 2022

It’s safe to say that social media has changed everything — from the way people communicate to the way they buy. Because of this, customer service has become more important than ever, especially on social media channels. As a business owner, it’s imperative that you have a way to provide great customer service on social media, quickly and professionally, because it’s what customers expect.

Not sure where to start? The following guide will help you understand the rise in customer service on social media, develop a plan for responding promptly, increase customer satisfaction, and generate positive engagement with customers. By using our tips, you’ll have an easier time engaging with your audience and coming up with a foolproof way to make sure they’re happy.

The Rise of Customer Service on Social Media

Zendesk reports that 60% of customers think the most important part of good customer support is solving issues quickly. Oftentimes, this means turning to social media channels rather than email or phone support, under the assumption that issues will get resolved in a more timely manner.

So even if your brand doesn’t already have a way to provide customer support through social media, customers could be leaving comments, sending you direct messages, and posting online reviews about your brand. It’s important to pay attention to what they’re saying so you can provide support wherever needed and preserve your brand’s online reputation.

Respond Quickly

The faster you can respond to a customer’s concern, the better off you’ll be — both in terms of keeping your customer happy and demonstrating responsiveness as part of your brand’s value proposition. Responding within an hour or less is ideal during normal business hours. Being responsive also can help to improve your local SEO and search engine rankings.

To account for messages received after hours or on weekends when people are using social media platforms like Facebook Messenger or Instagram DMs, make sure you have auto-responses in place. You’ll need to connect your Instagram Business account to Mega Business Suite to set up auto-replies and away messages. With these messages in place, you can at least let customers know when to expect a response (and hopefully maintain some work-life balance while you’re at it).

Watch Your Language

Yes, this means literally watching what you say, but pay attention to the tone of your responses, grammar, spelling, and the words you choose. Don’t use canned responses; respond with the same voice and tone you would use in person, not a “corporate” voice that might seem stiff and distant. Use names whenever you can, and mention any specifics from their message that lets them know you’re a real person. While it’s smart to use AI technology (aka “bots”) to help address basic questions (more on that next), some questions require real human interaction.

When responding to customers, be polite and honest about what you know or don’t know right away. If it takes more than one response to get all of the information needed, tell the customer upfront that there will be more steps ahead before you can provide them with an answer or resolution to their issue or question — but be sure to let them know when they’ll get their next update from you.

At times, you’ll get customers who are argumentative or confrontational with you. Be as professional as possible to avoid escalating the situation, and be careful not to insult anyone; just address their concerns in a professional manner with no unnecessary rudeness. Also, work to take any conversations offline rather than continuing to post publicly for all the world to see. If necessary, don’t be afraid to let a customer go who clearly isn’t going to be happy no matter what you do.

Use Technology

With social media being such an important tool for customer service and marketing, it’s important to make sure that your company has the right tools in place so that you can answer questions quickly and easily. Here are some ways that you can use technology to help manage the support process.

Use a tool like Rallio for all your social media management needs. Rallio not only lets you schedule out posts in advance but also pulls in all your social comments and engagements as well as reviews from connected platforms. You’ll have everything in one dashboard and set up notifications so you’re alerted when there’s a new comment, message or review so you don’t miss anything important.
Incorporate AI into your website to make it easier for people to get answers to FAQ and get help when they need it. You can integrate your chatbot with a customer support platform like Zendesk or Freshdesk to help with managing the support process. This can help to keep some of the support issues off of social media and more contained with your support team.
Automate the process as much as you can by using auto-responses, as discussed above. Create templates for responding to reviews that can be customized according to the situation by adding names and more personalization. This makes it easier to delegate review responses to your team so nobody has to reinvent the wheel on standard customer responses.

Be Proactive

Brand engagement is about building relationships with customers and potential customers. If you’re engaging with your audience on social media, you’re more likely to be seen as a brand that cares about its customers, which can improve your brand image. With that in mind, it’s a best practice to post highly engaging, local content that reveals your brand personality.

In other words, don’t post boring content!

The goal of brand engagement is to make it easy for people to interact with your business and feel like they’re part of the community. This isn’t just about posting photos of your products — it’s about being an active member of the community and sharing relevant photos and videos or useful information that will interest your followers. You’ll find that with a highly engaged community, even negative comments don’t go far. In fact, people are likely to stick up for you even if a negative comment makes its way onto your page!

Final Thoughts

If you provide excellent service, people will want to share their experiences with others. Some companies have even built entire brands around the idea that people will buy from them because of the way they treat customers on social media.

There are no shortcuts to building an amazing business on social media, but the effort is worth it! The rewards of having happy customers and a great reputation can compound into a powerful marketing force for years to come. So, when the opportunity presents itself, take the time to provide your customers with exceptional customer service on social media, and you will reap the rewards in the long run.

Reputation

Why Reviews Matter and How to Make the Most of Them

Post author By Rallio
Post date August 9, 2022

Online reviews have been around since the dawn of the internet — it seems that people have always had opinions they want to share. But it’s only recently that they’ve become more important — and more visible — than ever, especially for business owners. Reviews are especially crucial now because of social media and our dependence on digital word of mouth. If you’re wondering why reviews matter, consider how people search for things online: they often look for other people’s recommendations or experiences in their search results before making a purchase decision.

This presents both challenges and opportunities for business owners, who are charged with constantly monitoring and responding to online reviews so as not to leave any feedback unaddressed. In the following guide, we walk you through the many ways that online reviews matter and how businesses can make the most of them to drive local business.

Why Online Reviews Matter

Reviews are a crucial part of both the online shopping experience and the ability to drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar location. A whopping 92% of consumers will think twice about buying a product if there are no reviews left by customers. And an even higher percentage, 97%, say that customer reviews influence their purchasing decisions.

This is why it’s critical not only to have customer reviews for your business but also to ensure that every review is handled appropriately. Having positive reviews helps you build credibility and trust with your audience, which can lead to more sales and conversions. In addition, should you ever receive a negative review, responding in a professional manner demonstrates that you are willing to resolve issues quickly.

Like it or not, customer reviews are the lifeblood of your business. They make up the bulk of the information people use to make buying decisions, and they help you build a reputation as an expert in your field. Having a system in place to view and respond to all of your customer reviews ensures that no customer is left hanging and you’re able to capitalize on opportunities to thank your customers for their business.

How Online Reviews Impact SEO

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), the goal is to get your website ranked higher in the search engines. The higher you rank, the more traffic you can expect from users searching for relevant keywords. But did you know that Google ratings and reviews can also affect your SEO? It’s true! If you’re not taking advantage of this powerful tool, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity to boost your site’s visibility. Online reviews are vital to your SEO strategy, impacting your business in several key areas, which we’ll dive into below.

Online reviews influence customers’ purchasing decisions

In today’s digital age, online reviews are one of the most influential factors in shaping consumer behavior and have transformed the way people make purchase decisions. Additional data suggests 91% of people read online reviews regularly, and 84% of users report trusting online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family.

So how does Google come into play here? Google is the review site of choice: According to multiple online reviews statistics and ReviewTrackers data, over 63% of consumers say they are likely to check Google reviews more than any other review site. Not only do they check them, but they are more likely to click through and make a purchasing decision based on the Google reviews they read.

They affect search engine rankings for your business

Moreover, Google views online reviews as a sign that your business is worthy of appearing in search engine results. If your brand consistently gets 4.5+ stars and a higher number of reviews than competing sites, it’s more likely that Google will favor your business in search engine results pages (SERPs).

In other words, your reviews determine, in part, how high you rank in search engine results pages — and the higher your rankings, the greater your social trust, which leads to further lead generation. Although reviews are not necessarily a part of Google’s ranking algorithm, they do influence search results, primarily through:

Map searches. When people search for businesses nearby, Google Maps displays the “highest rated” results first. This means that ratings and reviews can impact whether or not Google deems a business to be relevant and shows it prominently in results featuring nearby businesses.
Mobile search. Google accounts for average ratings and reviews counts when displaying results for mobile searches.
Local carousel. Ratings and reviews may impact a business’s position in the carousel, which is the horizontal row of images at the top of search results.

In short, Google reviews are a powerful component of search engine rankings, conversions, and lead generation that you cannot afford to ignore.

Benefits of Online Reviews for Businesses

Reviews are a great way for businesses to increase their visibility and build trust with potential customers. They’re also a valuable source of information for consumers. Below are just some of the potential benefits of having a steady stream of online reviews and why you need to be paying attention to them.

You’ll get valuable feedback

While there are occasionally customers who decide they have a bone to pick even with businesses that provide stellar products and services, many online reviewers actually provide insights that you can use to better your business. As you read your reviews, you’ll get a better picture of what the general perception of your company is, understand where to improve, and find out what customers are loving that you could highlight even more in your marketing or use as positive feedback for your team members.

You’ll build trust with potential customers

When you have a growing collection of positive reviews, it will make it easier for customers to trust you. Think about the last time you went searching for a certain new local business: Were you more likely to trust the businesses that had several 4- and 5-star reviews and appeared high up in search results over any business with few reviews and farther down the search rankings? In fact, did you even bother to look at any business that didn’t appear at the top of the list with glowing reviews?

It’s free advertising

The more people see your company’s name at the top of search results, the greater your brand awareness will be. It’s essentially free advertising when customers leave online reviews, and even more so when you engage with your reviewers, thank them for their feedback, and demonstrate you’re a responsive business that cares about its customers.

You’ll boost your rankings

As discussed previously, reviews influence search engine results by enabling your business to rank higher the more often your business is mentioned online, which in turn leads to higher conversions and more leads.

You can increase sales through social proof

According to a Search Engine Land report, businesses with more reviews generate 54% more revenue. Furthermore, those with more than the average number of reviews bring in 82% more in annual revenue than businesses with a below-average review quantity. In part, the increased revenue is due to businesses having claimed their Google Business Profile and other listings across the web; Search Engine Land reports that businesses that didn’t claim their listings averaged $72,000 less in annual revenue. It’s also due to consumers’ inclination to buy from businesses that respond to their reviews, perhaps under the assumption that such businesses provide better service.

Businesses that take things a step further can bolster sales even more by showcasing positive comments from customers. This can be done by displaying star ratings, reviews, and testimonials on your website, in email marketing campaigns, or on social media pages.

Best Practices and Tips to Maximize Reviews

Online reviews have a significant impact on consumer behavior — in fact, customers trust other customers more than they trust brands. So if you want to win over new buyers, you need to encourage current customers to leave reviews on your products or services and then follow up with every piece of feedback. Here are some tips to make the most of online reviews for your business.

Respond to all reviews

According to a Bright Local survey, 89% of consumers read businesses’ responses to reviews. When writing a response, personalize it with a name if available, acknowledge what the customer wrote, and add remarks if steps will be taken internally. See negative review responses as an opportunity to rebuild trust with your audience. Why?

33% of customers who received a response to a negative review subsequently changed it to be more positive, while 34% deleted their negative review.
45% of consumers say they’re more likely to visit a business if it responds to negative reviews.

Input keywords in your review responses

Your customers’ reviews will sometimes contain keywords, but responding gives you the chance to ensure Google knows exactly what your business is about. Relevant keywords to consider in your review responses include:

Business name
Location
Keywords related to the products or services you sell; use a keyword analysis tool to find keywords for which you want to rank

Know when to ask customers to leave you a review

Every sale is an opportunity to ask for online reviews, not only at the point of sale but afterwards. Here are some optimal times to ask:

After a purchase
After a product has been delivered
When a customer re-purchases or re-orders
After a customer tags your brand on social media
When customers are browsing your site for other products/services
If they refer another customer
Before a customer walks out the door

Share reviews to other social networks

When you get a glowing review, share it online! It just makes sense that you should spread the good news and share what others are saying about your work. Here at Rallio, we always talk about the importance of getting more local content out on your pages, and this is a great and easy way to do so! Just copy and paste somebody’s 5-star review, put it in a template, post it on your social profiles, and watch the great engagement flow in.

Keep your information on review sites up to date

Update your social and review profiles and business listings so consumers can always find up-to-date, correct, and consistent information for your business. Rallio’s Business Listing service makes it easy to update all of your information across the web in seconds.

Learn more: Why Your Online Reviews Are More Important Than Ever

Take Care of Your Reviews, and They’ll Take Care of You

It’s easier than ever for consumers to post an honest review about their experiences with your company, and you’ll find that if you just ask, most people are happy to provide feedback. By being proactive with customers and asking for reviews, you can often head off problems before they get published online while also seizing the opportunity to highlight customers’ positive experiences.

Positive reviews are so important for any business owner or marketer aiming to increase sales with online marketing efforts, connect with their customers, and build a thriving local business where customers are eagerly coming through their doors. With Rallio’s technology continually pulling reviews into your dashboard, you’ll always know what customers are saying about you — and always have an opportunity to thank them for their business.

Tags online reviews

Reputation

The Benefits of Reviews for Local SEO

Post author By Rallio
Post date August 2, 2022

In today’s digital age, online reviews are one of the best ways to get your business found, and they’re also an extension of your brand. Reviews can be a great way to gain exposure, trust, and credibility with potential customers, as they are often the first thing potential customers see when they search for businesses like yours on Google. In fact, local SEO can greatly influence whether people click through to your website and trust you enough to buy from you.

Over the last several years, local search has become one of the most influential factors in the lead generation process. Imagine you were planning a trip to Scandinavia over the holidays and you were on Google.com looking for information about Scandinavian events and activities happening around Christmastime. You may notice that Google has localized its results for certain queries that are more specific about location, like hotels or restaurants. This is called local search, and it is quickly becoming a fundamental part of every marketer’s arsenal.

For businesses that rely on positive online reviews to boost their local search results, it’s clear that more and more people are going online not only to share their experiences but also to find information about businesses, products, services, and more. There’s no denying that having your business appear in local search results with positive reviews is an extremely effective way to attract new customers, retain those you have, and pull ahead of your competitors in terms of search rankings. Obviously, the flip side of all this is the risk of negative reviews, but these can often work in your favor if you respond in the right way. Read on to learn more about local SEO and how it can help your business.

Do Reviews Help With Rankings and Local SEO?

Yes! While there are a lot of factors involved in search rankings, online customer reviews can be a strong signal to search engines that communicates trustworthiness and authority. Search engines love online reviews for one primary reason: Consumers rely heavily on online reviews to make buying decisions.

Customer reviews, both positive and negative, are factored into the algorithm that Google uses to determine how it ranks local businesses. Google wants to show the best companies to their searchers, and reviews are a reasonable differentiator. As part of this process, Google looks at the quantity, quality, frequency, and recency of online reviews.

Indeed, businesses that consistently get a large number of high-star ratings and reviews are likely to get more consideration from popular search engines. According to a study, the fifth most significant parameter that determines the rank of a business is online reviews. As of 2017, the impact of Google reviews on SEO is increasing by over 20% year over year. Since more and more customers use online reviews to make informed purchase decisions, this percentage is only going to rise.

Why Do Reviews Help With Local SEO?

Reviews are an important part of the customer journey when it comes to making purchasing decisions online. Customers need to know how others feel about the products or services you provide before they can make up their own minds about whether or not to do business with you.

What’s more, Google uses customer reviews to determine if a website is spammy and should be removed from search results because it doesn’t offer any value to users. Google also depends on signals such as reviews to decide whether a site is worth high rankings. When a customer reviews your business, either positively or negatively, this tells Google that not only is your business a real, legitimate operation but also that other people have interacted with it and their feedback can help future potential customers make decisions.

If you want to stay ahead of the competition in terms of search engine optimization (SEO), then it’s essential you encourage your customers to leave feedback online about their experiences at your business.

Learn how to get more online reviews with Revv: Case Study: How REVV Accelerates Positive Online Reviews

What Type of Review Categories Affect Rankings?

While many different factors come into play with SEO, the following categories are the primary influencers of a site’s search engine rankings as they relate to reviews.

Review Quantity

Review quantity simply refers to the number of reviews your Google Business Page has. Google loves to see a business with a lot of reviews. The more reviews you have, the higher you can rank in search engine results.

For example, if two businesses have a 4.9 star rating but one has 30 reviews and the other has 200 reviews, the consumer is likely going to choose the one with 200 reviews. Because of this psychology of the business “proving its worth,” Google ranks them a little higher. As such, having the most reviews (with a positive overall rating) in your industry is an easy way to position yourself as the most attractive choice.

Review Velocity

Review velocity refers to the flow of consistent reviews coming into your business. If you’re actively getting reviews on your business page, it shows Google that you’re taking it seriously and likely a legitimate business to recommend its users to.

Recency is important, too. According to a study done by BrightLocal, 73% of people find reviews over three months old to be no longer a useful representation of the business.

Positive Sentiment

If your reviewers are raving about your service and employees, using words like “best,” “great,” and “very happy,” Google will be inclined to believe that you’re doing a pretty good job. If Google believes you’re doing a good job based on the word of your past customers, they’ll reward you with higher rankings in the local pack.

On the flip side, just as a positive sentiment helps your ranking, if your reviewers are consistently using negative language to describe your business, this will hurt your positioning.

Responding to Reviews

Google encourages people to respond to their reviews and rewards businesses that do. But also, the text of your response is included in the total word pool for search term matches. This means you can craft your responses to include useful keywords for SEO.

Online Reviews Matter More Than You Think

The value of online reviews is undisputed; every local business with an online presence, from small boutiques to major franchises, relies on reviews for an online marketing advantage. Online review sites like Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor, and so many more allow local businesses to provide consumers with essential insider info and help a customer pick the right business based on other customers’ experiences. Ultimately, this will ensure that the customer is satisfied, they stick around longer, and they return for future business. In turn, these reviews show Google that you are a responsive, thriving business that cares about its customers and are worthy of the search giant’s stamp of approval.

Not only do reviews keep you connected with your customers and improve your business, but they boost your search rankings and help new customers find your business. For businesses hoping to pull ahead of their competition, you simply cannot afford to overlook online reviews as a key component of your digital marketing strategy. For more help managing, optimizing and responding to your online reviews, contact us at Rallio.

Tags seo

Social

12-Day Social Media Plan

Post author By Rallio
Post date July 19, 2022

If you’re like most small businesses, your social media marketing is hit or miss. You probably have more work to do than you think. And social media is a marathon, not a sprint, so results don’t come lightning quick.

Tired of spending hours on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn trying to be a social superstar only to get lost in the clutter? Want to solve your marketing problems that revolve around social media? Then our free 12-Day Social Media Plan is just what you need.

Day 1: Establish goals

Social media marketing is a great way to build your business and engage with your customers. But if you don’t have a clear strategy, it can be difficult to measure the success of your efforts. That’s why the first step toward transforming your strategy is establishing clear social marketing goals. Here are several examples of goals you can set:

Raise brand awareness and engagement
Generate and nurture leads
Increase product sales
Boost traffic to your website
Increase followers on social media
Increase customer engagement and loyalty
Establish brand authority and trust
Enhance the customer experience

Once you’ve defined your goals, you can use them to drive your content production, ensuring that all your posts support the goals you’ve defined.

Day 2: Define success metrics

How will you measure the success of your social efforts? Decide which metrics you will use to determine whether your strategy is working to support your goals. Consider owned, paid, and earned media as you define these metrics; all three are important elements of your strategy.

For example, you can use audience engagement metrics as an indication of whether you’re making progress on a goal of increasing brand engagement. You could choose to track engagement over a period of time, such as over a month or a quarter, to see your progress.

Day 3: List out your challenges

What challenges are you facing when it comes to social media marketing? Whatever barriers are in your way, write them all down. This could be anything that’s keeping you from making an impact with your social content. Examples of obstacles could be:

Having time or resources to post consistently
Lack of engagement on posts
Drop in organic and/or paid reach
Trying to align social with other parts of your business
Inability to get quality leads
Lack of ROI or understanding of how to measure ROI

Learn more: 5 Social Media Challenges Brands Are Facing in 2022

Day 4: Brainstorm

Take your list of challenges, and start brainstorming solutions to all of them. Get out a big whiteboard, gather your team together, and list every possible solution you can think of to the problems you are facing with your social media marketing. Be sure to consider how each solution will address the challenge and what the end result will be.

For example, one solution to a lack of time to post consistently would be to dedicate an in-house resource to posting, either by hiring a social media manager or adding tasks to someone’s workload. Another option is to use technology like Rallio’s scheduling platform to streamline the work; you can also outsource the work of creating content. Compare costs and potential benefits of any possible solutions to find what works best for you.

Learn more: www.rallio.com

Day 5: Conduct a competitive analysis

When you’re working to build your brand on social media, it’s important to know what your competitors are up to. A social media competitive analysis will help you see how you stack up against them and identify opportunities to get ahead.

The purpose of a social media competitive analysis is to reveal both your strengths and weaknesses on social platforms, as compared to your top competitors. You can use your social media competitive analysis to:

Identify your primary competitors on social media
See which platforms they’re on and how they’re using them
Stack-rank yourself against your competitors
Do more of what’s working well in terms of content, ads and lead generation
Determine any threats to your business on social media, i.e., any potential ways your competitors might outperform you
Eliminate underperforming content and ads
Add in new content and strategies to strengthen your position on social media

See our five-step process to complete your analysis: How to Conduct a Social Media Competitive Analysis in 5 Easy Steps

Day 6: Conduct a SWOT analysis

It’s easy enough to set up your social media pages and put a checkmark next to that box on your to-do list. What’s not so easy for busy entrepreneurs is keeping up with posting, engaging with their audience, boosting their content, and responding to followers’ questions and reviews.

To avoid falling into a “set it and forget it” mindset, we recommend performing a social media SWOT analysis — identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Walking yourself through this process will help you stay sharp on social media and amplify your results.

With a social media SWOT analysis, you’re able to analyze your social media marketing strategy based on four quadrants:

Strengths: What are you doing right on social media? What are your competitive advantages, and how well are you conveying them?
Weaknesses: What factors might be holding you back on social media? Do you lack internal resources, budget or time?
Opportunities: What do you stand to gain on social media? Is it new followers, greater engagement, new leads, brand awareness?
Threats: What are some of the external forces that could hinder your progress on social media, such as competitors or economic factors?

Read our guide: How to Do a Social Media SWOT Analysis and Amplify Your Results

Day 7: Do an audit on your content

Don’t get intimidated by the word “audit.” The idea is simply to identify which content performs the best and worst.

Using a spreadsheet — Google Sheets works well — create columns for the following:

The platform and URL for each platform you’re auditing
Follower counts for each account
Engagement metrics for each account
URL or screenshot of popular content
URL or screenshot of anything that’s a dud
Any other relevant info you want to know

Neil Patel’s social media audit guidelines are an excellent resource for taking a closer look at all aspects of your social media so you can make improvements where needed.

Day 8: Spruce up your social profiles

Although the content you post on your page is important, don’t neglect the real estate available right on your page. Things like your profile picture, bio and contact information are important to include so you make it easy for people to see who you are and what you’re all about as well as locate your business. Check the following to ensure your profiles are optimized:

Use a consistent profile picture across social accounts, such as your logo. This makes you easy to recognize no matter what platform your audience is on.
Complete all sections of your profile. Fill out every available field, including your website and address. The more details you offer, the easier it is for people to understand what you do.
Include keywords and hashtags. Conduct keyword and hashtag research to identify the words and phrases you want to be associated with as people search conversations, products and services related to your brand.

Day 9: Find your target buyer

In order to advertise on social media, which you should if you want to reach more people, you’ll need to identify your ideal buyer persona, including information such as:

Demographics
Career
Lifestyle
Hobbies and interests
Purchase behaviors
Buying power
Pain points (aka problems you can solve for them)

Day 10: Respond to everyone

As you start posting quality local content featuring real, authentic people from your business, and as you start advertising on social media, you are bound to get more comments, questions, messages and reviews. This is a good thing! But you need to make sure you are responding to everyone. Whether you’re thanking people for supporting you, responding to an online review, or simply having a conversation with customers in the comments, it shows people you’re listening and care about your customers when you engage with them.

The flip side is not engaging or responding, and people don’t care for that. If you don’t engage or respond to customer concerns or praise, it’s like ignoring them when they’re knocking on your door.

Day 11: Select content types

Thinking about the buyer persona you created, you can consider the types of content you think your audience would enjoy. From how-to videos to inspirational quotes, there are many different types of content you can post to start engaging more with your audience.

To make sure you have a good mix of content types, try alternating content types on different days. For instance, maybe on Mondays you post #mondaymotivation posts, and on Thursdays you post #thirstyThursday posts when your team goes to happy hour. Here are some possible content types to consider:

Memes and GIFs
Infographics
How-to videos and articles
Polls
Contests
User-generated content
Real-life photos of your team members and customers
Pet photos

From there, you can create an editorial content calendar that lays out all of your different content types for the month. Rallio has a built-in calendar tool to make it easy to schedule all of your content for the month and keep it organized. Aim to post at least three times a week for the best results.

Day 12: Review your social media plan and results

The only way to improve your social media is to review past performance. Use the metrics you defined above to measure how your campaigns are doing, which posts are the most popular, and how and when your audience is the most engaged. The more informed you are, the more you can refine and improve your social media plan as you go.

By now, you should have the basic tools you need to tackle your social media marketing. Follow the steps each day to get the results you want from your social media campaigns — specifically, more leads, more sales, and more followers. Once you’ve developed your own strategy, we think you’ll find that you see better performance from your social media efforts than ever before.

Tags social media marketing

Case studies

Case Study: How Rallio Technology Helps Assisting Hands Achieve Brand Recognition

Post author By Rallio
Post date June 29, 2022

Assisting Hands is a provider of home healthcare services to people of all ages, founded on the principles of caring for others in a way that we would also want to be cared for. Through a nationwide team of trained professionals who feel called to give care, Assisting Hands provides non-medical in-home healthcare in the privacy of a client’s home or in an assisted living facility, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As one of the leading in-home care franchises, the company is a member of the International Franchise Association and has earned numerous accolades as a top franchise by organizations like Franchise Business Review and Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500Ⓡ.

Challenge

Prior to working with Rallio, Assisting Hands did not have a systemized way to manage and grow its presence on social media at both the corporate and local franchisee level. “When we started, our brand only had 30 locations and we were excited to leverage Rallio’s technology to increase our brand uniformity and begin posting on social media for all our locations,” says Andrew Dahle, Chief Operations Officer of Assisting Hands.

Lack of consistent branding can be a real problem for franchisors as their franchisees begin posting on their own local pages. The end result is oftentimes a disjointed brand that lacks the type of recognition needed to build credibility and trust among followers and customers. This brand recognition is critical in the home healthcare industry, where consumers need to feel a brand is trustworthy before allowing them to work with their loved ones in a healthcare capacity.

As HomeCare magazine points out, “Nothing dissuades consumers more than a moving target. Yet many small businesses tend to struggle with brand consistency. Even the slightest change, such as a minor color alteration, may prove disastrous. Therefore, brand consistency is mission-critical. Business owners who have less experience in the marketing world may assume that so long as banners, posters or ads look good they will see decent results. In reality, all materials need to fall within the given parameters of the brand — meaning color, design and overall appearance must be consistent with all other materials, such as a logo, website, letterhead, etc.”

Solution

Rallio’s platform allows for a high level of branding consistency by providing controls and permissions from corporate down to the location level. Assisting Hands headquarters and multi-location owners have the ability to syndicate assets to franchisees from one central dashboard, while viewing deep analytics on the engagement, follower growth and other data across the brand. At the location level, franchisees can also schedule posts using local content such as photos and videos to help build their local audience.

Meanwhile, the dashboard also pulls in post engagements such as comments and likes, plus direct messages and online reviews from connected review platforms. This enables all locations to consistently reply to their followers and clients, boosting their overall online reputation and ensuring every client feels heard and cared for.

Results

With Rallio’s technology, Assisting Hands has seen consistent growth of its social pages, helping them achieve the brand recognition and trustworthiness they need among its audience. Beyond that, Assisting Hands has established a partnership with Rallio that ensures they always have the latest technology solutions to help them navigate their growth and achieve new marketing goals.

“Over the years, I’ve been impressed with Rallio’s commitment to innovation; they are determined to remain cutting edge, not just relevant,” says COO Dahle. “We now have over 80 locations, and we use Rallio as an integral part of our branding — from posting on social media to replying to reviews and all the analytics in between. The whole Rallio team is always professional and willing to help. I wholeheartedly, without reservation, recommend Rallio!”

Tags case study