Franchise Business News: Social Media increasingly important to franchise buyers
Joel Caws - Technical Director, Select Your Franchise
According to a recent article on SF Gate, social media is quickly becoming a research tool of choice for potential franchise buyers.
Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have seen an incredible rise in popularity over the recent years and Internet users are quickly becoming aware of the fact that they can use these tools to get the valuable opinions of their trusted friends and contacts on products and services they might be planning to purchase.
Franchisors who are not actively participating in these type of social media discussions will most likely lose out here. Conversations are happening about companies, franchise businesses, services and products with or without the presence of those companies in the social media space.
Smart franchisors can take advantage by monitoring what is being said about their brands and services within the different social media channels and actively responding. In fact some franchisors are already taking a more active role by promoting Facebook or Twitter only deals to create a sense of community around their brand.
The beauty of social media is that conversations are often public and can be seen by anyone in the users networks and anybody searching for your brand. If you are seen not to engage in conversation then this may ring alarm bells for potential buyers, signalling that you are a closed door outfit and not willing to be open to ideas and criticism. Rather than shy away from this open-ness, smart companies are embracing it and using it as an opportunity to engage which creates an instant ‘feel good’ factor about their company showing that they are willing to talk, are open to discuss pertinent issues and resolve problems.
Are you active within social media? What will users searching about your brand find if they search Twitter or Facebook? Will they find gripes and problems with the company itself notable in its absence? Or will they find a string of openly resolved issues and a company with an open door thats in touch with its community and open to comminunicate.
If you are not currently involved in social media, maybe now is a good time to start. At the very least you should be monitoring what is being said about your franchise brand on the most popular social networks. Conversations could well be going on about your brand right now without you!
2010 bfa HSBC Franchisor of the Year – Winners Announced
Cathryn Hayes - HSBC Head of Franchising
I had the pleasure of announcing the winners of the 21st bfa HSBC Franchisor of the Year Awards 2010, supported by Express Newspapers, at the award ceremony in Nottingham last week.
Presentations to the judging panel by the 15 finalists in April brought much deliberation before the winners were selected for the three award categories. We judges felt that those chosen displayed exceptional qualities at a time when British businesses have had to be more innovative than ever to compete successfully in today’s economic climate.
The winners were:
bfa HSBC Franchisor of the Year Award
- Gold – TaxAssist Accountants
- Silver – Domino’s Pizza
- Bronze – Autosmart
HSBC Franchisee Support Award
Express Newspapers Brand Builder
- Cook
Judging the finalists was tremendously difficult as so many franchisors have shown innovative ways in which to survive and prosper despite the economic downturn. TaxAssist clearly demonstrated unique and exciting business success and is a deserving winner of the bfa HSBC Franchisor of the Year Award. Deciding on the winners of the HSBC Franchisee Support and Express Newspapers Brand Builder awards were equally difficult with exceptional practices on display – Revive! and Cook should be justly proud of their achievements.
I am sure that all the winners will capitalise on their success and continue to build businesses with strength and conviction by helping their franchisees to adopt innovative and strategically sound tactics for growth.
To view photo’s from the event have a look at the album on our Business Network site.
Tags: BFA, cathryn hayes, express newspapers, franchise, Franchise awards, franchising, franchisor, hsbc
New Government Business Policies should help Franchise Business
Joel Caws - Technical Director, Select Your Franchise
New business policies put forward by the new Conservative/Lib-Dem coalition government have come as a welcome morale boost for small businesses. Some of the policies indicate a reviewing of corporate taxation and easing of regulations which will help to promote new business start-ups as well as providing benefits to already established small businesses.
This is great news for franchise business which depends upon the small business model. A franchise business, in contrast to operating as a large multi-outlet single entity, operates as a collection of smaller independent franchise businesses which are owned and run by each individual franchisee. This means that many of the new policies now being put on the table by the new government could have a direct effect and benefit for each franchise owner.
For new franchise start-ups, there is a policy to look at reducing the time and effort needed to start a new company. This will of course mean that a new franchisee should be able to get up and running in a shorter space of time.
Other policies indicate a review of corporate taxation as well as an increase in employers NI thresholds which should benefit those who need to employ staff. A pledge to make small business rate relief automatic in England should also come as welcome news.
For further information and opinion on these and other policies which might affect your franchise or small business, check this BBC news article.
Tags: business, franchise business, joel caws, taxation
