Franchisee & social media - important but how to use?

Social media is crucial for business nowadays. We all know that.
The question is... Do you know how to use it for business purpose?

FranchiseBusiness.com conducted the survey of 600 prospective franchisee during August and September 2012. The result that has been revealed after the survey is not surprising.

• Almost 90% sees social media as a very helpful tool in doing business.
• BUT 4 out of 5 of survey participants have no experience in social media.

Fernandes, Sales manager for FrandchiseBusiness.com.au said: “There seems to be a gap between the expectations of online strategies and what they can do for business and the skill sets people actually have when it comes to using online strategies and tactics for business.”

(source: http://www.bandt.com.au/news/digital/franchisees-praise-social-media-but-don-t-know-how)

The survey also shows that most of the franchisees want to manage their own website and social media. However, with the fact that most of them don't know how to manage a website and social media platforms, How are they going to succeed?

This reminds me once again to my previous blog post that I talked about 'Social media bandwagon.' Businesses just decide to jump into those social media platforms without knowing exactly what to do with them. At the end, they might end up like those inactive fan page on facebook or twitter account that have only few followers, etc.

Social media is not 'social' without 'interaction' and 'engagement'

The first step that they should do is... to think of the purpose of having these platforms. 

In my opinion, I'm actually not quite sure why franchisee needs their own website or their own social media profiles. However, this might depend on the industry that they're operating and as time goes by, there might be new online strategies and tactics for business to use.

For example, I would never think that every McDonald's should have their own facebook profiles until I heard of Pickle club, which is the profile for McDonald's that started from the Malvern East branch and has expanded into other branches under the Kellyco group (within few years, they have expanded it into 9 locations!). Pickle club is clear in the point of differentiation/ the purpose of doing it (offering special deal but customers need to check for the codeword on facebook each day - create interaction and engagement) and the main target, which is Monash University (Caulfield campus) students.

Unless they're clear of what they're doing on the social media platform and know how to differentiate themselves, I actually don't agree that they need their own profile for each franchise branch. Who would ever want the profile for every 7-11 in Melbourne if their offerings and promotions are all the same? Just one is enough.

Few tips to increase page-load time

Last post: Why should you care if your website takes longer to load?

This post: How to increase page-load time!

This blog post actually is a continuing part from my last post, which is also included from the blog article I wrote for Pixel Light.

There are many available tools or services out there to help you hasten your page-load time. BUT before you skip to that stage, it’s important to check the current speed of your page first, as this will help you measure the improvement of the page-load time. 

Some tools that can be used for checking the current speed are Web Page Test (check the speed of the website across different browsers), Page Speed (Firefox add-on that determines the speed and suggests the solutions for the particular issues), etc. After assessing the current speed of the page, here are some tips that will optimise the page-load time.

Optimise and compress the images – Different file format is suitable for different types of images. Using inappropriate file format can affect the size of the image, which in turn affects the speed of the page. The ideal choice would be using GIF for few-colour images like logos, JPEG for detailed colourful images, and PNG for high quality transparent images. Compressing the images can also be done by specifying image dimensions and avoiding the use of huge images.

Minimise the number of HTTP requests – The more you put on your website including CSS files, widgets, images and interactive media, the longer time it takes to download your website. Therefore, the key answer here is to remove whatever you think it is not necessary to display on your website.

Utilise and optimise caching – When the files are saved in the browsers, the HTTP caching calls the local files from the browsers every time the website is open. Therefore, this reduces the page load time especially to the frequent visitors.

To read the full article that I wrote for the company, please follow the link: http://www.pixellight.com.au/blog/catch-them-they-are-gone