Social Places offer Facebook Business Manager solutions for Franchises
The lowdown on Facebook Parent Child Architecture and what it means for your business.
Do you own a multi-location business or franchise? Do you struggle to keep track of your location listings online? This feature allows you to create a local Facebook page for each of your stores which are linked and managed from your main brand page. Below we’ll outline exactly why Facebook Parent Child Architecture is essential for your business and the growth of your digital presence.
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The Multi-Location Problem:
So, here’s the situation– Your business has multiple branches, let’s say, 15. Each store has managers/owners/employees who have created a page at some point to advertise the business. During a quick Facebook search you find Location Pages, as well as customer, created check-in pages that are:
- Not Managed
- Feature incorrect data (Address’, contact info, opening hours)
- Off-brand images and posts.
- Outdated specials & artwork.
All of this is extremely damaging to your brands online presence, and it’s happened to the best of brands out there. No need to stress, where there’s a will, Social Places and Facebook have a way. Below is an example of an unofficial page created by a customer or employee. If your location doesn’t have an official page, this is the first thing customers will find when searching for the business on Facebook.
Example of a rogue check-in Page.
The Multi-Location Solution:
Our favourite friend, Facebook, has a super-smart parent child framework, which allows you to easily manage, edit, add and remove each location within your business, plus, you get to manage all of this from a centralized ‘locations’ tab on your main brand page.
Facebook Location have a world of benefits, let’s check them out:
- The Brand Page’s profile & cover images are populated across all Location Pages to create brand continuity.
- Brand page posts can be set to automatically post to Location Pages, thus eliminating the need to have someone individually post to each page. It also ensures that each location appears active online.
- Existing Facebook Pages can be merged with duplicate pages within the Location Structure. There’s no need to create a new page if one already exists on Facebook.
- All the likes & check-ins’ from the Location Pages aggregate on the brand page, increasing your business’ online presence exponentially.
- Customers using Facebook can view “nearby locations†on the locations tab on your brand page, this serves as a store locator
- Location notifications are visible from Brand Page notifications, this eliminates the need to manually click over to view each Location Page separately.
Location Tab on a brand Parent Page.
What’s the catch?
This all sounds too good to be true and while we have to say it’s one of our favourite Facebook features, it would be misleading to only give you the pros and not the cons.
So here they are:
- Requesting access to the Locations platform from Facebook can take time to be enabled and is not guaranteed.
- Initial setup is labour intensive, requiring a full Facebook search for all locations and extensions, including Pages and Places.
- Business owners must manually “Claim†existing pages in order to merge them into Locations, these merges take time to be actioned once submitted and are sometimes not approved, meaning you have to re-submit or contact Facebook directly
The next step:
As a business owner, we’re sure that this all sounds quite daunting, and if it isn’t done correctly or you simply just don’t have the know-how, it can be!
Social Places and Go Listings specialize in setting up your listings and locations on Facebook as well as a range of other social platforms and navigation devices. We do all the dirty work and make sure your locations come out tops in the searches and that they look damn good when your customers find them!
At the end of the day, it comes down to ensuring your brand comes up first when your customers are looking for you, or the services you provide. Check out our website for more info on our Go Listings product suite – https://socialplaces.io/golistings/