Retail stores and restaurants typically find it difficult to determine how to leverage Facebook’s engagement value for multiple locations. We find that they are faced with assessing #1) the need and #2) the resources for building it out and supporting it. More specifically, questions that frequently come up include:
- Do we generate enough content to support unique pages for each business location?
- Do we have the bandwidth to manage these unique pages on a daily basis?
- If we do manage a single brand page, how do we keep our customers informed about our other locations?
Quality vs. Quantity: Determining the Need
The establishment of Facebook pages from a customer service perspective ultimately becomes the focal point of the decision making process. As we know, how we manage and continuously nurture our relationships with customers through social media, heavily influences brand loyalty and consequently a brand’s reputation. One on one relationships and communication with customers provides a sense of comfort with the brand, and thus makes it imperative to evaluate the simple balance of quality and quantity. As a result, the development of a unified approach where all business locations are tied to a central brand page becomes a cohesive and valuable solution.
Fortunately, through Facebook’s location page setup, businesses (with the help of check-ins) have the option to create location pages, including location specific details, such as address, phone, hours of operation, types of services and website. Location pages on Facebook are slightly different from basic Facebook brand pages in that they provide only location specific details, and have a location marker and map setup through the help of Bing.
Facebook’s Parent-Child Function
Once location pages are setup, however, how do businesses maintain ownership? And more importantly, how do businesses link the individual location pages back to the main brand page? This is where Facebook’s “Parent-Child Functionality” becomes a vital tool and feature for managing multiple business locations, where:
- Management of location pages is simplified
- Branded creative (cover photo, profile photo) is adopted by each location
- Mass locations pages are setup for the business (including news feeds, and photos)
- And, a central location tab is created with a built in map to search & find location(s) page details
Similar to Facebook’s Global Pages business locations and areas of operation are unified. Our current work for the restaurant “Not Your Average Joe’s” involved the application of the parent-child functionality within Facebook, to ensure all current 18 restaurant locations had their unique location pages setup, within the central location tab feature straight from the main brand business page.
Below we highlight our phased approach, with Not Your Average Joe’s as an example, for optimal management of multiple business locations.
Part I – CLEAN UP
Existing Facebook Pages
- Locate all types of Facebook pages that may have been already setup under the unique branded location names (location, interest, profile pages) (if any). As noted below several location pages may come up that need to be claimed and verified.
- Optimize previously established location pages (if any), including address, phone, website, and hours of operation. Additional stats, such as likes, check-ins, and people talking, will be included if users previously used the identified location to check-in via Facebook. Likewise photos may displayed, next to the location map. Example below.
Rogue Pages
- Identify rogue pages to be removed from Facebook. These are often unrelated or duplicate pages that can create confusion for customers on Facebook.*Branded and/or non-branded pages previously created, but not managed by the business
Part II – BRAND PAGE SETUP
Parent-Child Spreadsheet
- Contact Facebook for “Parent-Child Functionality” Form. Once received, complete form, including formatting guidelines to be processed by Facebook and rogue pages to be removed.
- Existing Locations in Facebook : Identify Parent Object ID (Facebook ID of main location page) and all unique IDs for each location.
- No Existing Location in Facebook : Identify ‘no existing locations’ and complete new store location details (address, store ID, latitude/longitude, SIC code, hours of operation, etc.).
Part III – Implementation
Brand Page Verification
- The final step for a smooth transition to the new location page setup, involves verification of location pages with the Facebook team, and the removal of each identified rogue page. This is a vital step that goes back to the initial optimization of location pages.
New Brand Page
- After verification of all location details is complete, it’s time to reveal the new location based brand page! Below we highlight our complete setup for Not Your Average Joe’s:
All restaurant locations setup as part of ‘location tab’.
- Upon tab selection fans are able to locate all locations & receive full details: Address, Operation Hours, Phone Number, Website, Likes, Check-Ins, related photos, and # of people talking about the page. After a location is selected, via the map, a new location specific brand page opens up, supported by consistent branding.
Our example of the new brand page for Not Your Average Joe’s demonstrates how all restaurant locations can now be managed with ease. Valuable brand location pages are claimed, verified, and all fall under one simple spot on Facebook, easily accessible to all fans of the page. Through the main brand page, customers can now find location details all within one place, removing previous worries of managing multiple business locations.
Let us know if you’re interested in learning more about managing multiple Facebook business locations today!