Marketing is always tricky when you are a business with a presence in different locations, either within or outside the country. Maintaining a singular identity and promoting the local entity is a tricky balancing act. It doesn't matter if you are small or large; one of the fundamental dilemmas brands face is presenting your brand on Facebook. Should we have one parent Facebook page or an individual page for every location?
The answer, unfortunately, is not as simple as ABC. It depends on the business, the type, scale, and marketing priorities. But let us find an answer to this perpetual question a little easier. Here's examining the parameters to help determine which approach - the multi-page or single brand page - is right for your business.
- TIME: Marketing your business is a time-consuming exercise. Ask yourself, do I have the time, resources, or bandwidth needed to build and maintain the independent pages? It calls for a proactive team or a dedicated person to manage each individual page and ensure it is updated, engaging, and insightful. If the answer is no, then well, you know it.
- AUDIENCE: Are you a business with the same set of audiences across all your business locations? Or does each location have a different set of audiences you cater to? And what is the average size of your audience? These three parameters will help you define if you need a multi or a single brand page. A region-specific target audience or a multicultural clientele calls for independent pages. For a multinational brand with a presence across different countries, it is ideal to have individual pages for each country. A single brand page would suffice for smaller businesses with a clear set of niche audiences.
- PRODUCT AND SERVICES: Are your products and offerings unique for different locations and cater to region-specific clientele? Then multiple location options might be ideal for you. If you are a brand with a multicultural and regional clientele, having region-specific brand pages is more inclusive and good for your brand image.
- ACTIVITY: If your products require you to constantly post or create content to suit specific tone, language, and cultural nuances, multiple regional-specific pages will let you do that with ease. Reach your audiences with exclusive content, information, discounts, and promotions for that one location. On the contrary, if your business provides similar services, pricing, and discounts across all locations, a single page is the way to go. Facebook's advanced location targeting option comes in handy in this case as you can always run region-specific ads and promotions and promote the deals and offers across regions through a single page.
- SEARCH AND POINT OF SALE: Multiple pages are intended to drive the traffic to the relevant location pages. This helps when the audience tends to use location as a criterion for search, and being locally available is critical to the sale. But suppose your business model doesn't require the audience to come to the office/store location to buy or interact. In that case, it is futile to have multiple pages, irrespective of how many setups you have worldwide. In such cases, an independent page is the way to go as it leads to less division of traffic, less confusion, and generates more leads. If you are a brand with multiple locations spread across a single county/city/state, a single page will do just fine.
- OWNERSHIP - Are you the sole ownership or proprietor of your business? Then it is simply easier to run a single parent FB page and share information the way that works best for your brand. On the other hand, independent pages are always better if your brand has multiple franchises owned by different people across locations. If you are a business with numerous locations spread across a single country, you may or may not have multiple pages; the parameters mentioned above will come in handy to assess your business and make a decision.
We hope this exercise helped you gain an insight into where your business stands in terms of Facebook marketing strategy. However, here are some points to keep in mind before deciding to go further.
- Facebook Advanced Location Targeting allows you to manage all your pages and notifications from one central location rather than setting up and managing each page separately.
- While Facebook Locations is a renowned tool, it is not suitable for every business.
- Therefore, it is crucial to assess your business across the above-mentioned parameters and finally decide what would work best for you.
You thought we were done? Let us make it even easier for you. Here's a quick cheat sheet you can use to make the decision.
