Marketing Byte: AFMR Highlights How Franchises Use Social Media for Advertising and Marketing

The increased use of social media has become a primary outlet in which people consume information on a daily basis. As a result, it is vital franchises share company news, advertising, or marketing messaging with their target audiences through social media.

Data in the 2023 Annual Franchise Marketing Report (AFMR) shows that franchises use a wide variety of social media channels for both consumer marketing and advertising. Facebook and Instagram are the top channels for this outreach, and also the outlets in which franchises spend the most money and receive the highest number of sales. 

Ninety-eight percent of the survey respondents said they used social media for consumer marketing. Many franchisors use multiple social media outlets for marketing, with nine different channels listed. It included Tik Tok, Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest, among others. The largest number of responses were for Facebook (97 percent), Instagram (73 percent), LinkedIn (67 percent), and YouTube (60 percent).

Many of the same outlets were listed when franchisors were asked where they were conducting social media advertising for marketing. Facebook received the highest number of responses with 87 percent, followed by Instagram at 49 percent. YouTube (38 percent) and LinkedIn (32) received the next highest percentage of responses.

Not surprisingly, franchises spend the most money and received the highest number of sales through Facebook and Instagram. Eighty-five percent of the respondents in the survey indicated they spent the most money on Facebook, followed by 36 percent on Instagram. LinkedIn was the next-highest social media channel with only 7 percent of the responses.

Spending the most money on a social media channel had a corresponding impact on sales. Seventy-eight percent of those surveyed said Facebook produced the most sales, followed by Instagram with 33 percent of the responses. YouTube (14 percent) and LinkedIn (10 percent) were the only other channels to make a difference on sales.