6 Ways Brands Can Automate Updates on Local Facebook Pages

National brands have devoted countless resources to growing their business pages on social media, but the unfortunate reality is that many of these organizations are doing it all wrong. For large brands and retailers with multiple locations, local Facebook pages represent the largest area for growth and customer interaction online.

According to a recent study by MomentFeed, local pages deliver a 69% net increase in engaged users for national brands. Although organic reach for brand pages has fallen 47%, it’s up 270% for local pages. Customers are much more responsive to localized content, and they’re more likely to go the final mile when they see posts about local events or ads created by someone who understands regional context.

For a brand with 10, 100, or even 1,000 locations, having to create and manually update local Facebook pages can be daunting, but a number of hyperlocal vendors have stepped in with solutions to streamline the process. Here are six examples of platforms that multi-location businesses can use to automate their updates across local Facebook pages.

1. PinMeTo: Generate more interaction on local business pages
PinMeTo works with chain and franchises to optimize their content across multiple social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+. A tool introduced earlier this summer automates the way large brands maintain their local Facebook pages using a combination of dynamic fields (which automatically fill in relevant information, like the local business location, hours, and contact information), post scheduling, and location-filtering. PinMeTo’s templating system lets businesses create a single message with local content to post on multiple pages at once.

2. MomentFeed: Connect with local communities at scale
An established player in this space, MomentFeed syncs location data and content across social networks, mapping apps, and review sites. It gives brands a way to create and maintain relationships with local communities on social media, while also curating and amplifying the best earned media across all of a brand’s digital channels. Using location data, MomentFeed enables brands to post localized content to thousands of individual store pages. Brands can also create localized versions of their national ad campaigns, with dynamic targeting that’s relevant to audiences in individual communities.

3. Social Brand Amplifier: Measure the impact of local Facebook pages
Social Brand Amplifier is a tool from Reshift Media that gives multi-location businesses the ability to create, manage, and track the impact of their local pages on Facebook. Used most frequently by businesses with 10 or more locations, Social Brand Amplifier offers a way to cascade content, including photos, text, videos, and links, to multiple local pages, and then compare results across different geographies. Businesses can also tailor the content they post based on geographic segments, and they can opt to receive notifications when local stores create valuable content that should be posted across a brand’s network of social media accounts.

4. Brandify: Manage reviews for all locations in one place
A multi-location marketing platform for brands, Brandify aims to drive consumers to local stores. In terms of social media, the platform collects and sorts reviews posted across all of a brand’s local pages. It imports the best star ratings and reviews to local pages, and it can be used to publish local content to a brand’s Facebook child pages. Users receive email updates whenever customers have commented on local pages, so they can respond quickly and resolve disputes before they result in negative online reviews. Brandify also offers location CMS and a local advertising product for brands that use display, search, and social advertising.

5. SOCi: Localize content for more effective campaigns
SOCi is an enterprise social media platform designed for multi-location businesses. Businesses can protect their brand images by managing the content that’s posted across local pages, rather than outsourcing those responsibilities to store managers and associates. Corporate managers can source the best content to share on local pages, and they can use SOCi’s mass-management tools to post across thousands of pages at once. The SOCi dashboard displays customer reviews and interactions across the entire network of pages, and a reporting suite allows brand executives to understand how their local campaigns are impacting the bottom line.

6. LocalVox: Comprehensive strategies across franchise pages
Although LocalVox is best known as a platform for local businesses, it provides a suite of tools for franchises and multi-location businesses, as well. The company’s franchise marketing services are designed to increase local sales by giving franchisees the tools they need to build their own local followings on social media and email. Individual franchisors can push content through all their local channels at once, and executives can see the results of multiple social campaigns organized by location. LocalVox gives businesses the ability to delegate local marketing tasks while still ensuring that brand messaging stays consistent across all digital touch points.

Know of other platforms national brands can use to better manage their local Facebook pages? Leave a description in the comments.

Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.