There's no disputing the marketing power of social media. Facebook continues to be the most widely used social media platform, attracting 79 percent of the United States' total population. Meanwhile, 93 percent of Pinterest users are on the platform to plan or make purchases. And on any given day, YouTube reaches more 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the United States. If these stats aren't enough to surprise you, social media's growth rate shows no sign of slowing. According to Statista, the number of total active social media users in 2017 is 2.46 billion. That number is expected to increase to increase to 2.77 billion by 2019.
"First there was AOL and chat rooms and Live Journal and a whole host of other social networks. While many have come and gone, some more notable than others, it's clear social media networking is no passing trend," reports Kimberlee Morrison, Adweek.
As social media continues to grow in an upward trajectory, it's essential that distributed marketing teams implement a solid social media strategy to engage and activate consumers. Understanding these growth trends allow brand teams to optimize their social media marketing approach. Many of the world's most successful enterprise brands leverage the power of Local Marketing Automation software to coordinate local social media marketing success. With access to easy-to-use and pre-approved social media templates and messaging, these marketing tools make it easy for local marketers to remain compliant, support the social media marketing objectives of the brand and drive more traffic in-store and online.
But of course, like many types of local marketing, finding success on social media is no easy task. That's why top brands are relying on Local Marketing Automation tools to pick off the four major challenges that come with doing social marketing at the local level.
The Top Social Media Marketing Challenges for Distributed Brands
#1: Lack of Local Social Media Expertise
Recent estimates indicate that 81 percent of CMOs believe their local affiliates' lack of marketing expertise is a significant barrier to growth. Why? Affiliates lack the know-how to effectively produce marketing material and simply don't have the time to keep up with all the best-practice strategies to engage consumers online or off. This presents an interesting challenge for brand managers, especially when you look at social media. Chances are your local affiliates are on social media in their personal lives. But you can't just hope this will translate to the workplace. There are a few critical differences between how you manage a personal social media account and how you manage a business account. This inexperience at the local level can have disastrous consequences, especially when affiliates are champing at the bit to launch their social media marketing programs. Instead, brand management teams must monitor and regulate local affiliate's social media postings so they make sure what they're posting online fits the brand's goals as closely as possible, and doesn't lead to a social media nightmare.
Today's Local Marketing Automation solutions protect your brand's social media presence. With local marketing automation technology, local affiliates don't have to be social media experts and they certainly don't need to be graphic designers. Instead, local affiliates can download pre-approved graphics and customize templates for those graphics to add a more localized touch.
Empower your local affiliates to deliver exceptional social media marketing results. Download The Local Marketing Playbook: The Templates, Campaigns, and Tools That Help Multi-Location Brands Become Local Marketing Champions. 
#2: Inability to Create Authentic Connections with Local Audiences
For any distributed brand, one of the biggest opportunities (and threats) to business growth is the quality of the customer experience it delivers. In fact, recent estimates indicate that 93 percent of CMOs view customer experience as a top marketing challenge. To win customers, create deeper trust, and outpace competitors, brands must create authentic connections with the consumer before, during and after their purchases. However, creating a deeply authentic connection with consumers on social media is easier said than done, especially for distributed brands.
How do the world's most successful enterprises use local marketing automation software to help local affiliates create a more personalized and authentic social media presence? Users can select design templates and manipulate some of the content to express a more localized flavor in organic posts or advertisements. Using local or user-generated imagery in your local social media advertising and organic content is a great way to increase connections with local audiences and prove that your brand "gets" local consumers.
Are you ready to boost the local customer experience with local marketing automation? Check out Why Brand Managers Need SaaS Local Marketing Automation.
#3: Difficulty Guaranteeing Local Marketing Compliance
Consistent marketing execution boosts the marketing power of the brand. However, guaranteeing local marketing compliance is one of the biggest challenges brand managers face, especially when executing a coordinated social media marketing campaign. When there are hundreds or thousands of franchisees, dealers, or retailers creating social media posts, how do brands make sure that local affiliates are actually delivering the right kind of branded social media campaigns?
Many distributed brands turn to Local Marketing Automation to make local compliance easy. Why? Compliance has a profound impact on the brand's overall image. With Local Marketing Automation tools, local affiliates don't have to worry about using non-standard typefaces and colors in their social media posts. A modern, well-designed brand management system allow local affiliates to speed past those nuances and create social media content that automatically complies with brand standards and guidelines.
For more insight, we recommend How to Make Brand Compliance Easy for Local Marketers.
#4: Issues Using Data to Guide Local Marketing Efforts
Without data to back up your social media marketing efforts, how do you know what's really working? Difficulty accessing local social media marketing data is a real challenge for distributed brand managers, especially those who rely on that insight to optimize marketing strategies for their local affiliates. In fact, 43 percent of CMOs indicate that they have difficulty monitoring campaign performance at the local level.
The savviest brand managers leverage Local Marketing Automation tools to glean greater insight into social media campaign performance. Today's Local Marketing Automation solutions allow brand managers to see which assets, templates and campaigns are being used. With this information, enterprise brands are able to configure social media marketing campaigns that actually resonate with the local consumer.
Maximize Local Social Media Marketing Success with Local Marketing Automation
You can't guarantee local social media marketing success, and even when you find a way to crack the code it's is no easy feat to maintain that success. From understanding local audiences to data analysis and insights, distributed brands face an onslaught of challenges when trying to implement effective social media marketing at the local level. Overcoming these challenges is critical to the success of your local affiliates and the brand.
Fortunately, there is an easy solution to these local social media marketing barriers. Industry-leading distributed brands use Local Marketing Automation tools to enhance the social media marketing efforts of their local affiliates. Empower local affiliates to deliver expert social media marketing campaigns to boost traffic and improve marketing results.
Enable your local affiliates to deliver an exceptional customer experience with local marketing automation. Download Local Marketing Automation: Explained. 
