Should Individual Branches of a Brand Have Their Own Content Strategies?

Crafting content strategies for large brands with hundreds or thousands of distributed locations across the country or world can be a sticky situation.

Some brands choose to focus their efforts locally, giving all branches or franchisees their own social and content channels. Meanwhile, other brands take on a national identity with just one outlet per platform.

But how does a business choose which direction — local or national — to take?

We’ve seen both types of strategies for all kinds of brands. Whole Foods, for instance, supports separate accounts for local stores. Many fashion brands, on the other hand, make practically no reference to stores at all.

Plus, there’s the middle ground of franchises. Should they offer a corporate perspective, or should they empower franchisees to do so on a local level? Taylor Hulyk, Mashable guest writer and social media director at marketing agency re:group, asked this question in her recent post, “Does Your Branded Franchise Need Its Own Social Media Strategy?” Check it out for her thorough advice on how to approach the gray area of franchises.

We’d love to hear your feedback on this one — in the content industry, relevance is key, and location is definitely a key factor in staying useful! What factors should publishers and brands take into account when deciding to go local or national with their content strategies?

Image courtesy of Flickr, Whole Foods