At PromoRepublic, we unify social media, reviews, listings, and analytics infrastructure for multi-location and franchise brands.
Over the past year, we’ve shipped updates that fundamentally changed how franchise and multi-location brands execute local marketing. Not just “new features” but actual shifts in how HQ maintains control while local teams stay active.
In an era where AI-driven summaries (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini) act as the new gatekeepers of local discovery, your brand’s visibility depends on active, trusted, and local presence across each location. These updates ensure your locations are always the first choice for local buyers.
Here’s what we built, why it matters, and what changed for the chains and franchises using it.
What we built: A mobile-first AI Assistant that lives in the PromoRepublic app, designed for franchisees and local managers who work on their phones.
How it works: Instead of logging into a portal to figure out what to post, local operators open the app and ask:
The AI knows your brand voice, their permissions, and their performance data. It tells them the next action in seconds.
Why this matters: The biggest gap in local marketing isn’t strategy. Its execution. Most platforms are built for HQ teams who live in dashboards. Franchisees and store managers don’t. They’re on the floor, between customers, checking their phones.
When the tool meets them where they work, adoption goes from 20-30% to 75-80%.
What changed: Networks using the AI Assistant report that local teams are posting more consistently, replying to reviews faster, and asking for help instead of going silent. The difference? They don’t feel like they need a marketing degree to use it.
Learn more about the AI Assistant →
What we built: AI-powered review response suggestions that draft replies in your brand voice, so local teams can respond in seconds, not hours.
How it works: When a new review comes in, the platform generates a draft response based on:
Teams can approve as-is, edit, or flag for manual handling if the situation is sensitive.
Why this matters: In 2025, responsiveness became a ranking signal. Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and other AI search tools prioritize businesses that reply quickly to reviews. If you’re slow or silent, you’re invisible in the 3-7 business lists these tools generate.
What changed: Brands went from 40-50% review response rates to 90%+. Instead of reviews piling up unanswered, local teams handle them the day they come in. And because the AI follows brand guidelines, HQ doesn’t worry about rogue responses.
See how review management works →
What we built: A system that transforms your static brand guidelines—audience, tone, value props, dos and don’ts—into guardrails that guide every piece of AI-generated content.
How it works: Instead of franchisees referencing a PDF (that they’ve never read), the AI uses your brand DNA to suggest posts, captions, and review replies that are already on-brand.
You define it once. The AI enforces it everywhere.
Why this matters: Most platforms give you two bad options: rigid templates that feel robotic, or total freedom that leads to off-brand chaos. Brand Guidelines solves both: local teams get smart suggestions that sound like your brand. HQ gets consistency without approval bottlenecks.
What changed: Off-brand posts dropped to near zero because going off-brand became structurally harder than staying on-brand.
What we built: Templates in Asset Manager that support up to 10 images, designed for creating swipeable Instagram and Facebook carousels.
How it works: HQ creates the “brand frame”: the first and last slides with logos, CTAs, and approved messaging. Franchisees fill in the middle with local proof: their staff, their customers, their store.
Why this matters: Social algorithms prioritize content that people engage with, and swipeable carousels keep people on the post longer. More swipes = more reach, without paid spend.
And because HQ controls the frame, every carousel stays on-brand even when 200 locations are creating their own versions.
What changed: Networks using multi-image templates saw 30-50% more engagement on local posts compared to single-image posts. And franchisees actually use them because the hard part (design, messaging) is already done.
What we built: A CSV-based workflow that lets you launch paid campaigns across hundreds of locations in one upload.
How it works: You create a campaign template, upload a CSV with location IDs and budgets, and hit go. Every location gets a paid boost without logging into 200 individual ad accounts.
Why this matters: Paid amplification shouldn’t take 10 hours to deploy. When you can launch campaigns in minutes, you can test faster, react to market shifts, and ensure every location has the support it needs.
What changed: Teams that used to boost 20-30 locations per campaign (because manual setup was brutal) now boost 200+. More locations running paid = more consistent traffic across the network.
What we built: Support for Meta’s Business System User connection, an enterprise-grade way to connect social accounts that doesn’t rely on personal profiles.
How it works: Instead of connecting via someone’s personal Facebook account (which breaks when they leave or change their password), the connection runs through a Business System User that’s tied to your Business Manager.
Why this matters: For agencies, white-label partners, and HQ teams managing dozens or hundreds of locations, the old connection model was fragile. Employee turnover meant broken accounts. Password resets meant re-authenticating everything. Business System User is stable, professional, and scalable.
What changed: Fewer “my social accounts are broken” support tickets. More uptime. Less time spent re-authenticating accounts every quarter.
What we built: Native YouTube integration for scheduling posts, managing multiple channels, and tracking audience growth.
How it works: Connect your YouTube channels, schedule videos, and see analytics, all inside PromoRepublic. No more jumping between tools.
Why this matters: YouTube is the second-largest search engine. For brands that use video (gyms, clinics, home services, QSR), managing YouTube separately from social was clunky. Now it’s one workflow.
What changed: Brands that were inconsistent on YouTube (because it was “one more platform to manage”) started posting regularly. Consistent posting = more subscribers = more local visibility in video search.
What we built: Scheduled reports for Social, Google, Ads, and Campaigns that automatically send to your inbox (or your stakeholders’) on whatever schedule you set.
How it works: Choose a report type, set the frequency (daily, weekly, monthly), pick the delivery time, and walk away. Reports are generated and sent automatically.
You can adjust or turn them off whenever you want.
Why this matters: Pulling reports manually is a time tax. If you’re doing it weekly for 50 locations, that’s hours you’re not spending on strategy. Automate it, and that time goes back into your calendar.
What changed: Marketing teams went from spending 10-15 hours a week pulling reports to checking their inbox. Stakeholders get updates without asking. Everyone has the data they need, when they need it.
These didn’t get their own blog posts, but they’re the updates that keep teams moving fast:
Why these matter: The small friction points like confusing analytics, slow mobile loads, posts going live at the wrong time compound. We removed enough of them, and the platform feels easier.
Here’s the pattern we saw across every chain using these updates:
Adoption went up. When tools are simple, mobile-first, and give clear next actions, local teams use them. Networks went from 20-30% activation to 75-80%.
Off-brand content went down. Brand guidelines baked into AI = consistent execution without approval bottlenecks.
Responsiveness went up. AI review responses + mobile notifications = 90%+ reply rates instead of 40-50%.
Local discovery changed in 2025. AI Overviews (Google, ChatGPT, Gemini) now appear in 68% of local searches. These tools show 3-7 businesses instead of 10 blue links.
If your locations aren’t consistently active which means posting, replying, keeping data fresh, they’re invisible to your customers.
If you’re rethinking how local marketing gets executed across your locations, let’s walk through how these updates apply to your network.
About PromoRepublic PromoRepublic is the AI-powered platform for multi-location and franchise brands. We unify social media, reviews, listings, and analytics so HQ maintains control while local teams stay active. Trusted by 110+ franchise networks and 25,000+ locations globally.
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