Business listing verification for multiple locations

[coolhandluc]

Hi there

I have been asked to help with a business which has multiple locations (5 to be precise). I haven't really worked with a business on that scale before so I am a little bit out of my depth.
I had a look at their business listing in the moz local business listing checker and their profile seems very messy. I can see several of their branches listed, some verified, some not verified. When I look at the listing for each branch in detail they are all incomplete but at different levels (ranges from 17% to 46%). Some have a Facebook page and some haven't, same for google my business etc...
My understanding when it comes to multiple locations is that, in an ideal world,  each branch should have its own google my business page, Facebook page, a Bing places for business page etc...
Can anyone confirm what the best approach is to deal with multilocations businesses and their business listing and/or point me to some online resource that could help me. 
Would I also need to create multiple accounts for listing their business in directories such as Yelp, Yell etc...

Thanks so much for all the help I can receive

[JordanLowry]

Yes each location should have its on Google my business page, bing places for business etc. However I would probably just keep one Facebook page unless you have the time to manage multiple social media pages for each location. The addresses need to match up for each location as well. Moz's local search center has some good resources to help get you started.

Hope that helps some.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Neil!

Good questions! As Jordan has stated, yes, each physical location should have a unique citation set. So, that means a unique Google My Business Listing, Bing Listing, Yelp Listing, etc. *I respectfully disagree with Jordan's suggestion about Facebook. You should be creating a unique Facebook Place for each location.

Important: Be sure that none of the locations shares a phone number with any of the others, and that all are physical locations (not virtual offices) that are staffed during stated business hours.

Hope this helps!

[JordanLowry]

Miriam,

So ideally each location should have a unique Facebook account? Out of curiosity should each location have other separate social accounts or would that just pertain to Facebook?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jordan,
I totally get how confusing Facebook can be! So, Facebook has a product that is officially called a Facebook Place, and it is their version of a local business listing. This is different than their purely social options. A Facebook Place is Facebook's equivalent of a Google My Business listing, Bing Places listing or what have you. For each physical location a business operates, they should have a unique Facebook Place with complete NAP on it. They should categorize the FB Place as a Local Business and earn visits/checkins to it. They can/should socialize on these pages as well. As to whether the brand wants to have a purely social brand page as well, that would be a social decision rather than a local one.

I have found Facebook's education and outreach about their product to be somewhat lacking, personally, but you can search for more info about this here: https://www.facebook.com/help

[coolhandluc]

Thanks Miriam, very useful as always. I thought multiple locations needed their own set of NAP but I wanted to know if there was a more efficient way of doing it. This triggers a new question around maintaining all the listings and the socializing for each account. How does a company manage this for each location unless they have an army of people?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Neil,

My pleasure! If you're a multi-location business, one solution to scaling would be to assign a social marketer at each location and give them access to that Facebook Place with a schedule you'd like them to follow for social sharing. How much time will need to be invested into this will be dictated by the competitiveness of your geo-industry.

If staff size limits this, I would suggest just getting basic details onto the Facebook Place listings, and then further researching Facebook's other types of pages (see:https://www.facebook.com/pages/create/) to determine whether you'd be able to also run a single company page for the whole business which you could focus your social efforts on. This, however, is outside of my area of knowledge, so it's something you'd want to research well.

[coolhandluc]

Awesome

Thanks so much for your input miriam. Very useful