You could say that if you pick the right social network and focus on it [or may be 2 or 3] then it could work. So, i guess the final questions is... which one to pick?
In my humble opinion and with my xxxx years of experience, i am convinced that you cannot survive on social networking alone and still need to go back to the "old" channel and methods which are still showing the same success rate if not increased over the past 3 years.
I would be interested to hear about your own experience and how you utilize or not social networking to develop your franchise. --- Franchise Creative --- Marketing Materials for the Franchise Industrywww.franchisecreative.com