By M. Isi Eromosele

Today, every brand is a global brand. Your company operates on a global stage. Customers from around the world can access your content, discover and interact with other customers and add their own voice to the conversation about your brand. 

As a marketer you need to be conscious of the different needs of your audiences around the world.

This creates some major challenges. How do you meet the needs of an audience that speaks multiple languages? How do you appear responsive when your customers could be in several time zones? 

How do you support differing interests, products, cultures and regulations? How do you segment and prioritize your social media efforts?

The answer: Create a social media strategy that works across borders and achieves your global marketing goals.

Global Branding Challenges

One of the most common challenges marketers face is how to create a social media strategy that maps onto their global organization. Should every country have its own blog and Twitter feed? 

Who is responsible for responding via social channels if a crisis occurs in another region? How much input should markets have into each other’s content, given that it can all be accessed by a global audience?

Organizations need to establish a framework that makes sense and has clear ownership, while providing enough flexibility to meet the needs of each country.

Language

Marketers have long understood the importance of local language content. But social media has introduced the concept of self-publishing and made every company effectively a media company. So, if value-added online content is a key element of your marketing strategy, how do you continue to serve the language needs of your customers?

Does that mean multiple blogs in multiple languages or a single English-language blog? Do you allow mixed-language content on your YouTube channel and Twitter feed or dilute your online equity by creating multiple channels? And how do you set up listening platforms to cover every language?

Platforms

Even as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube continue to grow globally, local online networks remain a force to be reckoned with when developing global social media strategies. How do you evaluate and prioritize these platforms? What is best practice for the most significant ones?

Culture and Politics

A number of multi-million dollar ad campaigns have flopped in certain countries because the name translated to something completely different or because the content was offensive in that culture.

Marketers have to understand global sensibilities – its part of the job. But, in social

media, where you don’t have control over the content that your brand is associated with, this becomes even more challenging.

Time Zones

Social media is all about speed. So what happens if a customer in Germany complains on Twitter about your product and no one in that time zone is authorized to act? What if no one is even listening during that time?

If your organization is large enough to have listening posts and crisis response processes set up in every time zone, great. But, for many, that isn’t the case and, in the hours between that first complaint and your alarm clock beeping, the situation may have spiraled to much more serious proportions.

Product Massaging

If you adapt your product offerings to suit the needs of each market, you also have a messaging challenge. Products designed to support regulatory or legal requirements may differ from country to country. Key demand drivers may vary across markets.

Use social media to launch a promotion or new product and you have to ensure that the markets it applies to are made clear or risk confusing and disappointing customers.

In summary, marketers need to ensure that they have a clear strategy that addresses all these challenges from the outset. Whether you’re marketing a sophisticated multi-national, or a start-up with international ambitions, you need to factor in global audiences from the outset and have a plan in place to meet their different needs.

Market Breakdown: What You Should Know About Social Media Around The World

United States

Add value to your community. Audiences in the United States are accustomed to the top brands in social providing a great deal of value in the form of premium content, interesting discussions and real-time customer service.

United Kingdom

UK audiences react well to content that is humorous and witty. But beware, there’s a fine line between being witty and being offensive.

It’s important to be aware of the regional sensitivities within the UK. Beyond London, areas such as Manchester, Bristol, Leeds and Newcastle are critical social media hubs.

Spain

Companies serious about engaging Spanish audiences must have Spanish language social media programs.

Community self-regulation is common and guidelines for online behavior are becoming more widely recognized and upheld. Be aware of these guidelines if participating in or hosting communities.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, there are a lot of widely-read collaborative blogs. Most of them are open to new contributors, so consider joining forces to reach a large audience instead of building your own corporate blog.

Belgium

Belgians use Dutch, French, German and English to communicate online. Include multiple languages when building sites that are intended for a Belgian audience, but in social networks, forums and microblogs, be led by your audience’s choice of language.

Data privacy is a big issue in Belgium – be aware that most users are sensitive about sharing personal information.

Italy

All content and social media communications must be in Italian.

Brands have limited presence in the social media sphere in Italy, with campaigns focusing on specific products rather than brand identity.

France

Always communicate in French if you want to generate engagement and a positive response.

Social networks and sharing sites are more popular than blogging. Consider using Twitter and Facebook to nurture and retain customers.

Germany

Although most Germans do understand English, they appreciate it if a company uses the mother tongue, so try to tweet and post in German.

Germany is extremely focused on data privacy. Make sure you know the rules for company use of social media and explain what exactly you will need any user data for.

Poland

Local language and references are essential.

Adopt the right tone: be informal but informative. Be careful of over-enthusiastic product-centric content as it could meet with skepticism.

Czech Republic

If you pursue a Facebook strategy, be sure to provide interactive content for users: contests and games are the most successful.

Hong Kong

Language choice is important. If you want to reach people in mainland China, use Mandarin. For people in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the correct language.

For every well-known Western social media channel exists a local counterpart (Renren for Facebook, Sina for blogging, Youku and Tudou for video sharing, Manzuo for deal-of-the-day and group buying, Sina Weibo for Twitter). This creates audience fragmentation so brands need to research their target markets carefully.

India

Bollywood and Cricket are two mainstays of Indian culture and marketers can benefit by strategically incorporating them. Many brands have successfully involved Bollywood celebrities in community building.

Singapore

Singapore’s population is made up of people from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Singapore. Therefore be mindful and respectful of different races, beliefs and religions.

Be sensitive about the tone of content associated with your brand; for example, any content that appears to tarnish the reputation of Singapore will offend your audience. Equally, avoid any content that could be perceived as being critical of the government.

Australia

Australia has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the Asia Pacific region and one of the largest Facebook user bases per capita in the world.

Content must be relevant to the Australian market and not replicated from the U.S. or Europe. APAC-wide information is generally well received by Australian audiences (particularly in the business community), However an Australian angle is more compelling.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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