Perhaps it's no surprise that business is continuously growing on an international level. Most companies - large corporations to small service companies - are seeing the benefits of expanding and going abroad. In Europe, "going abroad" could mean just an hour train ride across a border. But crossing a border, means crossing a cultural barrier, and sometimes even a language barrier.
Social media can help close the physical gaps in your business by connecting employees and reaching out to clients. It can help your marketing budget by providing a free or low cost platform to publicize your products and services.
But, if you are using social media to reach an international audience, is your message always translating?
First, let's look at some of the reasons why social media is important on an international level.
Facebook: The social media King has approximately 500 million active users, operates in over 47 countries and has been translated into over 100 languages (did you know there is even Pirate English?). An average of 10,000 new websites integrate with Facebook every day. Out of Facebook's active users, 200 million are active on mobile devices.
Twitter: How about your tweets? Well, over 60% of registered Twitter users come from outside the U.S. And when Twitter became available in Spanish, there was a 50% increase in users from Spanish-speaking countries.
LinkedIn: And how about the professional network? LinkedIn has 100 million members worldwide (almost 60% male, were you aware?) with 47% in North America, 23% in Europe and 13% in Asia. The number one industry represented? High tech. The number one job function represented? Sales.
Interested yet?
Coming to the main point, are your social media campaigns built to adapt to the cultural mix-up of social media?
My company is Italian based with offices in Germany, a sales team in the UK, a main market in Europe with a growing market in North America. How on earth does our social media function? As the Marketing Officer for a small, but international company, the following strategies have helped me.
1. Choose your language wisely.
Sure, if you're an international company, it's easy to post in English and assume everyone will get it. In some cases, this may be true. Analyze your business: is your product or service based on a specific culture? Are you focusing on connecting with people on a personal level? If so, using various languages may be important. Perhaps your company only needs one language. Analyze the language of your industry. For the most part, my company communicates in English since we work in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology - English is the standard for the technical lingo of the industry.
Read "13 Marketing Translation Mistakes to Learn From" by www.clickz.com
2. Localize the Global.
In a nutshell: take a global concept and make it relevant on a local level. You may be able to also segment your business. Create a page in multiple languages for your company, or create different pages for a product or service and target different cultural audiences. For example, my company uses Facebook in English because we are looking to target a broader pharmaceutical market. But on LinkedIn we look to connect on a more personal level. We join Italian-speaking or German-speaking groups to share messages and event promotions.
3. Know the target market's social media behavior.
Is your target market teenagers and young adults? Is it professionals? People use social media for different motives. Some use social media to connect with friends and literally digitize their social lives. Some use the technology to network professionally. Some are even using social media for political revolt. Know the social media habits of your target market in your respected areas of business.
4. Nationalizing Social Media.
Does your target country have it's own social media sites? For this point, I will use Germany as an example. The Germans have their own version of LinkedIn, called Xing, which is very popular. They have a version of Facebook and MySpace called studiVZ: Das Studiverzeichnis. Sometimes searching the local social media market will land you success as well.
Venturing into a foreign market is never easy. Perhaps the best way to prepare is with a strategy. It's easy to log on and post. But your social media success will depend on how well you know your markets and map out a strategy.