Social Media across Cultures

Although social media websites have been around for over five years, they’ve never been as significant and influential as they are today. There’s hardly an Internet user who hasn’t heard of social media, with Facebook and Twitter now home to nearly a billion accounts the world over.

Plenty of businesses have realized the potential of the social media and started utilizing it to promote their products and services, to get feedback from clients and to conduct PR campaigns. Thanks to the global reach of the internet, companies can interact with people back home as easily as they would with clients in China or the Czech Republic.

But before you jump on the social media bandwagon, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Is it worth it?

The main problem with social media marketing is that you can’t see a clear picture of your return on investment. Social media doesn’t reflect directly on your sales, however, being able to monitor your brand reputation, gather important feedback and answer to criticism are all benefits you can’t afford to miss.

A survey of 1100 small business owners conducted by market research company Ad-ology revealed that social media is an all-important marketing tool.  Proprietors identified the ability to keep up with developments within their field, to generate leads and to monitor the online conversation about their brand as the greatest advantages of social media marketing.

Content is king

Social media marketing is just one of the many pieces of the jigsaw you need to take your business beyond cultures and borders. Keep in mind that social media input is not all that different from any other web content. Try and update it as often as possible, engage in conversations about your business sector and remember this is an ongoing process, not just a one-off marketing endeavor.

One size doesn’t fit all

Although Facebook and Twitter have a massive share of the social media pie (around 750m and 200m active users, respectively), there are plenty of potential clients out there using different social media platforms – so why settle for just one piece of the pie?

Take for example China. Qzone and its instant messaging service QQ claim to have around 637 million active users in the world’s most populous country. So if you plan to take on the Chinese market, the first thing to do is… create a Qzone account, of course.  Likewise, in South Korea you’ll encounter Cyworld, another local social media platform worth considering if you’re thinking of expanding to the Korean market. And if you’re targeting Japan, forget about Twitter and Facebook; try Mixi instead – it covers a massive 80% of the social media market.

Although created in California, Google’s Orkut has hit Brazil big, with eight out of 10 online visitors coming from the land of the samba.  The rest of Latin America predominantly uses Sonico for their social media needs. Always try to identify the social platforms popular with consumers in the country of your choice at the very start.

Localize and interact

Just as you would localize your website, don’t forget to extend your content optimization efforts to social media. If you want to reach your clients in Spain on Twitter, be sure your tweets are relevant to Spain and are, above all things, in Spanish.

On a similar note, you might be tempted to resort to machine translation as it’s free and easy to use. Auto-translation tools might, indeed, help you get the gist in a client review but translating outgoing messages is an entirely different story. If you use online translation software to interact with a potential large Chinese client base, you risk appearing unprofessional, as your automatically translated message will lack cultural understanding, not to mention proper grammar or syntax.

The best thing to do is use a native speaker. Hiring someone just for your social media efforts may seem unnecessary, but the chance to interact with your clients in their language and culture that a native speaker gives you, is more than worth it in the long run.

When you decide it’s finally time to expand your business worldwide, don’t forget to add social media to your strategy. Together with localized websites and search engine optimization, social media marketing can indeed help bring new customers in. What’s more, the chance to interact on a more personal level with your clients is one to be missed. The key here is to take the time to do a little research on the markets you’re targeting, see what social media platform they use and communicate in their language and culture. In the end, social media is all about interacting with people and letting them put a ‘face’ to your brand.

Tagged as: cultures, SEO, seo tips, Social Media, social media marketing