Why Social Media?

Social media has the potential to be the digital marketing tool that gives you the most in return for your investment. Whether you are selling to other businesses or directly to consumers, these stats from a real business rescue in July 2016 are enough to make anybody pause for thought:

– 50% of businesses reduced their marketing expenses

– 58% improved their search engine rankings

– 77% increased their website traffic

– 90% increased their exposure

However, as we all know, it isn’t all plain sailing. The media is full of sobering stories of cringe worthy publicity moments that must have had the people responsible hiding under the table. Campaigns like last year’s DC comics proudly declaring that it was translating a photo of a comic “translated from Pakistan” as if it were a language — Shame the official language is Urdu. Or Coca Cola who infuriated the Russians right at the start of 2016 with a snow-covered map of Russia…except that they omitted Kaliningrad which was annexed following World War II. That resulted in a rather different Twitter campaign that they had been hoping for — #BanCocaCola

What are You Trying to Say?

It might be a cliché — but let’s put first things where they belong, first.  You need to have a clear strategy to develop and plan what your goals are and what the message is that you are trying to convey. Many a campaign falls at this most basic of hurdles by trying to be too clever, or too complicated. The link between your campaign and your product must always be absolutely clear on whatever platform you are choosing, in every single location that you are promoting your products.

Who are You Trying to Say it to?

Who is your target audience? This needs breaking down at multiple levels, i.e., obviously by country, but also by demographic, i.e., what do you believe to be the target market for your products? The countries that you are promoting in will heavily influence the social media platform that you use in each location. For example, while Facebook is the largest social network in most major markets, it is WeChat in China, VKontakte in Russia, LINE in Japan and more. In addition, there is consistent evidence that different age groups do show a preference towards different social media. For example, the use of Snapchat amongst teens and young adults actually outstrips Facebook in the American market, and Instagram is a very close third*

*Statista, February 2016

It’s a Conversation — not a Speech

One of the biggest changes that social media has brought to marketing campaigns is that it has made companies feel much more “real” to people. Individuals now want to be able to interact with companies, so while you may launch a campaign, expect and encourage your costumers to respond and interact with you. This does, of course, mean being more open to feedback, and willing to invest time to maintaining whatever social media accounts you decide to hold. It is important therefore to put proper consideration into where you choose to be present on social media because customers expect responses very quickly so you need to be certain that you have the resources to maintain whatever accounts you create.

It’s important to remember that whilst you may have one global message, it is still likely to need tweaking slightly by location to ensure it hits the right notes with the local audience, which is of course where a language service provider can provide invaluable help.