Being a multi-national brand in today’s world isn’t easy. Forget about inflation concerns, outsourcing issues or shareholder demands…social media communication is a challenge in itself! There are currently two primary approaches for global brands:
1. Manage one single global existence across various social networks
The Pros
- Ability to maintain one strong consistent communication across all markets
- Ability to pool budget and human resources together to create one impactful experience
- One big fan base, as opposed to small buckets all around. 10 million fans can have a bigger impact than 25 pages each with 400,000
The Cons
- Difficult for brands whose offerings vary from market to market (what can you discuss that is relevant to all?)
- Local relevance can be lost, not to mention language considerations
- Must either post content in one agreed upon language, or target every single post by language and/or country
- Customer service and moderation become more challenging
Who is doing it:
Nespresso, the high-end, at-home espresso maker (and a client that I work with at Digital Luxury Group), currently operates their social media communications from a centralized global Facebook page and Twitter account. Branding messages are almost always posted in English, but moderation of in-coming questions is handled in the language in which it was received. Being able to handle inbound messages in a range of languages for a Facebook fan page of over 1.1 million and a Twitter follower count of over 12k, isn’t simple, but Nespresso has done a great job of quickly aligning their global customer service teams to support the HQ in answering local language questions.
2. Give social media control to each country, while maintaining a general global account
The Pros
- Fans and followers are able to get locally and culturally relevant information and promotional content about the brand
- Customer service and moderation tends to be easier to implement
- Engagement rates tend to be higher since the content is more relevant
- Communications are handled in the local language, important where a multilingual population is not the norm
The Cons
- In total, it can be more expensive to the brand as each market must dedicate their own resources
- Country-specific pages can differ drastically from page to page, a risk for brands who aspire to have one global image
Who is doing it:
On Twitter, Mandarin Oriental maintains one global account, but also an individual account for each of its properties. The team there has been doing an excellent job of interacting with fans and followers and pointing them to local Twitter handles when needed.
It’s typical to see brands that follow the local approach pull together all of their pages in an “International” tab on Facebook so that fans around the world can easily see which markets are available. Brands from Lancôme to Starbucks smartly offer this feature, as does the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, which features a tab that provides links to both the Facebook and Twitter accounts of all of its international locations.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to simply state which option is best. The decision largely depends on customer expectations, strategic priorities, and business resources. What’s your take on these two approaches? Leave us your thoughts below.
Photo Credits: Adam Gault
