The previous article Vol.40 – How to Reach and Engage Global and Local Audience (Part 1) was about effectively reaching and engage global and local audience and manage online reputation for business success. Methodologies of website/web pages, blogs, LinkedIn and local SNS and similar “information websites” were discussed. This article is its continuation.
2. How can smaller companies and business owners and individuals reach and engage global and local audience and manage online reputation when they have limited resources and no local offices around the globe? (Continued from Part 1)
5) Facebook
Leveraging Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ is vital in reaching and engaging global audience because as Ostrow (2010) mentions, it has large user base and more diverse demographics than any other social network in English speaking countries and becoming a de facto login service around the web, and its access might be surpassing that of portal site such as Yahoo! In fact, social media marketing leaders of big brands and small business owners leverage Facebook, differentiating from other online media and generating synergy.
However, it might be quite different when it comes to reaching and engaging to local audience, at least in Japan, because Facebook is not yet popular. Currently it is used by limited Japanese people such as social media experts and people who use personally to keep in touch with friends worldwide (e.g. people who live or used to live abroad, who have many international friends). The reason is unknown; it may be because Japan already had some popular local SNS mentioned in the previous article (Part 1), Facebook is rather complicated compared with Twitter (to be mentioned next), or Facebook simply does not match needs of Japanese people.
There are a few Japanese social media experts that the author knows who blog about Facebook and Facebook may become one of the popular social media vehicles for marketing in the future. Topics of blog articles by such bloggers range from basics of Facebook to how to use Facebook in marketing. At least, reaching Japanese people by Facebook means targeting niche social media experts and/or international people and if such people are your target Facebook can be effective.
6) Twitter
Twitter http://twitter.com/ is a “must” in reaching and engaging both global and local audience (at least Japanese people) because of its popularity, growth and easiness of use. Ostrow (2010) describes Twitter that similarly to Facebook it has become formidable force with a 300,000+ application ecosystem and a distribution platform for virtually every company large and small. This may well attribute to the ease of reaching out to tweeps and jump into conversation with them around the globe even to those who are not following you. This might be one reason why Twitter popularity exploded earlier this year in Japan.
First wave of Twitter popularity came in summer 2009 when a few Japanese celebrities and best seller authors started Twitter and mentioned it and/or wrote online articles. Then in the beginning of 2010 second wave came, which was huge. Twitter was featured as special article topic in a popular business magazine in February, including basics of Twitter, how to information and useful Twitter applications. This was when Japanese mobile careers started to launch iPhones and TVCF of iPhones went on the air, and iPhones were also introduced as a useful gadget for Twitter.
Now in Japan there are varieties of people using Twitter including celebrities, politicians, online specialists and general public and it is quite possible that Twitter will further grow. At the Twitter top page, celebrities and other famous people using Twitter, and popular tweets are introduced to promote people starting and leveraging Twitter. This is a good way to acquire and retain Japanese tweeps because with collective culture, Japanese people like to copy what other people (especially celebrities) more than people from individual culture such as the U.S. and therefore it is quite possible that more Japanese people join the Twitter community. There have been many online articles in popular business magazine website about Twitter this year, including article about how some companies have started using Twitter for marketing and information sharing among employees. Also some recent TVCF drive TV audience to their Twitter account by mentioning it at the end of the TVCF.
With popularization of Twitter, knowhow transfer of Twitter is also very active and this trend seems to continue at least for a while. There are group of people that study Twitter and individuals that are expert in Twitter. Such individuals and groups have been holding offline seminars targeting beginner and advanced tweeps and publishing Twitter how to books.
7) YouTube
YouTube http://www.youtube.com/ is also a great media/tool to reach and engage both global and local audience (at least Japanese people) because as Ostrow (2010) states, YouTube continues to maintain an enormous lead in online video viewership and through aggressive deal-making, looks likely to fend off competition from upstarts with deeper pro-content libraries.
The YouTube’s enormous lead in online video viewership is true also in Japan, even if people posting their movies on YouTube may be minority. Some of the most viewed content worldwide last year was also one of the most viewed content in Japan, such as of Susan Boyle. YouTube is also available in Japanese and there are also many Japanese local contents uploaded. Some acquaintance of the author who are not online content generator (such as blogging and tweeting) are heavy YouTube user, including a man who said that he was so devoted in enjoying YouTube contents one night that it was almost in early morning the next day when he saw the clock.
8) Ustream
Ustream http://www.ustream.tv/ might become a good media/tool in the future to reach and engage both global and local audience of Japan as well. We just have to see how this grows. Mr. Masayoshi Son, the CEO of Softbank http://mb.softbank.jp/en/ (has already invested in the U.S. Ustream), tweeted in February this year that the company will localize into Japanese by May and did so on April 27. This has attracted attention of some Japanese social media marketers/users and a group was established for a popular Japanese blog platform Ameba http://www.ameba.jp/ in which tips of using Ameba and Ustream are shared.
9) Scribd
Scribd http://www.scribd.com/ is also a great to reach and engage global audience; however, whether it is good to reach and engage local audience is a question, at least for Japan. Being a popular online publishing site, this is excellent to reach global (English speaking) audience who are interested in publishing contents online such as documents and poems. However, it is not at all popular in Japan at least. One main reason may be language issue.
If language issue is solved and/or if this media is used to target bilinguals and international people who are fluent in English Scribd can be become effective in reaching and engaging local audience. When Scribd was introduced by a Japanese social expert in his Facebook update highlighting its beauty, it attracted interest from his Japanese online friends. It seems that language issue is one factor whether Scribd becomes popular or not in Japan in the future.
References:-
Ostrow, Adam (2010) The Next 5 Years in Social Media
http://mashable.com/2010/09/07/next-5-years-social-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29
Saturday, 11 September 2010
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Vol.40 – How to Reach and Engage Global and Local Audience (Part 1)
The previous article Vol.39: Should All Content be Translated For Global and Local Audiences Whatsoever? was about localizing global content focusing on language perspective, i.e. how much translation is required for target audience to understand when the content is originally made in the language not understood by the target audience.
This article and the next are about effectively reaching and engage global and local audience and manage online reputation for business success, especially for smaller companies and small business owners with limited resources that usually need to leverage website and social media differently from larger global companies.
1. How are websites and social media of global companies managed to meet multi-lingual worldwide audience?
Most global companies have website(s), blog(s) and other social media (if any) in global headquarter and respective countries, in local language. This is because each country (market) is different and they would need to segment target audience by country. Also, in some/many cases local offices/branch is a separate organization (company) within the global group.
For this reason, global companies usually develop their own website and blogs with their original design, layout, navigation and functions, and roll out worldwide, which are managed by country, aligning with how business operations are performed, under a group-wide policy. In most cases, IT infrastructure management is centralized.
Regarding social media such as twitter and facebook, it is logical and appropriate for each country to have their own social media account, and that is how it is mostly done. This is for the same reason of a company having different twitter accounts in one country in the same language for different brands, channels and/or objectives, to target different customer segment.
2. How can smaller companies and business owners and individuals reach and engage global and local audience and manage online reputation when they have limited resources and no local offices around the globe?
Different methodology needs to be adopted according to different online media/vehicles.
1) Websites
It is highly recommended to develop and maintain both global (English) and local (in local language) website, with consistent branding, designing, navigation and domain name. Website can be quite simple and small. When the author say “consisting domain name”, what she means is, for example, “MegOyanagi.com” for English website targeting global audience and “MegOyanagi.jp” or “MegOyanagi.com/jp” for Japanese website targeting Japanese audience. Domain name (com, jp etc) is usually closely linked with location of hosting. Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com/ could be one of the solutions for this kind of problem.
If possible from all (network, browser etc) technical and other perspective, it is probably the easiest and the most simple to have a hosting server in the U.S. and use the global domain name “com” and its derivational domain name of “com/jp/” for Japanese website. Another alternative is to have a hosting server in the U.S. for the website with “com” domain name and another hosting server in Japan for the website with “jp” domain name. There are some Japanese websites that provide combined services of hosting server and web development.
2) Blogs
Similarly to websites, both global (English) and local (in local language) blogs are required. Similarly to website, it would be easier to manage when the same platform is used for English and local (e.g. Japanese) blogs; however, if free blog platforms such as. WordPress http://wordpress.org/ and Blogger http://www.blogger.com/ are to be used for global and English audience, using different local blog platform is probably better.
WordPress and Blogger are ideal for English blogs targeting English speaking countries and global audience; however, non-English speaking countries tend to have their local blog platforms that are already become very popular (e.g. Ameba http://www.ameba.jp/ in Japan). It would be more advantageous and strategic to be part of that local blog community (interaction in local language) for networking and attracting local audience. In the case of Ameba, there are many groups similarly to LinkedIn and Facebook.
In addition, free blog platform has page template and their original navigation system and functions, and local blog platform usually meet local needs better.
3) LinkedIn
The first thing to do when starting LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/ is creating a profile page. There are following options.
- Have English page only
- Have English page and local language page
- Have local language page only
It seems that the first option works best for most people because English is a kind of official language of LinkedIn and is used in all discussions. There seems to be no need (yet) to create a profile in Japanese targeting Japanese local audience.
For example, in the case of Japan, LinkedIn is not yet popular at all and whether it becomes popular among Japanese people is a question mainly because of the language issue. The author started LinkedIn one year ago and although does not know exactly how many Japanese people belong to LinkedIn she has never met even one Japanese people in group discussions and Q&A section.
Few of her friends has started and the Japanese people who have started seems to be basically limited to those who have studied abroad, working abroad, bilingual Japanese working (or have worked) in non-Japanese companies, and recruiters who are seeking bilingual Japanese. Such people seem to have started LinkedIn mostly for global networking and information sharing, and recruiting bilingual Japanese professionals.
4) Local SNS and similar “information websites”
In the case of Japan, there are Japan local SNS sites, and it is such SNS sites that are the key in monitoring and managing online reputation for successful business and recruiting in Japan.
The leading SNS sites in Japan are Mixi http://mixi.jp/ and 2 Channel http://2ch.net/ and it is a good idea for small business owners as well as larger companies in Japan to leverage them in managing online reputation. Both are not specifically for professional/business use like LinkedIn and usually do not have company profile pages. Also, comments are posted by individuals but such comments greatly influence company online reputation. In fact, the company reputation management department staff of the author’s former employer used to monitor these two sites as well as traditional media coverage of newspapers and magazines.
Small business owners and larger companies should leverage other “information sites” available in Japan that are in essence similar to SNS, such as http://careerconnection.jp/ that focuses on topics directly related to recruiting such as reputation, salary, human resource management system and culture of companies operating in Japan including foreign capitals. The information is based on the response of the members to survey questions, and the site is one of the primary information sources for job hunters.
The author would like to continue the discussion in the next article.
This article and the next are about effectively reaching and engage global and local audience and manage online reputation for business success, especially for smaller companies and small business owners with limited resources that usually need to leverage website and social media differently from larger global companies.
1. How are websites and social media of global companies managed to meet multi-lingual worldwide audience?
Most global companies have website(s), blog(s) and other social media (if any) in global headquarter and respective countries, in local language. This is because each country (market) is different and they would need to segment target audience by country. Also, in some/many cases local offices/branch is a separate organization (company) within the global group.
For this reason, global companies usually develop their own website and blogs with their original design, layout, navigation and functions, and roll out worldwide, which are managed by country, aligning with how business operations are performed, under a group-wide policy. In most cases, IT infrastructure management is centralized.
Regarding social media such as twitter and facebook, it is logical and appropriate for each country to have their own social media account, and that is how it is mostly done. This is for the same reason of a company having different twitter accounts in one country in the same language for different brands, channels and/or objectives, to target different customer segment.
2. How can smaller companies and business owners and individuals reach and engage global and local audience and manage online reputation when they have limited resources and no local offices around the globe?
Different methodology needs to be adopted according to different online media/vehicles.
1) Websites
It is highly recommended to develop and maintain both global (English) and local (in local language) website, with consistent branding, designing, navigation and domain name. Website can be quite simple and small. When the author say “consisting domain name”, what she means is, for example, “MegOyanagi.com” for English website targeting global audience and “MegOyanagi.jp” or “MegOyanagi.com/jp” for Japanese website targeting Japanese audience. Domain name (com, jp etc) is usually closely linked with location of hosting. Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com/ could be one of the solutions for this kind of problem.
If possible from all (network, browser etc) technical and other perspective, it is probably the easiest and the most simple to have a hosting server in the U.S. and use the global domain name “com” and its derivational domain name of “com/jp/” for Japanese website. Another alternative is to have a hosting server in the U.S. for the website with “com” domain name and another hosting server in Japan for the website with “jp” domain name. There are some Japanese websites that provide combined services of hosting server and web development.
2) Blogs
Similarly to websites, both global (English) and local (in local language) blogs are required. Similarly to website, it would be easier to manage when the same platform is used for English and local (e.g. Japanese) blogs; however, if free blog platforms such as. WordPress http://wordpress.org/ and Blogger http://www.blogger.com/ are to be used for global and English audience, using different local blog platform is probably better.
WordPress and Blogger are ideal for English blogs targeting English speaking countries and global audience; however, non-English speaking countries tend to have their local blog platforms that are already become very popular (e.g. Ameba http://www.ameba.jp/ in Japan). It would be more advantageous and strategic to be part of that local blog community (interaction in local language) for networking and attracting local audience. In the case of Ameba, there are many groups similarly to LinkedIn and Facebook.
In addition, free blog platform has page template and their original navigation system and functions, and local blog platform usually meet local needs better.
3) LinkedIn
The first thing to do when starting LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/ is creating a profile page. There are following options.
- Have English page only
- Have English page and local language page
- Have local language page only
It seems that the first option works best for most people because English is a kind of official language of LinkedIn and is used in all discussions. There seems to be no need (yet) to create a profile in Japanese targeting Japanese local audience.
For example, in the case of Japan, LinkedIn is not yet popular at all and whether it becomes popular among Japanese people is a question mainly because of the language issue. The author started LinkedIn one year ago and although does not know exactly how many Japanese people belong to LinkedIn she has never met even one Japanese people in group discussions and Q&A section.
Few of her friends has started and the Japanese people who have started seems to be basically limited to those who have studied abroad, working abroad, bilingual Japanese working (or have worked) in non-Japanese companies, and recruiters who are seeking bilingual Japanese. Such people seem to have started LinkedIn mostly for global networking and information sharing, and recruiting bilingual Japanese professionals.
4) Local SNS and similar “information websites”
In the case of Japan, there are Japan local SNS sites, and it is such SNS sites that are the key in monitoring and managing online reputation for successful business and recruiting in Japan.
The leading SNS sites in Japan are Mixi http://mixi.jp/ and 2 Channel http://2ch.net/ and it is a good idea for small business owners as well as larger companies in Japan to leverage them in managing online reputation. Both are not specifically for professional/business use like LinkedIn and usually do not have company profile pages. Also, comments are posted by individuals but such comments greatly influence company online reputation. In fact, the company reputation management department staff of the author’s former employer used to monitor these two sites as well as traditional media coverage of newspapers and magazines.
Small business owners and larger companies should leverage other “information sites” available in Japan that are in essence similar to SNS, such as http://careerconnection.jp/ that focuses on topics directly related to recruiting such as reputation, salary, human resource management system and culture of companies operating in Japan including foreign capitals. The information is based on the response of the members to survey questions, and the site is one of the primary information sources for job hunters.
The author would like to continue the discussion in the next article.
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