Vol.41 – How to Reach and Engage Global and Local Audience (Part 2)

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