global social media marketing

Transcription

1 The complete Guide to global social media marketing How to Run Social Media Campaigns for a Worldwide GAudience A publication of

2 2 IS THIS BOOK RIGHT FOR ME? Not quite sure if this ebook is right for you? See the below description to determine if your level matches the content you are about to read. INTRODUCTORY Introductory content is for marketers who are new to the subject. This content typically includes step-by-step instructions on how to get started with this aspect of inbound marketing and learn its fundamentals. View our introductory webinar Social Revolution: Connecting with Today s Customer. INTERMEDIATE This ebook! Intermediate content is for marketers who are familiar with the subject but have only basic experience in executing strategies and tactics on the topic. This content typically covers the fundamentals and moves on to reveal more complex functions and examples. After reading it, you will feel comfortable leading projects with this aspect of inbound marketing. ADVANCED Advanced content is for marketers who are, or want to be, experts on the subject. In it, we walk you through advanced features of this aspect of inbound marketing and help you develop complete mastery of the subject. After reading it, you will feel ready not only to execute strategies and tactics, but also to teach others how to be successful.

3 3 HubSpot s All-in-One Marketing Software HubSpot brings your whole marketing world together in one, powerful, integrated system. Get Found: Help prospects find you online Convert: Nurture your leads and drive conversions Analyze: Measure and improve your marketing. More: See marketplace for apps and integrations ULead Generation M & Automation q blogging & social media ssearch optimization Request A Demo Video Overview g Y Lead management Marketing analytics

4 4 The Complete Guide to Global Social Media Marketing By Diana Urban Diana Urban is the Head of International Marketing at HubSpot. She is responsible for generating traffic and leads outside the U.S., creating content for a global audience, and developing marketing strategy for international expansion. Previously, Diana was on HubSpot s User Experience team, where she managed and created all of HubSpot s tutorials and documentation, making it easy for customers to learn how to create marketing campaigns in HubSpot s inbound marketing software. Follow me on Diana is a regular contributor to the HubSpot blog, and maintains her own social media blog U Stand Out.

5 5 contents how to Create a global social media strategy /8 how to Organise your assets and channels /15 how to set up Global targeting on facebook /22 how to set up Global targeting on linkedin /37 how to set up Global targeting on twitter /50 how to Develop a content strategy for social media /61 Conclusion & Additional Resources /69

6 6 Why should you create a global social media strategy? When creating marketing campaigns of any sort, it s important to understand who your audience is. Social media is a great way to connect with your audience and have a two-way conversation. However, it can be easy to forget that not everyone who finds your social media pages will speak your language, or be able to relate to your region s latest trends. If you re only targeting a local audience, that s ok. But what if you re targeting a global audience? What if you re in a country in Europe and need to branch out to other markets to scale? What if you re in the U.S. seeking the attention of a French and Spanish audience? When targeting multiple nations, there are several challenges to plan for: Being understood by an audience that speaks multiple languages Reaching an audience that lives across multiple time zones Supporting different interests, cultures, and regulations Segmenting social media efforts to the right audiences Prioritizing your efforts in accordance with your resources

7 7 Creating a global social media strategy early on will help you plan for all of these challenges, and will keep you from overextending your resources. This guide s purpose is to help marketers around the globe create a social media strategy that caters to their audience, whether in a specific country or across multiple nations.w G B

8 8 CHAPTER 1 how to Create a global social media strategy

9 9 What steps should you take when creating your global strategy? Establish your overall social media strategy before you start tweeting, updating your Facebook status in multiple languages, or creating tons of new pages for each target country.? Setting a strategy ahead of time will ensure that you can launch, optimize, and measure your global campaigns success without getting overwhelmed. Social media shouldn t be overwhelming. It should be fun.

10 10 1 Define your audience It is essential to first determine how to segment your audience based on their region or language. The following are example questions that must be answered internally before you begin working on your social media strategy: Which countries do you want to focus on? Where does the majority of your current customer base live? Where does the majority of your non-domestic customer base live? Is there opportunity for your product or service to extend to other Are you already getting leads or prospect interest from other nations?g

11 11 2 Set your social media goals Y Define the goals of your social media strategy. Setting goals in advance will help keep your social media team accountable and increase your likelihood of success. Having a strong unified approach will help you shape the strategy for each country you re targeting. Decide if the primary goal of your social media campaign is to: Generate more traffic for your website from social media platforms Increase your brand exposure by getting more followers and engagement Tap into new markets via social endorsements and paid advertising Provide a customer service platform on your social profiles You might decide that one of these goals is a higher priority than the other three, and this could help you decide how to cater to your audience across multiple countries.

12 12 3 Choose your Languages If you decide to target multiple nations that speak different languages, you ll have a few decisions to make: Should your blogs be in multiple languages? hei hello bonjour hola Should you create a new social profile for every language? Should you monitor social media platforms in multiple languages? Keep in mind that nine out of ten European internet users prefer browsing in their own language, so if you want to engage an audience in non-english speaking countries, you need to speak their language. Your decision will depend largely on your resources and the bandwidth of your team, but remember to focus on delivering ROI. For example, if you have very few prospects in Spain, it might not be worth setting up a separate Spanish-language blog. However, if your company has a large growth potential in Spain, it might be worth testing out.

13 13 4 Learn cultural differences If your business targets customers in countries foreign to yours, learn about the different countries cultures to understand what appeals to them versus your country. Certain markets are much more difficult to break into than others and may require an agency to get you a head start. If the business culture requires an agency to get you started, don t be afraid to work with one. 5 Choose social networks Identify the most relevant social networks in each country you re targeting. Don t feel pressured to set up a new profile on each social network for every country you re targeting. This is the wrong way to implement your global social media strategy. Instead, choose your social networks wisely. You can always grow your reach across more platforms as you prove the ROI of the networks you get started with. Also, don t be afraid to test the waters in different social networks. If you have the bandwidth to test out a new social network, go for it. After three months, you can look at the data and see if it s worth continuing your efforts on that network.

14 14 6 Which of these social networks will you be able to segment by location or language? For example, Facebook allows you to segment each post by country and/or language, making it possible to use only one Facebook page for your entire global audience. Chapter three of this ebook will show you the localisation features of the most popular social networks around the world. Now aren t you glad you didn t rush off and create ten different Facebook pages for each country you re targeting? G Know localisation capabilities on each social

15 15 CHAPTER 2 how to Organise your assets and channels

16 16 Ready to launch your global social media campaigns? Here s how to get started and keep organised. Don t start tweeting yet! First it s o important to define a clear social media execution plan. If you re targeting different channels for different audiences, things can get complicated very quickly. You should know which social media profiles go together, which pages on your site you should be linking to, and how all of your campaigns tie together. Here s how to keep your global social media strategy organised.

17 17 1 Define a Hub for Each Audience Defining a hub on your website for each audience segment will help keep things organised. The hub is most commonly a blog, but can also be a forum or a community page that you maintain. `Hub Your blog for each audience segment should be written in the most commonly spoken language of that segment. All of your new content should be posted there first, so your social media channels can link back to a main content source. Your blog should also be a key part of your SEO strategy. Check out HubSpot s ebook on International SEO if you would like to learn more about how to optimise your blog. Each blog post should have a call-to-action linking to a landing page. If you don t have the resources to create a dedicated blog for each region or language you target, default to the secondary language of that region or English. English is the most widely-used language in the world, and is the dominant language of international business and global communication.

18 18 In an ideal world with unlimited resources, you d have a different blog for each region you re targeting. But in the real world with budgets and limited bandwidth, you need to be strategic about how you group regions by interest or language. English blog: United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada Spanish blog: Spain, Mexico, Argentina German blog: Germany, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland Note that for each blog, you should choose one dialect and stick to it. For example, people in Spain and Latin America speak different dialects of Spanish. Ideally, you d cater to each audience separately. If you don t have the resources to do so, choose one dialect for your Spanish blog. Make this decision by comparing the size of your customer bases in Spain and Latin America, and prioritise based on where the biggest opportunity for growth exists. Don t spread yourself too thin, especially in the beginning. If you re just launching your website, start with one blog in English and add blogs later as you build momentum. Eng

19 19 f Blogging tools can help you build an audience Faster HubSpot s blogging software makes it easy to create remarkable content that will help you get found. You can also create as many blogs as you d like, so you can create and manage one for each language you re targeting Blogging Tool: Create one or several blogs and easily create new posts. Blog SEO Tips: Get SEO tips and best practice pointers as you type your blog posts. Blog Analytics: Measure your blog s performance and see how much traffic each post generated. See Blog Tool in Action Read More

20 20 2 Choose social sites to target for each region Next, decide which social networks to target for each region. Determine the number of social media profiles you will create based on the resources you have at your disposal. Putting your efforts into one Facebook page, for example, will allow that page to build momentum and grow a fan base much faster than if you had five different Facebook pages to maintain. Let s say your company targets audiences that speak English, Spanish, and German. You might choose to: Have one Facebook page in English with language-targeted updates Have one LinkedIn Company Page in English with localised product pages and language-targeted updates Create separate Twitter profiles in English, Spanish, and German Have one Tuenti profile in Spanish By localizing your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, instead of creating separate profiles in each language, you d now have to manage six social profiles instead of ten.

21 21 3 Link your blog and social profiles Now that you ve defined your blogs and social profiles, it s time to tie them together. Create a map so you know which social profile should link to which blog on your site. English blog spanish blog yoursite.com/blog-us yoursite.com/blog-es U U U English Spanish German * * * * Localised updates wil be made in * native language on English page

22 22 CHAPTER 3 how to set up Global targeting on facebook

23 23 Optimise your Facebook page for a global audience Some of the most popular social networks, including Facebook, have localisation features that enable you to target your updates and/or pages to specific groups of people. These groups can often be specified by geography or language. x These localisation features are fairly new to Facebook. This chapter will provide a step-by-step walkthrough of how to use each one, but keep in mind that Facebook may make slight UI tweaks that make the actual interface a bit different from the screenshots in the instructions.

24 24 1 Targeted timeline updates Facebook provides several localisation features that make it possible to use only one page for your entire global audience instead of a page for each language or region you re targeting. On your Facebook page, you can target each of your updates by language and/or geography -- as specific as country, state, and city. Once you target your update, only the audience you specify will see it in their newsfeed. People not specified will not see that update in their newsfeed. Yet, targeted updates will be visible to everyone when they look at your Facebook page Timeline, regardless of their location or language. However, this isn t something to be concerned about. Fewer than two percent of people go back to your fan page. The vast majority of your fans will be consuming your content, clicking your links, liking your photos, etc. within their own newsfeed. Creating targeted updates will increase engagement and grow your fan base faster. Focusing on growing your fan base on one page will build momentum faster than trying to manage multiple pages.

25 25 To target one of your Facebook updates, select the targeting icon under your update. Then, click Add Targeting and select Location or Language from the drop-down menu to localize your post for a segment of your global audience. 1 2

26 26 If you chose Location, click the All Locations link that appears. Select Country, Region or State, or City. Type the name of the location, and select the correct location from the drop-down menu. You can add several locations by repeating this process. Then click Choose Locations. 3 4 If you chose to target by language, type in the name of the language, and select the correct language from the drop down menu. You can add several languages by repeating this process.

27 27 Remember: you can target by both location and language. In this example, we re targeting Spanish-speaking people located in Mexico. When finished, click Post. 5 Now, only your targeted audience will see this update in their newsfeeds. 6

28 28 2 Linking multiple pages together If you decide to create a separate Facebook page for each language you target, have each page like your other pages. This will make it easy for fans to find each of your pages, as they have a permanent placement near the top of your page s Timeline called Featured Likes. To create this section, click Edit Page at the top of your Facebook page and select Update Info from the drop down menu.

29 29 Click Featured in the sidebar. Then hit the Add Featured Likes button. In the pop-up that appears, select the pages you want to link together.

30 30 3 Tracking your global Facebook Marketing Campaigns As you execute your global Facebook marketing campaigns, it s important to consistently track your progress so you can determine the ROI of these campaigns. There are a few metrics you should track each month: Z Fan base growth of target countries and languages Engagement of targeted updates (e.g. number of likes ) Reach in your target countries and languages Conversational growth (e.g. talking about this or clicking share ) To access your page s analytics, go to your Admin Panel and click See All on top of the Insights section.

31 31 Each report has a Countries and Languages section. On the first of every month, track your progress in a spreadsheet so you can see if your campaigns are effective at driving fans, engagement, and reach in your target global markets. Don t forget to look at your full-funnel analytics as well. Find out if you are generating leads and customers from your Facebook campaigns.

32 32 4 Localising paid ads on Facebook Not every business will elect to run paid advertising on Facebook, especially if you have a limited budget and are looking to build your fan base and engagement organically. But if you do, you should know how to target your paid ads by region or language. $ Facebook ads can target a specific group of people, increasing the return on your investment as you are targeting the people that are most likely to click and download your content.

33 33 target based on country Facebook enables you to not only target by country, but also by a specific city within that country. Local companies can benefit greatly from this feature, targeting only the people who live in a desired area. To use this feature, start in the Facebook Ad Manager and select the offer you want to promote. Then, select the country and/or cities you want to target.

34 34 target based on Specific Interests You can further specify your ads by targeting only people with specific interest. Once the country and offer is selected, chose Precise Interests. You can type in specific interests in this field and select as many as you want. Facebook will come up with suggestions for you below the search bar. The number of people targeted in a specific campaign will appear on the right. Make sure your campaign isn t so targeted that your audience is too small to return any customers to your brand.

35 35 You then can target people based on their connections -- whether they are connected to your brand, have a friend who is connected to your brand, or Anyone (connected or not). Each type of connection targeting has its own benefits: 3 Targeting Anyone: you will get the most reach. 3 Targeting People Connected to Your Brand: get a message out to people friends with existing fans -- these ads will include the social endorsement element, which is very powerful 3 Targeting People Not Connected to Your Brand: increase brand awareness where it currently doesn t exist 3 Targeting Friends of Connections: get a message out to people who are friends with existing fans -- these ads will include the social endorsement element, which is very powerful

36 36 Budget & Payment Finally,.set up your budget and schedule your ad. Set a budget that isn t too high so you don t use all your spend on just a few clicks. Don t aim too low either -- then you may not reach the amount of people you re looking for. Adjust your campaign during its first few days of it being live to determine its optimal times and costs. t You can pay on a cost-per-click basis or a cost-per-thousand impressions basis. Cost-per-click means you pay when a user clicks on your ad. Cost-per-thousand impressions means that you pay each time your ad is seen a thousand times.

37 37 CHAPTER 4 how to set up Global targeting on linkedin

38 38 Optimise your LinkedIn page for a global audience If you re using Linkedin Company Pages to promote your business, you have two primary localisation features available to you. Since on LinkedIn it s best not to create multiple company pages anyway, these features allow you to target your global audiences in a way that was never possible before. In

39 39 1 Targeting shared content On your LinkedIn Company Page, you can target each of your shared content updates by geography -- as specific as densely populated areas within each country. Note that at this time, it isn t possible to send targeted updates by language, but you can get close enough if you target the right regions. With LinkedIn s targeted content updates, only the audience you specify will see your update in their LinkedIn newsfeed. People not specified will not see that update in their newsfeed. To really master targeted updates, target your primary-language updates, too. Keep a printout of all of your lists nearby so you can easily remember which countries/ languages to include in each update.

40 40 To target one of your LinkedIn updates, toggle the Share With drop-down menu and select Targeted Audience. Then click Geography and select up to ten regions. You can select entire continents, individual countries, and/or specific regions.

41 41 Now only your targeted audience will see this update in their LinkedIn newsfeeds. 2 Targeting your company s product page One of the most under-utilized features of LinkedIn Company Pages is the ability to target your company s product page based on demographics, such as geographic location, job function, and industry. In doing so, visitors to your Company Page will only get shown the products that are most relevant to them, increasing their chances of clicking on a link. Leveraging this feature will help you create a more targeted and optimized experience for your page visitors. When used correctly, it s an amazing way to convert your social media prospects into more qualified leads.

42 42 Note: You ll need to add the products/services you want to feature to your Products page prior to setting up your targeting options. To do so, click Add a product or service in the Admin tools drop-down menu in your Products tab. On the Products page, click Create New Audience.

43 43 Now it s time to build your audience. Name your target audience on the first tab (e.g. Spain ), and then click on the Geography tab. The Geography category can zone in as specific as greater metropolitan areas. When you re finished, click Save and exit.

44 44 After you ve finished selecting your targeting preferences, tailor your message to that specific audience segment. Make sure your new audience is selected. Here, it s important to make sure that you craft a message that will intrigue members of this specific audience and address their particular needs. What wouldn t you be able to originally say on the DEFAULT audience tab because it would alienate other potential customers? Now is your chance to say it. In your messaging, show how your company s products and services can fulfill that specific audience s particular business needs.

45 45 After setting up the messaging for your target audience, choose the specific products and services that particular audience segment would be likely to convert on. Don t limit these to just your products and services, either. Consider featuring product demos or trials as well as offering ebooks you ve written or webinars you ve hosted. Are there any offers that you created to generate a specific type of lead, or a lead in a specific region? This is a great place to promote it. LinkedIn allows you to include up to five products/services on each targeted page variation. As mentioned earlier, you ll need to add these products/services to your products page prior to setting up your targeting options. To do so, click Add a product or service in the Admin tools drop-down menu in your Products tab.

46 46 3 Tracking your global Linkedin Marketing Campaigns On the Page Insights and Follower Insights report on LinkedIn -- both of which can be accessed via the Admin Tools drop-down -- you can view demographics data by Region. Unfortunately, LinkedIn s reporting tool isn t quite as robust as Facebook s so you can only see the top five regions that are representative of your audience. You also cannot export your insights to dig deeper.

47 47 4 Localising paid ads on linkedin LinkedIn provides a powerful ad platform that can bring you great results when you are targeting the right audience. To use LinkedIn for advertising, simply create an ad manager account within your current LinkedIn account, and start creating ads. Once in the ads platform on LinkedIn, creating an ad campaign optimized for a specific country is very simple. First, select a name and language for your ad. The language feature on LinkedIn is new, allowing your ads to be written in another language, thus optimizing ads for non-english speaking countries.

48 48 You can then create up to 15 ad variations. Follow these best practices: 3 Add an image to help increase the clickthrough rate on your ads, as people are drawn to visuals more than text. And images don t have to be translated. 3 Make the headline and copy of your ad interesting. Include your company name so people will know who the ad is for. 2 3 Target people not connected to your brand: increase brand awareness where it currently doesn t exist. 3 Target friends of connections: get a message out to people who are friends with existing fans -- these ads will include the social endorsement element, which is very powerful. 3 Create multiple variations of each ad so you can test different aspects of the ad in order to get the best clickthrough rate.

49 49 After a few days, the ads that have lower clicks can be turned off, leaving only the most successful ads running. Once your ads are written, work on targeting your ads to the correct people. First, you can target to specific continents, countries, and cities. Just like your targeted status updates and company product pages, targeting ads by language is not currently possible. However, you can get pretty close if you target the right regions.

50 50 CHAPTER 5 how to set up Global targeting on twitter

51 51 Optimise your Twitter strategy for a global audience Your global marketing approach on Twitter will need to be different than that on Facebook and LinkedIn because of its limited targeting capabilities. In fact, global targeting on Twitter is nonexistent unless you re running paid ads, or tweeting at someone in particular with reply. B

52 52 1 create a new Twitter profile for each target language Due to Twitter s lack of targeting features, create a separate profile for each language in the regions you re targeting. Your entire follower base will see each of your updates, so if they only understand one-third or one-fourth of your updates, they re likely to unfollow you -- or not follow you to begin with. u u u Recruit local help, or at least employees who speak the language fluently, to manage each of your Twitter profiles. An effective Twitter strategy requires not only quick responses to your followers, but also constant monitoring of trending topics in the region you are targeting.

53 53 2 Twitter s search tool now offers the ability to run advanced searches so you can monitor the conversation about your company or brand by language and/or region. Monitor conversations with advanced searches Just go to and click Advanced Search below the search bar. s

54 54 On the Advanced Search page, enter a search term that you would like to monitor. Then select the language you d like to monitor the conversation in. At the bottom of the page, enter a country, state, or city name you d like to monitor. After you click Search, you ll see your search results. You can click the tool icon near the top of the screen and click Save Search to refer to this search later. You can also copy the URL of that page and send it to any local contributors you ve recruited to monitor the conversation in that language or region.

55 55 3 How to manage multiple twitter accounts To easily manage multiple Twitter accounts, use a service that allows you to: Publish and schedule tweets for multiple accounts Give other administrators access to your Twitter accounts Collect click and engagement data for each of your Twitter profiles It s hard to find the time to get social media right when you re hopscotching between tools. When all your social media activity is in HubSpot, all that tweeting, posting and replying gets a lot easier. HubSpot s social media tools were designed specifically for marketers. We started with the core needs marketers have and built in the one thing noticeably missing from every other tool available today: Integration with a powerful contact database. Because HubSpot is a completely integrated platform, social media becomes a serious marketing tool.

56 56 w manage Social media tools help and track your tweets It s hard to find the time to get social media right when you re hopscotching between tools. When all your social media activity is in HubSpot, all that tweeting, posting and replying gets a lot easier Scheduling Tools: Bulk schedule tweets for multiple accounts in different languages. Social Nurturing: Segment your social media leads and follow up with relevant content. Social Media Analytics: Collect data that shows which social channels deserve your time. See Social Tools in Action Read More

57 57 4 Localising paid ads on Twitter On Twitter, promoted Tweets can be targeted to search results, timelines, and profiles: Search results A specific hashtag is purchased, and your tweet will be promoted whenever someone searches for that word Timelines Promote your tweet on the timelines of people who are in your targeted audience Profiles Make your promoted tweet appear at the top of your profile at all times

58 58 To dive deeper into the targeting options on Twitter, we will look at a promoted tweet in a timeline. First, set the interests of your target audience. This is a new feature on Twitter that will target people who are interested in specific things. In this example, we re targeting the broad category of people who are interested in Landscaping. You can also target This will promote your tweet to people who are similar to the followers of a particular username, which can be used to target a niche market. Once your targeting is set up, you can chose the locations in which you d like your tweets to be promoted. This can be as broad as a country or as specific as a town within a country.

59 59 In this example, we re targeting both the country Scotland, and the city of London. Our tweets will appear to people who are located in these two areas. Next choose what tweets you would like to promote. You can create your own tweets in this ad platform or use a tweet that was already tweeted organically.

60 60 After selecting your tweets to promote, set your budget and timing. Remember to change the time zone of your tweets according to your current location to align the time stamp in reporting features to your actual location.

61 61 CHAPTER 6 how to Develop a content strategy for social media

62 62 How to increase engagement with targeted and relevant content Now it s time to make sure your content strategy aligns with your channel strategy. Whether you are posting content on one of your global blogs, Facebook pages, or Twitter profiles, there are certain content creation best practices for global audiences that you should keep in mind. W It s all about being highly targeted and relevant. If you can talk to each of your audiences about what they care about, you ll garner the best results from your social media campaigns.

63 63 1 Provide native translations Don t simply take a blog post from your English blog and copy/paste it into Google Translate for your Spanish blog, or vice-versa. Same goes for Tweets and Facebook status updates. H Your content will sound Google Translated to anyone who speaks the language natively. Get help from someone who is fluent in the language you re creating content in. Here are some translation service providers you could choose from: 3 Milengo Translations.com Lingo Verbatim Solutions -

64 64 2 Use correct spelling variations American and British folks may speak the same language, but there are nuances that are important to address (color vs. colour, optimization vs. optimisation, etc.). To all you U.S. readers: you thought we were misspelling localise, didn t you? *Wink.* > 3 Use one language per blog You shouldn t mix languages on the same blog. Even though you might think this might make your blog global friendly, it will not help your overall user experience. Mixing languages on social networking sites is more acceptable because when you send out an update, it s mostly consumed via users newsfeeds, not via your page or profile itself.

65 65 4 Use images wherever possible An image doesn t need a translation. Pictures and graphics are much easier to for international audiences to understand, especially if you re not creating separate profiles for each region or language. P 3 Facebook Use the photo share functionality and make sure your cover image portrays your brand well. 3 Twitter Use TwitPic or Instagram to frequently share photos with your Twitter followers from around the world. 3 LinkedIn Share URLs in which the pages have an enticing image; the image will be automatically pulled into the post.

66 66 5 Be relevant Make sure that you are informed about hot topics and sensitive issues in each of your target markets, or hire someone to specialize in each market. Also, make sure you re only posting relevant content for each audience -- a news story in Australia may not be relevant to your audience in Ireland. Each of your global blogs and social media profiles should contain topics relevant to that audience. On your blog you can include pieces such as: 3 Educational guides, which can be applicable to multiple audiences 3 Thought leadership pieces that are new to certain cultures 3 Industry news from relevant regions 3 Product updates relevant to the region 6 Learn colour connotations Figure out what certain colours mean in different countries before designing your blog and social media profiles. In most of Europe and the Americas, white is associated with purity and marriage. In Japan, China and parts of Africa, white is traditionally the colour of mourning.

67 67 7 Get local contributors Recruit guest bloggers from each region to provide local insights that you can t provide yourself. This will keep the content on your global blog fresh and varied, and relevant to the local audience. Also, with guest bloggers come inbound links from global domain extensions, so it will give your global blogs an SEO boost. + Recruit local help to manage and monitor your foreign-language interactions. Translation services are great for the content schedule you push out each month, but they re no substitute for native social engagement, especially if you re using your social profiles as a customer support resource.

68 68 8 Your ultimate goal of participating in social media is likely to drive traffic back to your website so you can convert visitors into leads. Make sure you link to the corresponding blog in the About Us or URL sections of your social profiles. Also, link all of your social media channels for each language together. Your goals here are to: Interconnect Each asset with links A 3 Make it easy for people to find your other channels in their language. 3 Make it easy for people who have landed in the wrong place to find the channels most relevant to them.

69 69 Conclusion & Additional Resources

70 70 Are you ready to reach a global social media audience? After reading this ebook, you should be able to prepare a global social media marketing strategy that will empower you to reach a world-wide audience -- or better target a specific audience in a region far away from home. Not only have you learned how to create a global social media strategy, but you have also learned how to use the localisation features of the most popular social media sites so that you can spend your time creating remarkable content rather than managing too many profiles. Finally, you ve learned the best practices of creating content for a global audience. Remember, it s important to be relevant to each audience, and make sure you have local help to keep it a two-way conversation rather than a one-way broadcast.

71 71 get more traffic from social media See HubSpot s traffic-generating tools in action, including blogging, social media, and SEO. Get the right audience to your site.