EMEA Social Media PR: Are We Missing Something?

Social media is ubiquitous and it’s international, or at least that’s what we usually think. However, recent research suggests that a mere 27% of internet users are native English speakers and over 80% of internet users prefer to browse in their mother tongue. Over the past few years the use of foreign languages on the internet has increased dramatically with online communication in Spanish growing by 743%, whilst web content in Chinese, Russian and Arabic has increased by respectively 1,277%, 1,826% and 2,501%.

The rapid growth of the foreign language internet is a factor that shouldn’t be underestimated, particularly when it comes to social media PR. Running online campaigns in English can only be cost efficient and beneficial in certain circumstances but it will definitely not help you achieve great results if you are running an EMEA PR campaign, for example. Speaking in the same language as the audience helps personalise the message and makes communication more impactful. Here are a few tips on how to maximise the impact of EMEA PR campaigns across social media:

•  Choose the right communication channels: While most of the countries in the world have Facebook and Twitter, PRs shouldn’t underestimate the importance of local social networks.  For instance, if you are targeting the Chinese market, you need to be aware that a significant proportion of Chinese consumers uses the Renren Network which is their equivalent of Facebook. Similarly, Yandex.ru is one of the most popular websites and search networks in Russia, whilst Xing is the preferred social network for the business communities in German speaking countries.
• Tailor the messages: Whilst every PR campaign should have a consistent umbrella message, tailoring PR content to reflect the nuances of different cultures is essential to achieving success. For instance, certain videos and tweets can be considered very cool and trendy in England but they might be frowned upon in some countries in the Middle East. This leads us to the next tip for running a successful EMEA online PR campaign and this is content localisation.
• Localise content: Reusing press releases and opinion articles across countries is an efficient way to make the most of PR funds and resources. However, localising such content is essential to making it relevant to multinational audiences. This applies to social media content too. Translating and localising tweets, Facebook posts and even video content adds a personalised flavour to interactions with the target audience. Be careful about using too many country-specific abbreviations, jargon or idioms or you risk creating a lot of confusion.
• Create dedicated social media accounts for different markets: If you are running an EMEA PR campaign for a large brand, it might be a good idea to consider creating separate Twitter accounts for different regions. Sending messages in multiple languages from the same Twitter account may work occasionally, for instance when tweeting around a foreign event, but this is not a strategy that will effectively work in the long term. The same rule applies to leveraging other social media accounts across different regions, although this depends on many other factors such as the size of the market and the availability of enough local content to support a regional social media website.
• Use multiple social networks where possible: Choosing only one online medium to deliver an EMEA PR campaign can be effective in certain circumstances but in most of the cases it will not deliver optimal results. The reason for this is very simple – social networks are not equally popular in each country, hence you will need to use a variety of social media platforms to deliver a large scale multinational campaign.
• Have fun: And last but not least, have fun and be creative! Understand the specifics of each market and the social media landscape in your target regions, then start engaging with the target audiences in a way that they can easily understand and relate to. This will help them feel like real participants in the campaign, not just mere observers.

Hashtags catapult Facebook into the 2013 social media sphere, but #isittoolate?

Facebook announced this week that it would finally be introducing hashtags, allowing users to follow specific topics easily amongst the usual mishmash of social media conversation. In its own words, the social network announced that it wanted to provide “a simple way to see the larger view of what’s happening or what people are talking about”, as if no one had ever thought of it before. And indeed, it will certainly make it easier for PRs and marketers to find hotspots of activity and pinpoint what is being said about a topic in real time on Facebook, in a way they couldn’t before.

But the question on everyone’s lips is, what has made Facebook, arguably the veteran of social networking, succumb to incorporating the feature now? Anyone who hasn’t lived under a rock for the past six years knows that the announcement comes way after the hashtag first made its name on Twitter in 2007, followed by Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr in the years that followed. Active users of the social media sphere have been tagging updates with hashtags for years, so Facebook’s latest move can’t help but scream ‘copycat’.

So why did Facebook wait so long? Was it a matter of peer pressure? Users have been attempting to use hashtags on Facebook for a while now, so engrained have they become to our discussions on social media. Mark Zuckerberg’s brainchild is therefore a bit late to the party in only just acknowledging the phenomenon, but at least users’ fondness for useful, clickable hashtags has been recognized at long last.

In theory, the new feature has a lot to bring to Facebook. From a PR perspective, hashtags are an essential tool in highlighting discussion about brands, products, launches and events. Facebook’s integration of hashtags will be useful to monitor conversations in real time, which is vital in the fast-paced world of PR, where just one unnoticed comment can prove fatal for a campaign. Users will also be rewarded with results from other social media platforms when searching for hashtags on Facebook, giving a better overview of online conversation.

Whether Facebook’s hashtags will be as much of a success story as their predecessors remains to be seen
– I’ll personally be keen to try out Facebook’s attempt to play catch up.

Using shifts in Social Media usage for Consumer PR

As Gorkana revealed this week, A Social Media Agency has created a definitive list of the world’s 238 most used social networks. Although we all knew there were a fair amount of networks available, the sheer size and depth of this list suggests that brands could be exploring far more avenues to connect with consumers.

All good Consumer PR plans try to incorporate all or a selection of the big five Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google and Pintrest.  However, campaigns could benefit hugely from taking time to determine whether there is a ready-made audience for their product on an overlooked Social Media outlet.  For example:  ever thought about buying a Happy Hour for everyone on Fubar to celebrate a new drink launch?

As well as exploring lesser-known sites, It is also worth thinking about how people use one form of Social Media in a different way to intended, and whether this is something that could benefit a consumer PR campaign. Buzzfeed recently reported that as teenagers are beginning to leave Facebook, they are structuring their use of Instagram as if it were Facebook, uploading primarily text based images in lieu of status updates, and creating conversation through the comments section. As opposed to an artsy image of a product, PRs could be mirroring this strategy, using the upload opportunity to create polls and conversation with a young, visual audience. This rounds out a campaign and gives a brand more personality.

Similarly, using one form of Social Media to gain popularity on another up and coming one is always a smart move. When Techcrunch pointed out early last month that Taco Bell had been driving its Twitter followers to follow them on Snapchat, they showed they had the tenacity to be flexible with Social Media opportunities.  Now they are sending mouth watering food pictures and fun doodled images to an idea consumer audience, engaging with them through a Social Media form currently enjoying a meteoric rise.

So the questions to consider are:

Which Social Media tools target your desired consumers?

How do your consumers use them?

What route can you take to build an audience on a new social media platform?

Making sure these three key questions are addressed at the beginning of any Consumer PR Campaign will help to create a good starting point for any Social Media strategy to develop.

How Will PR Agencies Adapt To The Stagnation Of Facebook Registrations?

Last week, the Pew Research Centre released a report on American teens’ relationship with social media. The research revealed a stagnation of Facebook registrations. Although 94% of teens have a Facebook account, this figure is the same as it was in 2011.

Twitter has grown substantially in this period though. In 2011, just 12% of those questioned had an account, while that figure is now at 26%. It’s also interesting that only 14% of Facebook profiles are public, opposed to 64% on Twitter, making the latter more useful for PR agencies and businesses aiming to gauge public opinion.

Pew’s Amanda Lenhart states that although teens “still have their Facebook profiles, they spend less time on them and move to places like Twitter and Tumblr”. If considered alongside its plummeting stock prices, you can make a case that Facebook is losing its tight grip on the social media market.

It’s likely Facebook will respond. Indeed one of the social media platforms preferred by teens – Instagram – is actually owned by Facebook. Nonetheless, this new research is a wake-up call about how social media continues to be dynamic.

So how should PR agencies that want to reach these audiences adapt to reflect this change? The topic was touched on in last week’s blog about Yahoo’s acquisition. Tumblr differentiates itself from other social media by providing an easy way to browse multiple media types, while Instagram revolves around users posting photos. The spike in teen users for these sites suggests social media is moving away from a solely text based approach.

At first, this change could appear daunting, but moving with the times is central to good PR. Agencies will acclimatise by focusing on multiple social media sites and finding more innovative ways to connect with the public.

Tumblr takes Social Media Spotlight

Given that Tumblr has been all over the news recently (after being bought by Yahoo for a whopping $1.1 billion), I figured what better time to get into the nitty-gritty of what Tumblr is and whether your brand should be using it. Tumblr defines itself as a platform that “lets you effortlessly share anything” including “texts, photos, quotes, links, music and videos”. However not many brands or PR agencies know how the six year old content platform fits into their overall social strategy. With over 107.5 million blogs and 50.5 billion posts created, including 70 million new posts that appear every day, it’s about time we started to take notice.

Tumblr has a large user base and acts as a great platform for brands to engage with their fans. It offers something a little different to other social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Twitter is primarily text based, and while Facebook does support text and images, it does not organize it quite as well. Tumblr is very flexible in the types of content it can publish which has allowed it to occupy a niche market within the crowded space of social media.

Because it is a very visual medium, users can express their creativity a lot more freely and often times use the platform to share their love for particular brands or TV shows. While not all brands have caught on, some like Coca Cola, Target and Disney have grabbed the opportunity to establish a Tumblr presence before their competitors do.

While joining Tumblr may not be ideal for every brand, it is definitely worth researching. If all else fails, you will have at least seen some pretty cool user-generated content.