Understanding cultural and ethnic behaviours and uses of Social Media can often play a key role in developing an engagement strategy for Social Media; whether that be for marketing, general communications or other purposes.
In our research, we’ve found that ethnic and cultural groups use tools in similar patterns, no matter the group. What we’ve found is that either a cultural our ethnic group that resides inside a non-indigenous state will use a Social Media tool that can connect them globally across all cultures and also use tools that connect them just within their cultural or ethnic group. Yeah, so what does that mean?
We define Global Social Media Tools as those tools or services that are agnostic to a culture or ethnic group and enable communication in any language (text, audio or image) and have global reach – doesn’t matter what country you’re in, you can access them (for the most part). Examples would be Twitter or Facebook or Buzz.
Then you have what we call Group Specific Social Media Tools. These are tools that are language (usually indicating culture or ethnicity) specific or culture/ethnic group specific. Examples would be Vkontakte which is Russia’s “Facebook” or Sonico.com which is for Latin Americans and Portugese speakers or AbairThusa, a Gaelic speaking Social Network. Ameba is an example of a microblogging service in Japan that is like Twitter but for those speaking Japanese.
In the case of cultural and ethnic groups in countries like Canada, the United States or UK, almost all active people from cultural and ethnic groups also speak English and will have English friends and business connections and so will also use Facebook, Twitter or similar. But the majority of their activity takes place on services that are specific to their culture or ethnic group.
This is important when considering engagement in Social Media. Since you may also want to reach those people and measure activity, within their ethnic or cultural group. This adds a layer of complexity however, since you’ll need to understand their written language.
Think these groups are too small to really be concerned about? Not at all. Societally we all belong to different cultural, ethnic and social groups. Immigrant populations inside a country can be very positively engaged in their new home country. This can offer significant opportunities.
(Author: G. Crouch, MD)
I’ve had 2 calls in the last week from businesses looking to build their own Social Network and over the past several months, similar inquiries. When I ask them if they have about $40 Million to invest in getting it going I either get dead silence or a nervous chuckle. My advice is “forget it and invest elsewhere.”
The space is well established now. The leaders are Facebook and NetLog followed by MySpace and MyYearbook among others. Perception-wise Facebook is leading internationally. The others vary by country (these come from a simple but good site for this data.)
One might and I emphasize “might” succeed with a micro-Social Networking site that caters to a specific ethnic, cultural or special interest group. But often those are well supported by services like Ning. Of course it’s one thing to build it, then you need to attract people. Even in ethnic/cultural group terms, they’ve tended to have found their piece of turf inside Facebook or other services. For clubs and organizations there’s services like Qlubb – well, there’s over 60 of them out there. In the business world it’s a fight now between LinkedIn and FastPitch.
Only about 5% of people spend more than a few hours a week inside a Social Network and less than 3% belong to more than one Social Network (our research, March 2009). Once they have established a presence and entered their personal data and made connections, it’s very hard to move them. Porting the data over is hard enough to do, but porting their connections? Almost impossible.
Venture Capital companies are not financing Social Networks. Raising debt to finance them is personal financial suicide. And quite frankly, you’ll need at least $40 Million to build a presence. If you can figure out a very compelling reason to switch for a person (porting over data and friends included) then you might have something. Over time, opportunities might present themselves. The one sector we see some opportunity through our research is better ethnic/cultural focused Social Networks in countries like America, Canada, England and Europe. Possibly. But there are services for those markets (BlackPlanet and Migente are two) and the revenue opportunities may be limited based on demographics and adoption.
Our advice then is, work within a Social Network to build community if that’s your goal (here’s an example). For big brands, I’ve yet to see a sustainable model – the reality is, once the brand has accomplished it’s marketing objective, are they really going to want to spend the money required to maintain that presence? Not likely.
What makes our world so incredible is the mix of cultures on this little planet. This diversity is exemplified and amplified in Social Media applications. One might ponder that Social Media could be a way of uniting us, resulting in less wars, greater societal wealth and more. Coming back to earth for a moment, there are some serious implications in regards to marketing and communications in Social Media in cultural terms.
Failing to understand cultural issues is a key, yet often overlooked, factor in the success or failure of Social Media activities. Done right however, reaching and succeeding with cultural clusters in the U.S., UK and Canada can mean highly loyal customers and vital feedback on product development.
When looking to implement a Social Media marketing effort however, the considerations go beyond just language planning and resource allocations internally. Each cultural group has specific social rules, etiquette and behavioral issues that should be addressed. These can range from who is making the buying decisions and how those buying decisions are divided in the household. Different cultures have different traditions regarding the handling of finances. Then there’s “how” ethnic and cultural groups make decisions on sharing. There are many variables, failure to understand or plan for them can result in a failed effort. If you truly fail, the results can also be very long term.
Simply translating the creative and campaign elements when targeting an ethnic group will likely result in failure. As with language support, you need to have the back-end support and understanding in place. Not doing so can result in abject failure and long-term loss of potential customers. So while implementing a Social Media campaign or strategy that engages cultural groups can be very rewarding, take careful planning and consider you’re ability to commit to maintaining that relationship. Many non-Western cultures place extremely high value on familial and social relationships, so engaging needs commitment, research, resources and empathy.