Addressing Culture In Social Media Marketing

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.

Social Media Marketing & Foreign Languages

Facing the issue of dealing with foreign languages in Social Media engagement as a business is going to come up at some point. In the U.S. it’s dealing with Spanish, in Canada with French and increasingly Mandarin, Hindi or other dialects. Dealing with other languages is something Europeans are very familiar with, often either French, German, Spanish or English are the default languages.

But what happens when you want to engage in Social Media for marketing, public relations or just stakeholder relations? In Canada and the U.S. it’s usually a default to go English, in Quebec you go with French. But we are seeing an significant growth in ethnic groups in North America; and they have buying power. They are also connected. Cultures like French, Spanish, Hindi, Philipino are all very socially oriented. They also have a very high propensity to use Social Media.

Working recently with a government client, we faced the language issue. We nearly failed miserably. What we learned, fortunately in the nick of time, is that the company or organization, must first be fully prepared to support an engagement with a minority group. This may seem obvious, but it goes deeper. It’s not about having just one or two people on staff who speak the language, it needs cross-organizational preparedness.

If you’re reaching out to a particular language group in Social Media, success comes over longer term engagement. With cultures that have strong community orientations, a quick dive-in campaign to “test the waters” or drive some quick sales will hurt more than help. The very core of many cultures is “community and family” and this does not weaken in Social Media applications. In fact it becomes more so.

If you’re going to engage with another language group outside your operating language, plan carefully and look beyond just “marketing” or “PR” best practices to conduct some sociology, socioeconomic and cultural issues. Most importantly, be sure you can support another language internally, over a longer time and that your product/service supports other languages. There’s more to consider, but that’s later.