FreshNetworks Blog

At FreshNetworks we work with many clients to develop and implement their European social media strategy – either for US companies who want to translate the work they do in their domestic market for their European brands, or for multinationals who are looking to develop a social media strategy that they can use across their European markets. For many brands who are developing how they are using social media this will be a common need. They want to understand where social media fits internally, how to manage it across their markets and how to measure and evaluate the success you are having. For many multinationals, these decisions might be made across markets. Or at least a series of guidelines and processes need to be defined that are then interpreted in each market.

A common mistake that multinational brands risk making is to build a European approach to social media by taking a tactic that has worked in one country and trying to implement this in other markets. For example, taking a campaign that might have been run on Facebook in Italy and trying to implement similar campaigns across all their European markets. Such approaches – socialising tactics across Europe – tend to be very difficult to make a success. For the simple reason that a tactic that works in Italy may not work in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain or other European countries. In these different markets, different consumers use social media in different ways; and different consumers want different relationships with brands. You cannot just take a tactic that works in one country and apply it across Europe. When you are developing a European social media strategy for a brand you should develop just that – a strategy, not a set of tactics that you hope to use in each market.

The ideal European social media strategy will provide a framework in which each market can operate. Ensuring that all markets are contributing towards the same overall aims, although they may do this in different ways. You should be able to measure and control each market according to the same set of metrics (although individual markets may add their own measures to these). And you should be able explain and understand why each market is doing what they are doing according to a common set of goals and direction.

A successful European social media strategy for a brand is not a set of tactics to implement across all markets. This never brings as much success as a brand might realise. Rather it is a framework and common approach. A strategy that each market can adopt and work within. Developing their own tactics and creative solutions that all contribute towards the same end goals and the same measures. You may find great insight and innovation from sharing these tactics, and you may find that some do translate between certain markets. But your strategy should not be based on these.

Over the coming fortnight we are going to be looking at a set of issues that brands face when developing a European social media strategy – from sharing best practice and the need to produce a common set of measures and reporting, to the challenges of working across languages and how to implement social media monitoring across markets.

See all our posts on developing a European social media strategy

The Social Network

Facebook will today announce that it has reached 500 million users. This number is incredible, and perhaps even more impressive is the rate at which the social network is growing. Just five months ago they had 400 million users. The site’s user base has grown by 25% in less than half a year. Incredible stuff.

The problem is that huge numbers like this can stop us from examining them in more detail and acknowledging what they don’t tell us as much as what they do. It is true that Facebook usage is growing at an incredible rate and large numbers of people use the social network. But let’s not get carried away by this. In some countries, Facebook is not the most popular social network – in the Netherlands it is Hyves, in Brazil Orkut and in Russia Vkontakte. In other countries social networks are not yet the main way that people interact online – they use message boards, forums, blogs and other social media tools. And, of course, in other countries still they use of social networks is very low.

There are many comparisons made about the user base of Facebook – from how big Facebook would be as a country to how many people are joining each day. But a statistic that isn’t often cited is this:

• 93% of the world’s population is not on Facebook*

This is, of course, a slightly unhelpful statistic – it considers the whole world population whereas it might be more interesting to understand what percentage of the online population, or perhaps the population who use social media are users of Facebook. It also belies the fact that in some countries Facebook usage is very high indeed. But it is no more unhelpful than many of the statistics and comparisons being made. It does, however, shine the light on the fact that, whatever we might think and however impressive these numbers are, Facebook is not an all-encompassing social media tool. It does not reach everybody and it is not right for us to use.

Brands thinking of their social media strategy can all too easily think that Facebook is the answer. And all too often it isn’t. Everybody isn’t on Facebook and Facebook isn’t the right place for all brands to play. In fact there are often many other more suitable places. Big numbers are impressive, but they shouldn’t blind us from a sensible, business aims-led approach to using social media.

* The 93% figure uses data on the current world population from the US Census Bureau – this will no doubt have inaccuracies, but it’s more about illustrating a point than mathematical accuracy this time around!

A report out this week from AT&T explores the adoption of social networking  in the workplace and the  rise of Enterprise 2.0. Based on 2,500 interviews in five countries (Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany) the report looks at what use is made of which tools and how this helps (or otherwise in the workplace).

The headline findings are interesting on their own and suggest a growing acceptance and usefulness of social networks and social media in the enterprise. Almost two-thirds of those responding (65%) said that social networks had increased either their efficiency at work, or the efficiency of their colleagues. But perhaps a greater sign of the power that social networks can bring to the workplace is the 63% of respondents who said that using them had enabled them to do something that they hadn’t been able to do before.

This starts to show the real power of social media – it’s not just about letting people do old things in new ways, but about facilitating completely new ways of connecting, sharing, and indeed of working.

What is most interesting, however, is to explore this data a little bit deeper, and indeed to look at the data on a country-by-country basis. Taking only the adoption of social networks as part of “everyday life at work in Europe”, the figures reveal something surprising – Great Britain lags behind the other countries in the study:

1. Germany – 72% of respondents report adoption of social networks in the workplace
2. Netherlands – 67%
3. Belgium – 65%
4. France – 62%
5. Great Britain – 59%

This positioning is surprising, not least as adoption of social networks like Facebook is higher in Great Britain than elsewhere in Europe. That rate of adoption of Enterprise 2.0 may reflect more on British working styles and habits, or indeed on the mix of industries that predominate in that country. But whatever the reasoning it would be good to see higher adoption in the UK, if only because, as this survey shows, those organisations that adopt Enterprise 2.0 can be more efficient and can let you do things you have never done before. In the current economic climate, organisations could benefit from both of these.

Some more reading

• Facebook Conquers Europe With Triple-Digit Growth (mashable.com)
• Useful Differentiation – Enterprise Social Computing vs. Everyday Use of Social Networks (fastforwardblog.com)
• Active Facebook Users By Country (radar.oreilly.com)

A report from Synovate, a market research firm, suggests that more than half of adults across the world don’t know what a social network is. The study was based on surveys with 13,000 people between 18 and 65 in 17 countries* and investigated online behaviour and attitudes.

Of all the findings, one that I have seen reported a few times is the figure that 42% of respondents said they knew what social networks are. This leaves 58% who either responded ‘No’ (they don’t know what social networks are) or ‘Don’t know’ (they’re not sure). Without access to the actual wording of the question it is difficult to know for sure, but we can say that more than half of adults in the survey were not confident in their knowledge of what a social network is. They might not know at all or they might just not be sure.

There is some variance by nation, with 89% of Dutch respondents and 70% of Americans knowing what a social network is, much higher than the overall average. This means that in some regions the numbers must have been much lower. I would be interested to compare these country-by-country numbers with both internet access rates and actual membership of a social network. I would be interested in seeing if we could identify a correlation between access, awareness and membership and expect that in areas with high access have high awareness and vice-versa.

Overall membership in the Synovate survey stood at 26% of all adults (so about six out of every ten adults who know what social networks are). Again there is a variance between countries with high membership rates (the Netherlands again at 49% and the United Arab Emirates at 46%) and those with lower rates. Such variance is not to be surprised and, to some extent, is structural in the nature of the networks themselves. They grow and become more popular based on the network effect, so in some countries we would expect to see more people joining because more of their friends have. It is probably just that the UAE and Netherlands are more socially connected or areas where networking is more important than you find elsewhere.

So what do we learn from this survey. The figures are useful to have. It does not surprise me that a relatively large proportion of people don’t know what social networking is. In the UK only about 70% of people have access to the internet, and it would be unrealistic to expect those with no access to the internet to have paid much attention to what online social networks are. The analysis of access, awareness and membership would certainly help to make our understanding of these figures more clear and informed.

But with more than one in every four adults in the 17 markets studied a member of a social network, one thing is clear – they are a real and powerful resource for marketers and brands and the need for brands to engage people online will continue to grow.

* Countries in the study: Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Taiwan, UAE, USA