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8 ways to localize your social media presence

 by anthony on  |
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Social media localization is a fantastic way to leverage the power of social networks and target customers in the right place and in the right language. Localized social media also helps create campaigns that are highly targeted and relevant. Below are some of the main ways to localize your social media:

1. Localize your website
The starting point for localizing your social media is to first localize your website for every country you want to target. This means translating content to the languages of your target countries and modifying your website to look native to each one. Ideally, you would set up a new domain for every language so as each version of your site is SEO friendly. We’ve got plenty of resources on localizing your website, so to avoid repeating ourselves here’s a link to our blog where you’ll find them all.

2. Create local social media pages
If you’re doing business in multiple countries, you should have dedicated social media pages for each one. Top social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are the best places to start, as they offer local search options for users to find your profile. Having a separate domain for each language also comes into play once you’ve set up local pages. Things like new blog posts can be posted on social and linked back to the appropriate language domain to add an even more local experience.

However, a lack of time and brand control can often stop businesses from implementing this strategy. Investment and scalability can also prove to be stumbling blocks, where companies lack money and 
manpower.

3. Speak the right language
It’s also important that you speak the correct language on each localized page. There’s no point setting up a French version of your Facebook page and linking back to the French domain of your site if your posts are written in English. Facebook does have an automatic translation feature, but it’s an extremely limited machine translation. This also brings the same risks as using a machine translation on your website would bring.

4. Post targeting
Targeting your posts is an easy way to make sure your message is getting to the right people, at the right time. Targeting is useful if you don’t have the capacity to set up localized pages. You can still tailor posts and target audiences in specific locations using geo-targeting. Proper targeting of your posts increases engagement and clicks, and broadcasts your brand to a wider audience.

5. Local audience segmentation
This step takes your targeting to another level and really focuses your social posts on your core audience for each language. Facebook provides many layers of targeting options, allowing users to get extremely granular. Once this targeting is set up, you can segment by factors like age, gender, interests, relationship status, job title and more. Using these will allow you to drill your local audiences down into sub-segments and target each segment with specific posts.

6. Geo-target influencers
This strategy is more relevant to Twitter as influencers are more easily reached and engaged than they would be on Facebook. In this regard, any interaction you have with influencers will likely be noticed and picked up by potential customers. To maximize this channel, engage in social listening and track the tweets of influencers in that language.
When an appropriate opportunity arises, try promote some interaction with that influencer.

Another way is to message the 
influencer
 and negotiate some form of promotion of your brand with them. Most influencers won’t do this for free, so be prepared to offer something in return for a tweet, blog post or other type of promotion from them. Again, do this on a local level and select the right influencer for the right language.

7. Localized advertising
Localized advertising comes under the same domain as post targeting and audience segmentation. The same filters that allow you to target your post and segment your audiences are also available when advertising on social media. This means you can ensure that your promoted posts, products and pages are all being broadcasted to the right people. If your brand doesn’t have a physical location in your selected country, direct users to your online store with paid social ads.

8. Measure and optimize
The measurable nature of digital means that it’s easier than ever to identify successes and failures online. It’s important to use this to your advantage when localizing your social media. Measure everything you do on each localized page to learn its effectiveness. If it isn’t performing how you want, use the information you have at hand to tweak things that aren’t working and replace them with things that are.

Continually optimize and change to make sure you’re doing the right things for the right market. Success factors vary across markets, so measuring and optimizing will help you gauge what works and what doesn’t for each one.
 
Final word
It doesn't matter if you're a large multinational or a local business, a localized social media presence will help grow your brand. It promotes the creation of highly-targeted, relevant content. It’s also an easy way for businesses to take the first step into entering new markets, and won’t come at a heavy cost.
 

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