Ivan Ivanov — November 20, 2017 — November 20, 2017
Globalization is one of the biggest milestones for almost any type of business. Running a multi-national brand, you’d be able to tap into the global market, maximizing your reach and profits. And similarly to other business-related matters, the digital age we live in has made the process more seamless and simpler.
Depending on the type and current size of your endeavor, going global could be as simple as making your website easily accessible to a multinational culture. In fact, chances are, the current business you are running already taps into an international audience.
But what most brands are missing out on is a region-based localized strategy for each of the national markets they tap into. Up until this point in time, digital competition has primarily been focused on getting a slice of their industry’s pie. But as businesses progress moving forward and as with rivalry for traffic being even more fierce than before, we are seeing a shift towards complete optimization.
SEO and Social Media Marketing are flourishing industries because of that competition. And what we are seeing in both cases is constant innovation in marketing strategies aimed towards better traffic, conversion and ultimately profits for your business.
With that in mind, and with social networks being sort-of our speciality, we decided to take a look at one of the most amazing Facebook features that most brands overlook. Of course, as the title suggests, we are talking about Global Pages and how to implement a global digital strategy for your business.
What are Facebook Global Pages
Made available to selected global brands in 2012, Global Pages is one of the most powerful, yet overlooked features of the social network.
Allowing a brand to combine all of its region-based pages into one, it helps business and social media managers have a better grasp on their complete global audience and analytics. At the same time, the feature also allows you to retain the ability of customization of a page for each particular region.
Available for everyone to see with the tap of a single button, pages for each selected region are visited to visitors from the selected countries automatically. If a country is not on the list and doesn’t have a localized page, one single global version of the page is used. Meaning that for the most part, you are able to separate your international markets based on countries, while at the same time having the choice of which particular countries to target.
How to Create Region-Based Pages
Helping you localize (or rather nationalize) your marketing strategies based on specific regions, Global Pages can help you boost your conversion and increase your brand reach and engagement by offering your target audiences localized content.
With the power to operate the social media strategy of your multinational brand under one single hub, you’d be able to receive a better overall picture of how your business is performing in each selected region, and boost sales where necessary, while improving your marketing strategies in selected countries.
Gradually being rolled out to the public, Facebook Global Pages is currently not available as a single button click. What that means is that in order for you to have access to the feature, you’d have to contact a Facebook partner or Facebook to help you out.
What you should be aware of is that as far as we are aware, you are not able to simply transition one page into multiple region-based ones.
Instead, it’s better for a brand or a business to have multiple existing pages, based on the regions they would later want to have, in a sense, bundled together.
To best improve your chances of gaining access to Facebook Global pages in a quick and prompt manner, we recommend you take (and consider) the following steps.
1. Create a Single (Global) Page for an International Market
2. Create Individual Pages for your Existing Markets in Selected Countries
3. Allocate Resources to Increase Your Audience in All Regions
4. Promote The Selected Pages (and posts) on the Social Network Accordingly
5. Contact Facebook (or a partner) explaining your brand and how Global Pages will help you with your Social Media Strategy
While this tool is extremely powerful, it is currently not recommended to small businesses that are just starting out. In addition, these steps don’t necessarily provide with a certain access to the feature. Make sure to contact Facebook (or a partner) for more information on the matter.
Why You Should Transition Towards a Globalized Marketing Strategy
The global trade and innovation in digital marketing have helped dozens of businesses to tap into an international market. And while this might not be the perfect move for your endeavor, it might help you turn a brand into an international success story.
To best prepare for an international transition, you should be aware of the legalities, depending on the type, size and market for your business. Once this is done, make sure to do proper research of the market in each country you want to tap into and choose a few primary markets.
Hiring local experts, whether freelancers or consultancy groups, might also be of service. Especially if you are willing to invest heavily into a region-based strategy, you’d often need to have local experts be responsible for each of your regional markets, and when it comes to social media marketing, for each of your regional pages and profiles.
Targeting individuals at a local level can vastly improve the ROI of your business. Especially if you are in the EU and want to target smaller countries where their developing markets are more affordable to get into, you might see a huge increase in your overall profits. But we’ll leave the decision-making and the heavily business related stuff to you, and continue focusing on the topic at hand, which is social media and your globalized social media marketing strategy.
Localizing Markets and Page Optimization on Facebook
There are two main factors that will redefine your country-specific posts. The first and most important one is the ability to create content that is relevant and specific to a single country. The second is the option to target individuals in a particular region based on their own native language. Depending on the size of your business you might consider going either for localization of the content itself or for both localization and native-language-based marketing strategy.
Of course, the first option is far easier to implement. Unless you have the ability to offer your product/services in the country’s market in their native language, using it on your Facebook page will only end up confusing people. For example, if you offer a web-based service globally, and have a region-based page that targets individuals in their native tongue, yet the service itself is only offered in English, your conversion rates probably won’t be that great. In fact, this might even end up hurting your brand in the long run.
The best option to transition forward with the creation and operation of a region-based web page is to have a dedicated page admin that is familiar with the culture of that country. For businesses, hiring a third-party service or experts based in the region they are targeting, might be the best choice.
However, if you are running a social media agency, the better option for you might be to hire individuals to work for you, and to have dedicated team members for each of the bigger markets. This might even serve you as a selling point, offering your international brands and international clients the option of localized social media strategies, based on the ability of your different team members.
Successfully Targeting your Region-Based Groups
The Global Pages feature on Facebook, as aforementioned, is not for everyone. But it might end up shaping the new age of social media marketing. We’ve discussed future-proofing your social media marketing strategy before, but chances are with increased competition, you’d need to take any additional opportunities and precautions to boost your chances of success.
With a higher number of individuals being able to properly run their marketing strategies on Facebook, the way for your business to stand out might be region-based group targeting. And getting in on the global pages feature as early as possible might be your best bet.
This is even more important for social media agencies. Being able to offer your clients new and innovative ways for them to take advantage of social networks will help you stand out of the crowd. So make sure to consider this feature today, think about how to best implement a country-based regional strategy for your business and of course, don’t be afraid to experiment.
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