Brought to you by: Kwan Ho Lee

International Marketing – How it relates to social media?

What is Groundswell?

Google Orkut in North America + Brazil

Renren.com + Facebook in China

“Marketing carried out by companies overseas or across national borderlines” (Wikipedia, 2011)

Cross-cultural influences define individual consumersi.e. McDonald’s Canada vs. McDonald’s China

Social Media is no different to products or services, it is said that:

“A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other rather than from traditional institutions like corporations” (Li & Bernoff, 2008)

Spectators and Critics – 2 biggest type of users – what I call Creepers and Complainers

71% of Metro China residents are spectators of social media 67% in Hong Kong and 48% of US adults

44% of Metro China residents are critics of social media 46% in Hong Kong and 25% of US adults

73.43% user base aged 18 to 30, 71% in Brazil and India only 15.4% in US (Safko, 2010)

North America failure attributed to:Strong competition – slow interfaceEarly “invite only” policyLack of support for blogging toolsAbsence of video features

“There’s a social network for every audience” (Li, Bernoff, 2008)

Why did it explode in Brazil (NY Times, 2006)?

Poor connection to not notice slow interface Creator of Orkut’s friends who were first to

join had Brazilian friends Country’s inherently social culture Orkut = “or-KOO-chee” = a part of

Portuguese vocabulary

SNS for marketing - authenticity and transparency are critical (Scott, 2010)

Facebook inaccessible after violent clashes in Xinjiang (Bloomberg, 2009) – contain reports or discussion of the riot or stop completely

Campaign to block acclaimed “pornography” – online censorship

Why Renren succeeded in China? 160 million registered users – standards for user

interaction and monetization of Chinese social networks

RenRen today largely remains a copy of Facebook, though it’s added a handful of localization features (footprints, emoticons, etc.) and brand advertising

Succeeded only dueto communist regime

There is no “one-size fits all” social media tool

Different countries have their unique political, historical, technological and cultural practices

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace cannot exist to satisfy all ethnic backgrounds

Re-evaluate where you are positioned in themind’s of consumers