Four months ago we talked about the impact of globalisation on social media. This article raised questions about the same globalisation considerations in PR campaigns. A business’ strategy should be adapted to fit different countries’ wants and needs, hereby accurately reflecting their local cultures. A ‘one size fits all’ strategy hardly ever works when it comes to working in PR in different languages, and in order for a campaign to be successful, it is crucial to keep the following in mind:
Seven tips on how to make the most out of your global public relations campaign
1. Use social media
Especially when it comes to small businesses tapping into competitive markets, it is extremely useful to utilise the power of social media. Facebook and Twitter can be used to communicate with the individual target markets of the brand by using regional pages, where the language should be optimised for the different markets. YouTube videos, for instance, should either be dubbed or subtitles should be provided to communicate your message effectively.
2. Translations
Even in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, which are known as the top non-native English speaking countries in the world, hiring a native to do your communication is crucial. Considering specific dialects also shows that a brand has an understanding of the individual cultures and appreciates language differences, which in turn establishes trust. Small businesses can utilise the translations of market and public relations materials to attract larger international audiences.
3. Local Presence
In order to make the most out of your public relations campaigns, it is incredibly important to ensure that at least one person is present in the local territories that you are working in. This way, a company can get a more thorough understanding of the markets they are targeting and ultimately grow their businesses successfully.
4. Online Presence
Besides your offline presence, it is also essential to make public relations and SEO work together and optimise your websites to reflect your global campaigns. This means that your websites and social media should reflect things such as language, payment methods and currency of the country you are operating in.
5. Political and Cultural Research
As we all know, the above can’t be applied if we fail to take political and cultural differences into consideration. For these have major effects on the way we view the world and affect the ways in which we work. This extends to making sure we have a thorough understanding of how the media works in these countries and what is acceptable and what is not.
6. Research International Regulations
This understanding of the media is directly connected to differences in international regulations. Advertising laws, sales tactics and product laws are all factors to consider when taking your business and public relations campaigns global and cannot be ignored. Therefore, be sure to research these laws before circulating a public relations campaign.
7. Understand Different Culture
Finally and foremost, acknowledging and understanding the different cultures is crucial for making public relations campaigns work in different markets. Thoughts, ideas or colours may all have different meanings. Therefore, we need to learn, respect and apply this knowledge around our campaigns in order to make the globalisation of a product or service work effectively. Hereby, we also need to take ethical implications of our campaigns into consideration and always factor in the morals and values of different cultures as otherwise our campaigns could be detrimental to the image of our company on a global scale.
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