How Buddy Media's +GLOBAL Service Unifies International Brand Presence on Facebook

With Facebook members widely distributed throughout the world, brands that limit their pitches to their home country may be missing a significant audience of potential customers. And those that do go global may encounter heavy lifting to manage localized content. To help brands more easily widen their marketing footprint, Buddy Media has introduced an add-on to their Buddy Media Platform called +GLOBAL – a geo-targeted Facebook page management system that enables global marketers to maintain a single, unified Facebook presence across multiple countries and languages.

According to a study commissioned by Buddy Media and conducted this month by Harris Interactive, 51% of brand managers say it is very important to manage local, customized content so it is consistent and organized. Nearly all (93%) respondents said it is challenging to reach customers in local markets. Among the most prominent issues are cost, tracking ROI, finding the appropriate channels and leveraging social media. Many brands are contending with managing a loose network of fragmented and disjointed brand pages that look different and have segmented audiences with incomplete analytics.

“By serving everyone who ‘likes’ a brand across the globe using a single customizable platform, our +GLOBAL add-on gets everyone on the same page – literally,” said Michael Lazerow, CEO and Founder of Buddy Media. “This solves many of the local branding dilemmas companies encounter with social marketing.”

Buddy Media describes +GLOBAL as a cost effective and simple management tool that streamlines the development of multiple pages and reduces the need for one-off, custom development projects. Initial Buddy Media clients report that +GLOBAL eliminates 80 percent of the costs of deploying global Facebook presences. Geo-targeting, unified branding, reduced time-to-market, improved security and increased control, along with global Facebook data, are cited by Buddy Media ways +GLOBAL enables more effective Facebook brand pages and advertising.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts is one of the first companies to implement +GLOBAL, serving customized language and content on its Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Facebook page to guests from Spain, Germany and China. 
”For the first time, we’re able to deliver meaningful and targeted localized content across the globe at scale without any potential sacrifice to our global brand equity,” said David Godsman, VP, Global Web, Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

The Buddy Media Platform +AGENCY is now licensed by over 60 advertising, marketing and public relations agencies.

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.