Of the need for corporate tweeters to go multilingual

Not being a native English speaker as such, I was made acutely aware from a very early age of the importance for people to be able to make themselves understood. That included me, of course, but all the people around me too. So I set off to learn a host of different languages to be able to communicate with people more easily. And I was rewarded for my efforts by people appreciative of the fact that I had made an effort to converse with them in their own language.

It seems brands, especially English-speaking ones, need to build this into their social media strategies.

Econsultancy's Social Media and Online PR Report 2010 highlighted that of the 83% of marketers who planned to increase their social media spend in 2011, only 26% were planning to run campaigns in more than one country and language. That means that a huge proportion of people out there are being spoken to by brands (who are trying to build some sort of unique relationship with us) in English. There is obviously a massive opportunity being missed, and I can only hope these brands will fix that fast, or they run the risk of being perceived once again as arrogant.

The web has ensured that every single brand today is a global one. How they are setting about interacting with their target audiences in the social media sphere is fascinating and will prove a real challenge. Good luck to them because they have a mountain to climb!