CorpComms Magazine

Firms are missing marketing opportunities by not tapping into foreign markets via the available media platforms, according to a report by John Yunker, author of the book 'Beyond Borders: Web Globalisation Strategies'.

A quarter of the world's population speaks English, of which just six per cent speak it as their mother tongue. But the majority of companies have yet to create alternative language Twitter feeds.

Founder of translation service Lingo24 Christian Arno said: 'With Twitter remaining the most popular social media platform for corporations, running a foreign language Twitter campaign can be a massively profitable exercise.'

Of the 225 companies studied, all had at least two localised websites, yet only a third had Twitter feeds outside of their domestic market. 'Compared to the likes of Sony, Microsoft, MTV and Air France, British companies have been ponderously slow to tweet in foreign tongues,' Arno observed.

Yunker's survey revealed that Sony came out on top with more than twenty Twitter feeds. PricewaterhouseCoopers is flying the flag for the UK with at least ten.

A blog post on Lingo24 highlighted the lower cost of advertising in a foreign language on search engines such as Google, because there is less competition to gain the top spot. 'For businesses, this translates into a higher return on investment in foreign language search engine marketing (SEM) than in English language SEM,' it explained.

Achieved amazing results with digital campaigns? Click here for more info on the CorpComms DigiAwards.

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet