Why Hire a Global B2B Social Media Agency?

Why hire a global B2B social media agency?

If your business operates in more than one country, or you are looking to expand into new locations, you may be facing a dilemma – do you hire a social media agency in every country you operate in, or should you choose an agency that operates globally?

As you’ll gather from our homepage (and most other pages of our website), OST is a global B2B social media agency.  We operate across Europe, North and South America and Asia and our international network enables us to service clients in almost any language.

For companies with global ambition, there are lots of reasons to hire a global B2B social media agency rather than a localised agency. Here are our top five reasons:

English language content won’t drive results globally 

As a first base for providing global coverage across the major social networks, English works just fine. It’s the international language of business, after all.

But if you want to drive in-country engagement in markets like France, Brazil or Korea, you’re going to need local language content. People just won’t engage with content in English in the same way.

In our experience, local language content is essential for driving in-country sales. And for that, you’ll need a global agency (or if you have time to spare, a network of local agencies).

Translation is great. Localisation is better.

One solution to the need to provide multi-language social content is to translate your English content and publish multiple versions in French, Spanish etc. This is certainly better than just serving English content to non-native English speakers. But it’s also a very blunt approach that won’t help your content stand out from the crowd.

It’s no secret that people in different countries have different ways of looking at things and expressing ideas, and this applies to business as well as in our personal lives. By having your content created in-language, in-country, by native speakers, you can provide truly tailored content that resonates with your target audience in a way that translated words never will.

Local Community Management 

One of the biggest secrets to social media success is, actually, pretty simple: engage with your audience. 

Any decent Community Manager will tell you how they @mention certain people and tee up conversations they know the community will enjoy. None of that is possible unless you have local language Community Managers monitoring and driving your social channels forward on a daily basis.

Single point of contact and unified reporting 

Working with a collection of local B2B social media agencies in the countries where you operate is likely to give you a communication headache, plus a plethora of different monthly reports.

When you work with a global B2B social media agency, you get a single account team, integrated communications and unified reporting. It’s always more streamlined and it’s usually more cost-effective.

Global ambition and growth

We work with our clients to plan their global social media strategy, starting with their social architecture (i.e. channel planning), content pillars, advocacy programme, paid social strategy and measurement framework.

This global approach is both necessary for a coordinated strategy, and conducive to growth. Of course, you’ll want to start with a few key markets and prove the business case, but by providing a scalable model, we facilitate rapid growth. 

Want to know more about how a global B2B social media agency like OST can benefit your business? Get in touch!