I was reading today a very interesting post from Search Engine Land today which discussed the differences that exist in Europe not only in terms of languages but in terms of culture.

http://bit.ly/AMvMu

The article describes the different challenges of [...]]]> I was reading today a very interesting post from Search Engine Land today which discussed the differences that exist in Europe not only in terms of languages but in terms of culture.

http://bit.ly/AMvMu

The article describes the different challenges of producing content (and translating) in more than one version for each language, as there can be local differences in terms of French, German, and also cultural behavior which might prevent users from using a website just because of the local domain extension.

There are similar issues in Latin America, like the ones described by Search Engine Land. Often times people think is only about targeting Spanish, so Spanish is the same everywhere right?

Well no, there are several differences if we go country by country. In Mexico for example, they have adopted terms from English and make them part of the vocabulary.  In Spain, people still use a big castillian vocabulary. In Latin America, the vocabulary was simplified and also took not only English but words from several dialects (nahuatl, quechua, and even from European languages, etc.)

If your industry is very technical maybe you won’t need many versions of Spanish, but the more generic you go, you will need a native from each country to guide you, not only in the proper use of Spanish but also to produce appropriate call to actions for your website or campaigns. There is a huge difference between Mexico and Central America’s Spanish, compared to South America, from the use of pronouns to grammar.

Common words that for one Latin American country can be totally harmless or meaningless, in other countries can be a huge insult, so you want to be very careful to know these differences.

There is also a regional response from the users, meaning they will click in a website that to them looks like a local one (with the proper country extension/local domain), than using a generic Latam domain, or from Spain.

Just to mention Brazil, there are also huge differences between their Portuguese compared to the one in Europe. Similar to Latin America, Brazil has adopted local dialects, European languages that also result into a different grammar and spelling.

However the issue that Brazil generates is that as they are a bigger market than Portugal, the country captures a lot of the searches. This might result on the adwords keyword tool giving both “Iberian” and “Brazilian” Portuguese terms as suggestions.

As Bas van den Meld points about the European users being very active and sophisticated, also Latin Americans have different ways of using the web, and the searches are becoming more longtail in the quest for more relevant information.

In summary the point is that when a multinational US-based company wants to roll out an SEO, PPC or Social Media Strategy is not as straight forward as just translating. We need to look at cultural issues, content (if it makes sense to the local user, the terms they use for search etc.). Also what do people like to do in that country, do they prefer to be contacted by phone, or email or better to arrange a face to face meeting.

All of these points have to be taken into account when localising web content, rolling out Multilingual SEO, SMO and PPC strategies.

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A Latin American Communications Firm (Mazalan Comunicaciones) recently published the results of a survey that they applied in 26 countries to 40 Marketing Communications and PR firms to ask them about the tools they are using at the [...]]]> A Latin American Communications Firm (Mazalan Comunicaciones) recently published the results of a survey that they applied in 26 countries to 40 Marketing Communications and PR firms to ask them about the tools they are using at the moment both to send information to journalists and other SEM activities.Agencies and firms around the world including countries like UK, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Denmark, Spain, Saudi Arabia, among others participated in this research which results in a very interesting global view.Although the most popular tools to send across information to journalists and mass media are still the telephone and the email, there is a common interest in social media and so far Twitter is the most used.When asking these companies what social media are they using to share information on their clients the results were as they follow (some of them clicked more than one so that is way the percentage shows as over 100%).

• Facebook 61%
• Linkedin 47%
• Hi5  3%
• Twitter 67%
• Youtube 61%
• Other 17%

Indeed Twitter is quite appreciated by the UK PR firms which are currently using it. It is interesting to see that Facebook, Linkedin and Youtube are coming up quite strong, however still Linkedin has the best reputation for doing B2B Social Media without spamming.When asking these companies if they are using paid search or any other SEM activity to support their PR activities, almost half said they are doing something.

• Yes 43%
• No15%
• Not yet 43%

An agency in Brazil said that there is a great opportunity to try to measure the results of social media, whist other countries think having a space there allows to have specific conversations with the different audiences, therefore sending more targeted messages. According to another agency from Germany, social media have changed the speed for delivering and receiving information. Another Communications firm from Spain said that it is important to manage social media and have a proper plan, as it is not something to dedicate just 30 minutes per day, but include in the plans and activities.It is great to see that overall, all PR and Communications firms around the world are sharing that interest. Probably is also the fact that the journalists and media are the early adopters of the web 2..To read more about the survey in Spanish go to:http://blog.mazalan.com/2009/08/redes-sociales-una-vision-global.html

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In Mexico, 3 of 19 Goverment Secretaries and other government agencies are already using social media like Twitter and Facebook to inform the public about important announcements as well as promoting social programs.

The Secretary of Agriculture has an account in [...]]]> In Mexico, 3 of 19 Goverment Secretaries and other government agencies are already using social media like Twitter and Facebook to inform the public about important announcements as well as promoting social programs.

The Secretary of Agriculture has an account in Facebook where they have already more than 100 followers. In this page there is a group that debates about business opportunities in the agriculture sector. The goal is to establish a two way communication with the public.

There are other Social Media efforts from other government institutions. In the following example, PROFECO created a whole campaign using social media, which started in March 2009.

The Federal Attorney’s Office of Consumer (PROFECO), is inviting the readers of its monthly magazine to join their page in Facebook. 6 months later, they have over a 1000 friends and 3,544 followers in Twitter. The Magazine (Consumer’s Magazine) has been in the outlets for years and is very well known, so it is a great news hook to use social media. PROFECO’s role is to protect consumer against companies or people who have delivered bad products or services.

http://twittercounter.com/profeco

According to the editor of PROFECO’s Magazine, the intention is to be where the people is, and the people are in the social media.  The PROFECO magazine is famous for giving people tips how to defend themselves as consumers or users of different services. They also have a channel in youtube where they have different videos that come from the show they have on tv

http://www.youtube.com/user/profecotv

PROFECO is also using Hi5 and has already 405 followers.

http://www.hi5.com/friend/p401730755–Revista_del%20Consumidor–html

The Secretary of Turism (SECTUR) is also usingFacebook, at least for some of states like Sinaloa, Zacatecas and Baja California. Many other Latin American countries have pages to promote their Turism Secretaries and countries in Facebook. (Argentina, Colombia,etc.)

Something is clear, as other companies, several government institutions are trying to explore ways to have more interaction with the public and also to promote their initiatives, giving transparency of what they are doing at the same time.

The Mexican Goverment start adopting an eGovernment strategy years ago with an initiative called eMexico. This initiative included 4 areas: e-Learning, e-Health, e-Economy and e-Government.

Although the eMexico project has not been completed after President Fox’s presidency, all government secretaries, agencies, local government implemented e-government initiatives including websites and portals for the public that include both information in Spanish and English.

http://www.e-mexico.gob.mx/

If the rest of the institutions and secretaries find the right strategy on how to approach the social media to have a conversation with the public and to provide value, certainly people will love to have that interaction, responses to different questions, policies, procedures. This will open a new era of dialogue between public and the government, maybe even new services.

Some of the Secretaries are very well known so maybe a page, a channel or an account in their name will be enough, but  others might need to do some Social Media Optimisation to be found in the proper set of keywords both in Social Media and the web.

It is clear that the success of PROFECO was from leveraging a well known outlet (The Consumers’ Magazine), which had a lot of content, tv shows, tips, which are very valuable to consumers. However each institution will have to think on what is the value the deliver, and then create a communication strategy, an SMO strategy etc.

As most websites have information in English as well, and sometimes even in more languages, the government institutions could also try a Multilingual Social Media strategy in the future, where they can provide information to other countries on how to invest, work, migrate etc to Mexico through Social Media. This is obviously done already in other countries and already happening in Mexico in terms of SEO.

There is still a lot of scope in the social media both for B2B, B2C and Government in Mexico, but the important thing is that it is already happening and with interesting strategies, approaches and results that we all can learn from.

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Just recently an article was published online, regarding censorship in Social Media and President Calderon from Mexico.

Calderon has a page in Facebook and basically if you become a fan you are allowed to post your comments in there. The article [...]]]> Just recently an article was published online, regarding censorship in Social Media and President Calderon from Mexico.

Calderon has a page in Facebook and basically if you become a fan you are allowed to post your comments in there. The article describes how the admins of the page don’t leave aggresive comments from members and can erase them in minutes.

The article followed both negative and positive comments in the President’s page, however the negative ones disappeared later on.

If you have a page in Facebook and you are the admin, you can erase comments or report the user. However due to the lack of freedom of speech that lasted so many years in Mexico and Latin America, it is expected for new Presidents to take all comments, from jokes on TV, Radio and obviously tough stories in the media.

In summary, if you praise President Calderon you get a message from him, saying Thank You for your support. If your comment is negative it is erased.

This was considered Censorship from the Mexican government by the person who wrote the article.

However it is probably a lack of understanding and management of all messages in social media.  Before getting into Social Media is important to see what are the messages out there, do we need to manage our reputation? And most importantly we need to create a clear process on how to handle tough situations, so we won’t give negative messages to our key audiences by handling comments in certain way.

I imagine this could happen as well in other countries but what would be the best way to manage it?

http://www.proceso.com.mx/noticias_articulo.php?articulo=72082

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