18
683 FEATURE ARTICLE Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. • DOI: 10.1002/tie.21493 Correspondence to: Nitish Singh, PhD, Assistant Professor International Business, Boeing Institute of International Business, John Cook School of Business, Saint Louis University, 3674 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3397, 314-977-7604 (phone), 314-977-3897 (fax), [email protected]. Global Social Media Usage: Insights Into Reaching Consumers Worldwide This study documents global social media usage patterns based on a large-scale survey of 4,630 social media users around the world. The study provides insights into how users in the European Union, United States, and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) regions use social media for business and personal use. It analyzes variability in global social media platforms being used in these different world regions. The study also presents insights into usage of multilingual content for global social media consumption and the global user propensity to translate social media. Finally, the paper showcases an innovative technology solution to help companies leverage machine and human translation to enable users to translate social media content. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. By Nitish Singh Kevin Lehnert Kathleen Bostick Introduction I n the past few years, social media has evolved from just being a basic tool for collaborative creation and the sharing of content to becoming an important part of the present media landscape (Evans & Brat- ton, 2008; Weinberg, 2009). The recent role of social media in the “Arab Spring” and other pro-democracy movements underscores the fact that social media is increasingly becoming the vehicle for the voice of people and consumers worldwide. From a business perspective, companies are actively leveraging social media to create brand communities and crowd sourcing models, gain consumer insights, enhance product/brand awareness,

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Page 1: 683 Global Social Media Usage: Insights Into Reaching Consumers Worldwide · 2018-11-29 · Global Social Media Usage: Insights Into Reaching Consumers Worldwide 685 DOI: 10.1002/tie

683FEATURE ARTICLE

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com)

© 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. • DOI: 10.1002/tie.21493

Correspondence to: Nitish Singh, PhD, Assistant Professor International Business, Boeing Institute of International Business, John Cook School of Business,

Saint Louis University, 3674 Lindell Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3397, 314-977-7604 (phone), 314-977-3897 (fax), [email protected].

Global Social Media

Usage: Insights Into

Reaching Consumers

Worldwide

This study documents global social media usage patterns based on a large-scale survey of 4,630

social media users around the world. The study provides insights into how users in the European

Union, United States, and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) regions use social media for

business and personal use. It analyzes variability in global social media platforms being used in

these different world regions. The study also presents insights into usage of multilingual content for

global social media consumption and the global user propensity to translate social media. Finally, the

paper showcases an innovative technology solution to help companies leverage machine and human

translation to enable users to translate social media content. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

By

Nitish Singh

Kevin Lehnert

Kathleen Bostick

Introduction

In the past few years, social media has evolved from

just being a basic tool for collaborative creation and

the sharing of content to becoming an important

part of the present media landscape (Evans & Brat-

ton, 2008; Weinberg, 2009). The recent role of social

media in the “Arab Spring” and other pro-democracy

movements underscores the fact that social media is

increasingly becoming the vehicle for the voice of people

and consumers worldwide. From a business perspective,

companies are actively leveraging social media to create

brand communities and crowd sourcing models, gain

consumer insights, enhance product/brand awareness,

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684 FEATURE ARTICLE

Thunderbird International Business Review Vol. 54, No. 5 September/October 2012 DOI: 10.1002/tie

to communication across languages and countries. This

multilingual and cultural diversity on the web is creating a

diverse social media landscape, with unique global usage

and consumption patterns (King, 2010). Understanding

how social media is delivered, consumed, and leveraged

around the world can help global marketers in develop-

ing, positioning, and delivering global content to achieve

marketing objectives such as increasing website traffic,

lead generation, improving multilingual search engine

optimization, increasing global brand awareness, and,

most important, enhancing global revenues.

Thus, the broad objective of this study is to explore

global differences in social media diffusion and usage

as well as the challenges of dealing with multilingual

social media content. This study will analyze patterns of

social media usage of about 4,630 global social media

users from the United States, Europe, and BRIC coun-

tries. The study will provide unique insights into dif-

ferences in global social media usage and how online

users are translating social media content for personal

consumption. Furthermore, this study will provide indus-

try insights into emerging technologies being used to

develop dynamic multilingual social media content for

global consumption.

Global Social Media Challenges

A global web index survey found that online social

media usage tends to be driven by national and cultural

factors (Smith, 2010a). For example, this survey found

that Asia is now the leading region in terms of consumer

publishing and sharing information online. This trend is

being attributed not only to high Internet growth rates

in Asia but also because of Asians’ willingness to share

information and be more open in terms of online brand

involvement (Smith, 2010b). Based on recent estimates,

China dominates the blogosphere worldwide, with 162

million Chinese bloggers (CNNIC, 2009). According to

Walsh (2008), blogging in China is not just a pastime

for opinion leaders but a form of collective behavior

emphasizing the cultural need for togetherness in the

Chinese society.

It is hard to ignore the importance of culture and

language in the diffusion of global social media as these

communications are created “by the people—for the peo-

ple” in a unique online social environment (King, 2010).

A Forrester Research social technographic survey of 13

countries reveals seven types of global social media users.

These are creators (publish social content), conversation-

alists (constantly update social content), critics (critique

online social content), collectors (gather content from

improve search engine optimization efforts, reduce cus-

tomer acquisition and service costs, and optimize overall

marketing and communication efforts (Weinberg, 2009).

According to Burson-Marsteller’s (2009) report, 65%

of Fortune Global 100 companies have Twitter accounts,

54% have Facebook fan pages, 50% have YouTube video

channels, and 33% have corporate blogs. A follow-up

2010–2011 survey found a 25% increase in the number

of companies using the preceding four social media

platforms (Burson-Marsteller, 2011). Forrester Research

forecasts that social media will be the fastest-growing

interactive channel in the United States, with a 34% com-

pounded annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2009 and

2014 (VanBoskirk, 2009).

A global study of social media usage by UM Social

Media Tracker Wave 5 (2010) found that almost 75%

of the active Internet universe has used online social

networking sites, and almost half of them have joined

an online brand community. This shows that consum-

ers are actively using online social media to interact and

communicate with companies. However, social media

usage is not consistent around the world. Recent social

media usage data shows that globally there are significant

differences in how social media is being used, content

is being created, and “crowd wisdom” is being shared.

Global diffusion of social media has led to a rise in the

consumption of multilingual content and also barriers

The recent role of social media in the “Arab Spring” and other pro-democracy movements underscores the fact that social media is increasingly becoming the vehicle for the voice of people and consumers worldwide.

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DOI: 10.1002/tie Thunderbird International Business Review Vol. 54, No. 5 September/October 2012

This study will present industry insights into emerg-

ing machine translation technologies that can help

facilitate the linguistic integration of international social

communities, which are currently isolated due to lan-

guage barriers. Linguistic integration of international

communities is expected to provide a true basis for global

sharing of information and globalization of social media.

Emerging Global Social Media Trends

This section provides an overview of some emerging

research and data on global social media usage patterns.

In academic literature, social media–related research is

growing in areas such as the evolution of social network-

ing sites (Boyd & Elison, 2008), application of social capi-

tal theory to understanding consumer behavior online

(Valenzuela, Park, & Kee, 2009), social dynamics in

online social networking (Tong, Heide, Langwell, & Wal-

ther, 2008), the role of psychosocial variables in online

social networking (Pelling & White, 2009), relational

online communications (Kim & Yun, 2008), self-repre-

sentations on social media (Grasmuck, Martin, & Zhao,

2009), and some practitioner commentaries related to

using social media (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Unfortu-

nately, there is a scarcity of academic research on global

social media usage, adoption, and consumption patterns.

In most cases country was used more as a context rather

than a comparison parameter (Kim & Yun, 2008; Notley,

2009). Therefore, most of the efforts identified toward

profiling global social media usage and consumption pat-

terns summarized were found in the business press.

Various surveys in the business press document the

emerging data on global social media usage and point

to significant differences in social media usage type and

form, as well as how consumers interact with social media.

A survey of 23,200 active Internet users in 38 countries by

the UM Social Media Tracker–Wave 4 (2009) provided

insights into social media adoption, uses, involvement,

and penetration rates. For example, the survey found

that for 16- to 54-year-olds, Danes have the highest

penetration of social media, followed by Malaysians,

Norwegians, and Swedes. According to this survey, an

overarching global social media trend is that social media

platforms are becoming more multimedia savvy with the

convergence of photos, videos, music, and widgets (small,

embedded informational programs). Building on the UM

Social Media Tracker–Wave 4, the new Wave 5 reports

data from 54 countries with special focus on understand-

ing consumer needs and motivations relating emerging

brand communities on social media landscape (UM

Social Media Tracker–Wave 5, 2010).

social media), joiners (join social media sites), spectators

(view social content), and inactives (little social media

activity) (Bernoff et al., 2010; Li, Bernoff, Fiorentino, &

Glass, 2007). These seven types of global social media

users differ cross-nationally. While globally most people

fall under the category of “spectators,” Chinese dominate

this category, followed by Americans. Chinese also lead

the “collector” category; Germans lead the “inactives” cat-

egory; Canadians lead as “joiners”; South Koreans lead as

“creators” and are tied with Chinese as “critics” (Forrester

Technographics, 2009).

Beyond the cross-national idiosyncrasies of social

media usage and development, the diversity of languages

is creating effective communication and information

sharing challenging on a truly global basis. Facebook

has more than 400 million active users, with almost 70%

outside of the United States. To effectively communicate

with non-English users, Facebook has 70 translations

available on its site made possible by a vast network of

300,000 volunteers and translators (Facebook.com). Like

Facebook, other companies are exploring better ways to

develop and share multilingual content on a real-time

basis via their crowd sourcing models and social media

applications, respectively. However, even the vanguards

of multilingual social media content development like

Facebook understand the challenge of how difficult it is

to share user content in different languages.

Most international communities are constrained by

geographic and linguistic boundaries in terms of their

social media content. Valuable global consumer insights

are lost due to the lack of applications that can make shar-

ing multilingual social media content possible. Global

marketers may benefit by understanding the global dif-

fusion and consumption of social media and how to best

share multilingual social media content on a global basis.

Aligned with this business challenge, the current study

presents the results of a large scale global survey of 4,630

social media users exploring:

• How users from different world regions use social

media for business and personal use.

• The kinds of global social media platforms popular in

various world regions.

• The top languages being used to generate global

social media content online.

• User preference for English versus their local language

with regard to social media content.

• Global user propensity to translate social media

content.

• Methods used by consumers to translate social media

content.

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686 FEATURE ARTICLE

Thunderbird International Business Review Vol. 54, No. 5 September/October 2012 DOI: 10.1002/tie

that people connected by social media have on average

195 friends online, with Brazil leading the way with an

average of 360 friends, followed by Portugal (236 friends)

and the United States (200 friends).

Finally, Burson-Marsteller (2009) takes a firm-level view

rather than consumer view. This study analyzed the social

media efforts of Fortune Global 100 companies between

2009 and 2010. Based on this study, some country-specific

insights include the following: Chinese state-owned com-

panies have been a late and slow adopter of social media

compared to Chinese private firms and foreign subsidiar-

ies. Brazilian companies have been slow to engage users on

social media sites for fear of losing control of the conversa-

tion. In Japan, Japanese language social networking sites

(e.g., Mixi) are catching up, but Japanese companies have

been reluctant to use social media and prefer traditional

online forms of communication via company websites.

Similarly, Korean companies tend to use social media

channels specific to South Korea, such as Korean online

cafes and the social networking site Cyworld. French com-

panies have also been reluctant user of social media tools.

In Italy, the situation is different, as companies have been

actively engaging social media users with their brands. A

more recent survey by Burson-Marsteller (2011) provides

further insights into how companies are moving more

toward engaging and monitoring their social media users.

For example, companies are now directly engaging users

by using Twitter and Facebook pages to truly converse with

them and not just push their own message.

In conclusion, academic and business press yield

rich insights into social media development, usage, and

diffusion, but this review highlighted some deficits in the

literature pertaining to challenges posed by multilingual

online diversity and the emergence of several interna-

tional communities that are silos due to the lack of lin-

guistic integration. There seems to be a lack of research

into how companies can create truly global communities

where participation is not hindered by language use. The

present study extends the scope of global social media

research and differs from the past surveys as it focuses on

analyzing global online user language preferences, such

as their propensity to translate social media content and

tools used to translate multilingual social content, and

second, by presenting industry insights relating emerging

technologies that can help companies connect multilin-

gual communities through linguistic integration.

Sample and Method

Data were collected over a period of about three

months from late December 2009 to March 2010,

A 2009 Global Web Index large-scale survey of almost

32,000 social media users reported insights into con-

sumer motivations behind the use of social media (Smith,

2010a). Some of the findings from this survey shed light

on how people use social media in different countries.

For example, staying in touch with a friend was the most

frequent use of social media in China. For Japanese,

researching product purchases was the most popular

social media activity. In South Korea staying up to date on

news and events was most popular, and in India research-

ing for work topped the social media usage motivation.

A more recent Global Web Index survey in 2010 reports

that social media has now reached maturity and users are

moving from just being content creators and publishers

to using real-time technologies for sharing other people’s

content and opinions (Smith, 2011).

Another study by Belleghem (2010) surveyed 2,884

social media users from 14 countries to investigate social

media usage patterns for various social media platforms.

This survey found that Facebook is the most well-known

social networking site (83% were aware of Facebook)

followed by MySpace and Twitter. The Insite survey (Bel-

leghem, 2010) categorized social media users into four

quadrants based on “social media log-in frequency” and

“social media activity frequency.” This study also showed

A more recent Global Web Index survey in 2010 reports that social media has now reached maturity and users are moving from just being content creators and pub-lishers to using real-time technologies for sharing other people’s content and opinions (Smith, 2011).

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DOI: 10.1002/tie Thunderbird International Business Review Vol. 54, No. 5 September/October 2012

script the relationship between them is insignificant.

The uses of social media for business use are highlighted

in Table 1.

Results from the three economic regions found the

primary business use of social media to be for building

business contacts (BRIC mean = .403; EU mean = .429;

US mean = .595). Surprisingly, for both BRIC and EU

countries, the second-most-common user response was

that they “did not use it for business practices,” indicat-

ing that the strategic role of social networking has yet to

be leveraged in these regions. Following this, the respon-

dents tend to use social media for business purposes as a

research and advertising tool, utilizing it to read content,

engage in job search, and highlight expertise. Follow-

ing these, users utilize social media for business use as

a search mechanism designed to help find leads and

engage in market research.

For US social media users, insignificant differences in

social media usage indicates that they hold a wide range

of strategic reasons for utilizing social media. This implies

that US consumers are utilizing these tools for several rea-

sons and as a multifaceted strategic tool instead of solely

building contacts.

For personal use, social media was overwhelmingly

used to “connect with friends and family” (BRIC mean =

.857; EU mean = .827; US mean = .826). Following this,

consumers use social media to read content and engage

in connections with like-minded people as well as making

friends. This highlights the perceived use of social media

as a place to connect and meet others through these

electronic tools. Those choices least selected include

creating new content, reading reviews, and finding a job,

indicating that the use of social networking is not serving

as a new replacement for search and information seeking,

with individuals preferring different methods for product

information search and job hunting.

Table 3 presents the means, stand deviations, and chi-

square differences for these questions between regions.

Here we find that even though both EU and BRIC

regions rate “I don’t use it for business” as the second-

most-common social media use, the level of difference

between BRIC countries and the EU is significantly differ-

ent from the United States. These results are more telling

in that they indicate that different regions have different

goals in the use of social media, both for business and

personal usage. Globally, both BRIC and EU regions are

more similar to one another than to the United States in

their business usage of social media.

There were several differences between regions

regarding social media for personal use. There is more

congruency between the EU and the United States on

utilizing an  international localization and translation

company. A combination of direct e-mail and social

media channels were used through a snowballing

method to deliver the survey worldwide. Surveys were

distributed in 21 languages, with subjects selecting the

language of their choice and linking to the online ver-

sion in the same language. All language versions were

translated by professional translators working for the

translation company.

This collection method yielded 4,630 respondents;

770 respondents indicated that they had never used any

form of social media and were subsequently removed

from the analysis. Responses were broken down into

economic regions (nBRIC

= 670, nEU

= 1,453, nUSA

= 1,027)

with the remaining responses falling outside of these

three economic regions. We utilized economic region as

a selection criteria as social networking is both a social

and technological phenomenon. Economic regions allow

for control of technological access, as social networking

necessarily requires a level of economic and technologi-

cal development. Further, the role of economic devel-

opment allows for a comparison of business, as well as

social usage. Ninety-eight percent of the sample ranged

between 21 and 50 years of age, and the gender was 52.2

percent female and 47.8 percent male.

The survey design consisted of 18 questions asking

respondents to indicate their reasons for using social

media for both personal and professional use. In order

to compare differences within continent/region, a series

of analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were run. To compare

differences between responses across continent/region,

a series of Poisson regressions were run. Poisson regres-

sions (Coleman, 1964; Cameron & Tivedi, 1998) are

appropriate here because the dependent variable is a

count of instances and the coefficients indicates the prob-

ability that the occurrence of the variable is statistically

different from a comparison variable.

Survey Results

The survey looked into two broad areas related to global

social media usage. The study first investigated how

global social media is used for business and personal

use. Then the study looked at the role of language and

translation in global social media usage. Tables 1 and

2 provide the means, standard errors, and mean differ-

ences within regions for the usage of social media for

business and personal usage. In order to allow for dif-

ferentiation of variables, we utilize similar superscripts

to indicate no significant differences between variables.

Therefore, when two variables share the same super-

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688 FEATURE ARTICLE

Thunderbird International Business Review Vol. 54, No. 5 September/October 2012 DOI: 10.1002/tie

TABLE 1 Differences between Economic Regions’ Use

of Social Media for Business Use

Economic

Region

Top 3 Reasons for Social Media

and Business Use

Mean (St. Error)

BRIC

Building business contacts 0.403 (0.019)

I don’t use it for business 0.384 (0.019)

Read content 0.316 (0.018)

Job search 0.213 (0.016)

Highlight expertise 0.175 (0.015)a

Product or service information 0.158 (0.014)a,b,c

Identify potential leads 0.155 (0.014)b,c

Market research 0.136 (0.013)c

Build brand awareness 0.09 (0.011)d,e

Drive viewers to blog and website 0.085 (0.011)d,e

Create new content 0.084 (0.011)e

Customer support 0.037 (0.007)f

Recruiting 0.036 (0.007)f

Customer feedback 0.033 (0.007)f

EU

Building business contacts 0.429 (0.013)a

I don’t use it for business 0.407 (0.013)a

Read content 0.234 (0.011)

Highlight expertise 0.198 (0.01)

Job search 0.16 (0.01)b

Identify potential leads 0.154 (0.009)b,c

Product or service information 0.129 (0.009)c

Build brand awareness 0.079 (0.007)d

Market research 0.073 (0.007)d,e,f

Create new content 0.057 (0.006)e,f,g

Drive viewers to blog and website 0.056 (0.006)e,f,g

Recruiting 0.044 (0.005)f,g,h

Customer feedback 0.032 (0.005)h,i

Customer support 0.024 (0.004) i

United States

Building business contacts 0.595 (0.015)

Highlight expertise 0.264 (0.014)a

Read content 0.244 (0.013)a,b

Job search 0.234 (0.013)a,b,c,d

I don’t use it for business 0.198 (0.012)c,d,e

Build brand awareness 0.197 (0.012)c,d,e

Identify potential leads 0.171 (0.012)d,e,f

Drive viewers to blog and website 0.143 (0.011)f

Product or service information 0.101 (0.009)g

Market research 0.093 (0.009)g,h

Create new content 0.076 (0.008)h,i

Recruiting 0.058 (0.007)i,j

Customer feedback 0.05 (0.007)j

Customer support 0.029 (0.005)

Numbers in () indicate standard deviation. Same letters indicate insignifi cant pairwise comparison at .05 level.

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DOI: 10.1002/tie Thunderbird International Business Review Vol. 54, No. 5 September/October 2012

TABLE 2 Differences between Economic Regions’ Use

of Social Media for Personal Use

Economic

Region

Top 3 Reasons for Social Media

for Personal Use

Mean (St. Error)

BRIC

Connect with friends and family 0.857 (0.014)

Make new friends 0.412 (0.019) a

Connect with people 0.376 (0.019) a

Read content 0.369 (0.019) a

Out of boredom 0.196 (0.015) b

Share links to content 0.167 (0.014) b, c

Read reviews 0.146 (0.014) c

Create new content 0.1 (0.012) d

Post ratings/reviews 0.072 (0.01) d

Find a job 0.07 (0.01) d

I don’t use it for personal 0.043 (0.008)

EU

Connect with friends and family 0.827 (0.01)

Read content 0.42 (0.013)

Connect with people 0.262 (0.012)

Share links to content 0.213 (0.011)

Out of boredom 0.173 (0.01)

Make new friends 0.13 (0.009) a

Create new content 0.107 (0.008) a

Read reviews 0.107 (0.008) a

I don’t use it for personal 0.076 (0.007)

Find a job 0.052 (0.006) b

Post ratings/reviews 0.041 (0.005) b

United States

Connect with friends and family 0.826 (0.012)

Read content 0.417 (0.015)

Connect with people 0.361 (0.015)

Share links to content 0.297 (0.014)

Make new friends 0.13 (0.011)a

Out of boredom 0.127 (0.01)a, b

Create new content 0.111 (0.01)a, b, c

Find a job 0.102 (0.009)b, c

Read reviews 0.088 (0.009)c

I don’t use it for personal 0.073 (0.008)d

Post ratings/reviews 0.038 (0.006)

Numbers in () indicate standard deviation. Same letters indicate insignifi cant pairwise comparison at .05 level

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690 FEATURE ARTICLE

Thunderbird International Business Review Vol. 54, No. 5 September/October 2012 DOI: 10.1002/tie

users tend to rank their reasons for using social networks

in a similar manner: that is connecting with friends and

family, as well as making new friends topping the list of

top social media uses.

In terms of primary social media tools for both busi-

ness and personal use, MySpace was found to be the most

popular across economic regions, with Twitter follow-

ing. Interestingly, Twitter was found as being equal to

MySpace in BRIC countries. However, for personal usage

the differences between the four most popular means of

social networking are smaller. Facebook and MySpace

tend to lead personal usage of social media across the

three regions. When looking across regions, we find

differences throughout, with the EU leading the way in

utilization of social media in business across all platforms,

with the exception of LinkedIn for business and Face-

book for personal usage. Tables 4 and 5 highlight the

differences in social media usage for both business and

personal usage.

When asked about other social networking resources

utilized in lieu of Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or Twit-

ter, global respondents overwhelmingly chose YouTube

as the next resource, with Flickr being in the global top

five. Again, there is more similarity between the United

States and EU following up, with Flickr, Delicious, MSN,

and Digg all claiming top ten spots. The greatest dis-

crepancy comes from the wide variety of selections made

by BRIC countries, indicating the role of regional and

country level preferences. While the top resources, such

as YouTube and Flickr, are globally utilized, specialized

and regionalized preferences quickly become predomi-

nant players, highlighting the need for firms to recognize

these cultural preferences in their selection of a social

media platform. For example, Orkut is widely used in

our BRIC sample, due to its popularity in Brazil, but falls

dramatically in usage for both the United States and EU.

In China, QQ, Q Zone, and Xiaonei are popular, as they

are local Chinese social media platforms catering to local

tastes and language preferences. Table 6 highlights these

differences.

When asked to discuss the role of translation within

social media content, BRIC countries made use of trans-

lation more than the other two regions. Further, when

this translation occurred, they were more likely to use

machine translation than the other two regions. Human

translation was the most preferred method for EU and

US respondents. The most common use of translation

across regions was to translate messages followed by

comments. This indicates that individuals translate the

content relating directly to the page/message they are

viewing, but not for information search. This implies that

personal usage than within BRIC countries. BRIC nations

are more avid users of the media to make friends and con-

nect with others than US and EU users, who instead dif-

ferentiate their usage of social media on a personal level.

By this we mean that US and EU users focus on more

individual reasons for using social media. Conversely, the

BRIC regions are more likely to share content and do not

significantly differentiate their main reasons for using the

media. For example, BRIC nations predominantly use

social networking to connect with existing friends and

family. However, they do not distinguish between making

friends, connecting with others, or reading content. This

is in stark contrast to EU and US users, who after con-

necting with friends make a significant choice in their use

of social media to read content, followed by connecting

with others, and then sharing content. BRIC nations do

not differentiate in their primary reasons for using social

media, which implies that they are more multifaceted

users of social networking, whereas EU and US users are

more directed in their supporting reasons for using social

media.

Finally, while there are significant differences between

regions for both business and personal usage, the overall

rankings of reasons behind the usage of social networking

are quite similar. When we look at the rankings, globally

BRIC nations do not differ-entiate in their primary rea-sons for using social media, which implies that they are more multifaceted users of social networking, whereas EU and US users are more directed in their support-ing reasons for using social media.

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TABLE 3 Differences between Question of Social Media for Business or Personal Use by Economic Region

Question

Business Use

BRIC

Meana

European Union

Meana

USA

Meana

Chi-Square Difference

(BRIC/EU)

Building business contacts 0.403** 0.429** 0.595 1.29

Highlight expertise 0.175** 0.198** 0.264 1.54

Read content 0.316** 0.234 0.244 16.62**

Job search 0.213 0.16** 0.234 9.23**

I don’t use it for business 0.383** 0.407** 0.198 1.01

Build brand awareness 0.09** 0.079** 0.197 0.66

Identify potential leads 0.155 0.154 0.171 0

Drive viewers to blog and website 0.085** 0.056** 0.143 6.11*

Product or service information 0.158** 0.129* 0.101 3.22

Market research 0.136** 0.073 0.093 21.17**

Create new content 0.084 0.057 0.076 5.22*

Recruiting 0.036* 0.044 0.058 0.78

Customer feedback 0.033 0.032* 0.05 0.02

Customer support 0.037 0.024 0.029 2.88

Personal Use

Connect with friends and family 0.857 0.827 0.826 3.11

Read content 0.369 0.42 0.417 4.81*

Connect with people 0.376 0.262** 0.361 29.48**

Share links to content 0.167** 0.213** 0.297 5.8*

Make new friends 0.412** 0.13 0.13 197.29**

Out of boredom 0.196** 0.173** 0.127 1.62

Create new content 0.1 0.107 0.111 0.26

Find a job 0.07* 0.052** 0.102 2.67

Read reviews 0.146** 0.107 0.088 6.88**

I don’t use it for personal 0.043* 0.076 0.073 7.81**

Post ratings/reviews 0.072** 0.041 0.038 8.59**

** p < 0.01, *p < 0.05. a Signifi cance between Region and N. America.

when firms fail to translate information, consumers are

not retranslating that information on their own, unless it

is a directed personal message.

More specifically, the strongest preference for trans-

lated content was seen in the case of China, where 86

percent of Chinese preferred content in simplified Chi-

nese. It seems India is one of the only countries in our

sample that uses more machine translation than human

translation. Both human and machine translation have

their challenges in the present state of the industry. Few

individuals are multilingual or have access to transla-

tors to help them translate social media content. In

terms of technology, machine translation has not yet

evolved enough to take into account the grammatical

and idiomatic nuances of translation. However, new and

existing technologies are being leveraged by companies

to enhance the quality of machine translation. In the next

section, we explore industry insights into a cutting-edge

tool that leverages both machine and human translation

to allow for real-time translations. Tables 7 and 8 high-

light these differences.

Managerial Implications

Findings from this study show that among all world

regions BRIC countries tend to be the least proactive

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social media in BRIC economies, it could also have some

cultural explanations. Brazil, India, and China tend to

be more collectivist than most European countries and

the United States. In collectivist cultures, it is easier to

connect and communicate with people if they are part of

in using social media for business use but are avid users

for personal use. But even in terms of personal use, the

study shows that BRIC nations predominantly use social

networking to connect with existing friends and family.

While this finding can be related to slower diffusion of

TABLE 4 Differences in Usage of Social Media for Business Usage by Region

Economic

Region

Which Do You Use for

Business Use?

Mean Std. Error Mean Difference

Facebook MySpace LinkedIn Twitter

BRIC

Facebook 2.658 .044 .000 .776* .206* .710*

MySpace 3.434 .034 .000 .570* .066

LinkedIn 2.864 .046 .000 .504*

Twitter 3.369 .038 .000

EU

Facebook 2.968 .031 .000 .836* .164* .585*

MySpace 3.803 .015 .000 1.000* .251*

LinkedIn 2.803 .031 .000 .749*

Twitter 3.553 .024 .000

United States

Facebook 2.613 .037 .000 1.219* .619* .321*

MySpace 3.833 .015 .000 1.838* .898*

LinkedIn 1.994 .034 .000 .941*

Twitter 2.935 .037 .000

Which Do You Use for Business Use?

Economic Region Mean Std. Error Mean Difference

BRIC EU United States

Facebook

BRIC 2.658 .045 .000 .309** .045

EU 2.968 .031 .000 .354**

United States 2.613 .037 .000

MySpace

BRIC 3.434 .024 .000 .369** .398**

EU 3.803 .016 .000 .029

United States 3.833 .019 .000

LinkedIn

BRIC 2.864 .044 .000 .061 .870**

EU 2.803 .030 .000 .809**

United States 1.994 .036 .000

Twitter

BRIC 3.369 .040 .000 .184** .434**

EU 3.553 .027 .000 .618**

United States 2.935 .032 .000

** p < 0.01, *p < 0.05.

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TABLE 5 Differences in Usage of Social Media for Personal Usage by Region

Economic

Region

Which Do You Use for

Personal Use?

Mean Std. Error Mean Difference

Facebook MySpace LinkedIn Twitter

BRIC

Facebook 2.304 .045 .000 .993* .791* .990*

MySpace 3.297 .037 .000 .201* .003

LinkedIn 3.096 .042 .000 .199*

Twitter 3.294 .040 .000

EU

Facebook 1.985 .030 .000 1.665* 1.315* 1.596*

MySpace 3.650 .018 .000 .350* .069*

LinkedIn 3.300 .024 .000 .281*

Twitter 3.581 .022 .000

United States

Facebook 1.772 .034 .000 1.955* .998* 1.290*

MySpace 3.727 .019 .000 .957* .665*

LinkedIn 2.770 .033 .000 .292*

Twitter 3.062 .035 .000

Which Do You Use for Personal Use?

Economic Region Mean Std. Error Mean Difference

BRIC EU United States

Facebook

BRIC 2.304 .044 .000 .320** .532**

EU 1.985 .030 .000 .213**

United States 1.772 .035 .000

MySpace

BRIC 3.297 .028 .000 .353** .430**

EU 3.650 .019 .000 .078**

United States 3.727 .023 .000

LinkedIn

BRIC 3.096 .038 .000 .205** .325**

EU 3.300 .026 .000 .530**

United States 2.770 .031 .000

Twitter

BRIC 3.294 .038 .000 .287** .232**

EU 3.581 .026 .000 .519**

United States 3.062 .031 .000

** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

the culture or “in-group,” and time and trust is needed

for “out-group” members to be accepted in the group.

Thus, when doing business in collectivist countries like

China or Brazil, it is important to first develop trusting

relationships before using social media as a business

Rolodex (e.g., the role of Guanxi in China). Social media

in collectivist countries may play a more important role

in terms of nurturing and maintaining existing business

relationships than as a tool for developing new business

contacts and relations online.

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TABLE 6 Comparison of Alternative Social Media Platforms and Translation Tools across Regions

What Other Social Media

Platforms Do You use?

BRIC

Meana/b

European Union

Meana/b United StatesChi-Square Difference

(BRIC/EU)

Bebo 0.158(0.593)** 0.114(0.494)* 0.071(0.402) 3.13

Biip 0.096(0.47)* 0.039(0.31) 0.044(0.329) 10.21**

Cloob 0.078(0.42)** 0.032(0.294) 0.019(0.218) 7.62**

Cyworld 0.136(0.548)** 0.033(0.295) 0.031(0.27) 25.26**

Delicious 0.212(0.696)** 0.2(0.687)** 0.426(0.924) 0.15

Digg 0.176(0.615)** 0.142(0.581)** 0.389(0.857) 1.52

Flickr 0.518(0.927)** 0.548(0.948)** 0.812(1.071) 0.46

Fotolog 0.106(0.488)** 0.045(0.327) 0.03(0.269) 10.67**

Friendster 0.151(0.571)* 0.042(0.318)** 0.097(0.459) 26.91**

Hi5 0.416(0.862)** 0.148(0.55)** 0.07(0.378) 67.38**

Hyves 0.087(0.456)** 0.059(0.363)** 0.021(0.245) 2.15

Imeem 0.107(0.499)** 0.034(0.287) 0.038(0.302) 16.42**

Iwiw 0.081(0.437)** 0.054(0.371)* 0.022(0.243) 2.15

Lide 0.091(0.469)** 0.025(0.263) 0.016(0.206) 14.4**

Livejournal 0.27(0.773)** 0.092(0.45)** 0.145(0.54) 40.42**

Maktoob 0.082(0.442)** 0.024(0.252) 0.019(0.229) 12.7**

Mixi 0.097(0.484)** 0.028(0.266) 0.03(0.276) 15.64**

Msnwindows 0.99(1.237)** 0.649(1.092)** 0.273(0.756) 41.62**

Naszakl~A 0.094(0.478)** 0.142(0.538)** 0.02(0.235) 3.57

Netlog 0.143(0.566)** 0.068(0.391)* 0.031(0.284) 12.03**

Ning 0.13(0.549)** 0.091(0.448)** 0.349(0.81) 2.94

Odnokla~I 0.204(0.648)** 0.039(0.297) 0.034(0.286) 49.95**

One 0.1(0.477)** 0.031(0.28) 0.016(0.206) 15.26**

Orkut 1.043(1.107)** 0.072(0.392)* 0.115(0.488) 322.49**

Plaxo 0.191(0.639)** 0.171(0.604)** 0.35(0.798) 0.47

Qq 0.424(0.88)** 0.025(0.257) 0.028(0.269) 103.23**

Qzone 0.29(0.75)** 0.027(0.268) 0.025(0.252) 72.19**

Reddit 0.115(0.527) 0.054(0.362)** 0.113(0.487) 9.04**

Renren 0.215(0.66)** 0.025(0.263) 0.02(0.235) 52.2**

Scribd 0.178(0.633)* 0.057(0.371)** 0.114(0.507) 26.81**

Secondlife 0.101(0.491) 0.061(0.368)** 0.111(0.493) 4.42*

Skyblog~K 0.093(0.468)** 0.047(0.348)* 0.021(0.245) 5.94*

Slidesh~E 0.169(0.619) 0.099(0.456)** 0.201(0.617) 8.17**

Sonico 0.093(0.471)** 0.025(0.257) 0.024(0.247) 15.31**

Stumbleupon 0.127(0.528)** 0.113(0.507)** 0.274(0.766) 0.34

Tagged 0.179(0.614)** 0.041(0.309) 0.056(0.353) 38.39**

Technor~I 0.133(0.562)** 0.095(0.473)** 0.257(0.711) 2.57

Vkontakte 0.27(0.76)** 0.033(0.278) 0.028(0.258) 72.87**

Wretch 0.079(0.439)** 0.022(0.237) 0.021(0.233) 13.05**

Xanga 0.09(0.458)** 0.021(0.231) 0.033(0.281) 17.21**

Xiaonei 0.246(0.701)** 0.023(0.244) 0.019(0.224) 62.23**

Xing 0.125(0.546)** 0.194(0.639)** 0.061(0.36) 5.34*

YouTube 1.175(1.102)** 1.379(1.111)** 1.572(1.18) 14.66**

Zing 0.112(0.499)** 0.045(0.334) 0.049(0.339) 12.37**

Do you Translate Social Media? .276 (.447)** .217 (.412)** .179 (.383) 9.14**

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to local language demand is often more important than

providing a “perfect” translation.

The other option for translating social media is auto-

mated machine translation (MT). This can be a valuable

tool, as it allows social media publishers to offer transla-

tion instantly and dynamically, as a user expresses inter-

est. Clearly, MT removes the time barrier of traditional

translation. Unfortunately, the quality of MT is often

very poor, rendering the translation unintelligible and

unreliable. Therefore, when it comes to translating social

media content, the traditional approaches have largely

failed. As a result, the majority of social media content is

never translated. The next section describes cutting-edge

technological developments that combine human and

machine translation to deliver more accurate real-time

translation of multilingual content.

Industry Insight Into the Custom Real-Time Translator (CRT) Technology Tool

Emerging technologies can help companies leverage

both human translation and machine translation to pro-

vide real-time translation capability for social media users

worldwide. The “GeoFluent: Custom Real-Time Trans-

lator” (CRT) is an innovative technology solution that

uses the translation workspace and machine translation

engine to provide higher-quality real-time translations

Another interesting finding of this study shows that

while Twitter or Facebook may have some global appeal,

Orkut is still very popular in Brazil, and in China, QQ,

Q Zone, and Xiaonei are better positioned to cater to

Chinese local preferences. Thus, when targeting interna-

tional markets, companies need to consider popular local

social media sites in vogue in specific countries.

Our survey shows that there is a paradox when it

comes to multilingual social media. Eighty-five percent of

people surveyed use social media for business use. Almost

40% of worldwide social media users prefer content in

languages other than English, but only 23% are actually

translating their social media content. In short, organi-

zations are failing to meet the demand for multilingual

social media. The reasons are clear. Historically, there

have been two options for translating content—human

translation and automated machine translation. When it

comes to social media, those traditional approaches face

three major barriers: time, cost, and quality.

Human-based translation services provide a high

level of quality. Unfortunately, human translation is

expensive and time consuming. As a result, human-based

translation is typically done in advance, in anticipation

that a user would be interested in the content in their lan-

guage. While human-based translation is certainly appro-

priate for content such as software and medical devices,

it may not be as practical for social media that requires

a more immediate or real-time response. In the case of

social media and other applications, responding quickly

TABLE 6 Continued...

What Types of Content

Do You Translate?

Message 0.152(0.36)* 0.111(0.314) 0.112(0.315) 7.29**

Comments 0.097(0.296) 0.101(0.302) 0.084(0.277) 0.09

Blog 0.113(0.317)** 0.073(0.26) 0.063(0.244) 9.54**

Tweet 0.03(0.17) 0.034(0.182) 0.045(0.207) 0.3

Community Discussion 0.064(0.245)** 0.05(0.217)* 0.032(0.176) 1.91

Profi le 0.072(0.258)** 0.051(0.22)* 0.032(0.176) 3.62

Other 0.009(0.094) 0.016(0.125) 0.016(0.124) 1.56

How Do You Translate Social Media

Content?

Human 0.173(0.379)** 0.173(0.378)** 0.114(0.318) 0

Machine 0.137(0.344)** 0.07(0.254)* 0.093(0.29) 24.92**

Other 0.007(0.086) 0.003(0.059) 0.01(0.098) 1.51

**p < 0.01, * p < 0.05 Numbers in () indicate standard deviation. Signifi cance between Region and N. America.

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TABLE 7 Types of Media Translated by Region

Economic

Region

What Types of Content

Do You Translate?

Mean Std. Error Mean Difference

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

BRIC

Blog .113 .012 .084** .049** .042** .039* .016 .104**

Tweet .030 .007 .034** .042** .122** .067** .021**

Community discussion .064 .009 .007 .088** .033** .055**

Profi le .072 .010 .081** .025* .063**

Messages .152 .014 .055** .143**

Comments .097 .011 .088**

Other .009 .004

EU

Blog .073 .007 .039** .023** .022** .038** .028** .057**

Tweet .034 .005 .015* .017* .076** .067** .019**

Community discussion .050 .006 .001 .061** .052** .034**

Profi le .051 .006 .060** .050** .035**

Messages .111 .008 .010 .095**

Comments .101 .008 .085**

Other .016 .003

United States

Blog .063 .008 .019* .031** .031** .049** .020* .048**

Tweet .045 .006 .013 .013 .067** .039** .029**

Community discussion .032 .006 .000 .080** .052** .017*

Profi le .032 .006 .080** .052** .017*

Messages .112 .010 .028** .096**

Comments .084 .009 .068**

Other .016 .004

** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

(Geoworkz.com, 2011). A nontechnical description of

custom real-time translation technology is included here,

along with two case scenarios of how this technology can

be used for translating user-generated content and pro-

viding multilingual customer service.

The GeoFluent tool is an example of a custom

real-time translation tool that leverages a technology

platform called the Translation Workspace. Translation

Workspace is a cloud-based technology that contains

“Translation Memories” (TM) or content that has been

previously translated by humans. Translation Workspace

can be used by a firm to increase the productivity of its

high-quality, human-based translation by building upon

previously translated content stored in the cloud. The

second important technology leveraged for custom real-

time translation is an automated machine translation

technology that instantly translates content and com-

munications into multiple languages. The design of this

machine technology or MT engine is such that it can be

trained or “tuned” to increase quality. Studies have shown

that the highest increases in MT quality output occur

when the engine is trained using domain-specific and

even company-specific translation memories. By utilizing

this method in conjunction with Translation Workspace,

a firm can utilize the high-quality human-translated con-

tent in Translation Workspace to train and customize its

MT engine. In doing so, a firm can have a fully automated

solution that can be rapidly customized using existing

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language translation solution. With the help of a custom

real-time translation technology solution, the company

could easily integrate on-demand translation into all of

its support centers, forums, and web pages providing its

non-English-speaking customers with immediate access

to dynamic user-contributed content and rich support

resources in many languages.

Another example is the case of a major North

American retailer (name withheld for privacy reasons)

exploring the potential of custom real-time translation

technology. When a major North American retailer

specializing in housewares, furniture, and home acces-

sories faced the business challenge of expanding its

online and brick-and- mortar retail operations into three

new global markets, the company knew that increasing

online engagement between agent and customer could

play a valuable role in converting interested interna-

tional prospects into loyal customers. The problem was

that hiring in-country French, German, and Spanish

agents would cost the company five times as much as

hiring English-speaking agents. The immediate need

was for a cost-effective solution that would enable the

company to engage global customers proactively in their

native languages without having to incur additional

labor expenses for international sales and support.

The company was also concerned with how they could

preserve their brand integrity in global markets without

content and be configured for social media translation to

increase translation quality and availability.

Organizations are failing to reach the 40% of users

that desire social media content in languages other than

English. Technology solutions that effectively leverage

machine and human translation could allow companies

to offer a “translate now” capability on their blogs, mes-

sage boards, and social network platforms so that users

can get an instant translation as they need it. In addition

to demand in a social media environment, organiza-

tions with customer service operations are also rushing

to adopt this technology. The motivation is twofold—to

increase customer loyalty and satisfaction and avoid

costly calls to a technical support center. Next, we dis-

cuss two case scenarios to show how companies could

benefit from custom real-time translation technology as

a solution for translating user-contributed content and

providing multilingual customer support on a real-time

basis, respectively.

A global security technology company (name with-

held for privacy reasons) wanted to increase interna-

tional sales; it began by looking at how it could extend

its user-contributed content to its international and non-

English-speaking customers. It soon became obvious that

human translation methodologies would be ineffective in

handling the continually changing content, and the com-

pany quickly realized that it would have to find a real-time

TABLE 8 Mechanisms of Translating Media by Region

Economic Region How Do You Translate Social

Media Content?

Mean Std. Error Mean Difference

1 2 3

BRIC

Human translation .173 .015 .036 .166**

Machine translation(e.g., Google Translate)

.137 .013 .130**

Other .007 .003

EU

Human translation .173 .010 .103* .169**

Machine translation(e.g. Google Translate)

.070 .007 .066**

Other .003 .002 0

United States

Human translation .114 .010 .021 .104**

Machine translation(e.g. Google Translate)

.093 .009 .083**

Other .010 .003 0

** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.

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terms of further understanding the specific cross-cultural

differences in consumer motivations for use of social

media and expectations for localization and translation

of social media. Research is also needed to further

integrate machine translation technologies with human

translation to help connect islands of multilingual social

communities and bridge language differences on the

web. This study provides only a snapshot in time of the

global social media usage and language expectations. We

are seeing social media platforms like Facebook gaining

more traction and MySpace losing market share, and also

consumer motivations for social media usage are evolv-

ing. Thus, longitudinal studies are needed to assess how

global social media usage and consumption patterns tend

to evolve.

This research is also subject to some methodological

limitations. The use of an on-line survey tool limits the

respondents to those who both have immediate access

and self-reported usage of social networking. This could

create a bit of self-selection bias within the study. Further,

the use of categorical responses in determining social

media usage is limiting in the analysis that can be per-

formed; additional research would benefit from measur-

ing the magnitude of usage for each category in addition

to the type of usage.

Companies need to localize and translate their social

media platforms if they truly want to penetrate global

markets. We hope the findings from this study will help

companies better understand global social media patterns

having their corporate identity lost in translation. By

harnessing the power of custom real-time translation

technology, the company can extend the benefits of

proactive multilingual chat to its international and non-

English-speaking customers in the three target markets.

Moreover, because the custom real-time translation

technology solution like GeoFluent can be trained in

specific linguistic patterns and industry terminology, the

company would be able to easily preserve its brand and

corporate identity in the new markets. Leveraging such

automated custom translation technology can empower

the retailer to expand without incurring the costs of

additional facilities, in-region hiring, recruiting, staffing,

attrition, and everything else that comes along with sup-

porting customers in new markets.

As customized MT gains traction, organizations will

learn how to remove the time, cost, and quality barri-

ers that have inhibited multilingual communication. As

social media continues to grow at an unprecedented

pace in global markets, it will likely be at the forefront

of embracing the real-time, multilingual communication

solutions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the goal of this study was to address the

apparent gap in the current literature regarding lan-

guage usage in global social media. This study also tried

to uncover global social media usage patterns for busi-

ness and personal use across economic regions in North

America, Europe, and Asia. This cross-regional analysis

yielded global social media usage patterns and showed

that, while there are emerging similarities in social media

usage, countries show unique local preferences in terms

of how they utilize social media for business and personal

use. It is evident that Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and

Twitter usage is not uniform across the world, and there

are significant differences in terms of cross-regional

preference for these social media platforms. It is also evi-

dent that country-specific social media platforms are, in

fact, widely used along with global giants like Facebook,

Twitter, and others. Finally, the study showed that local

language preferences for social media usage are strong

across the world.

This study also took an economic regional view of

social networking trends. Thus, our analysis is limited

by the economic regional comparisons that are made.

Additional analysis and research across countries and

among particular cultural and psychological components

is needed to address differences between economic and

cultural environments. Future research is also needed in

It is evident that Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter usage is not uniform across the world, and there are significant differences in terms of cross-regional pref-erence for these social media platforms.

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Global Social Media Usage: Insights Into Reaching Consumers Worldwide 699

DOI: 10.1002/tie Thunderbird International Business Review Vol. 54, No. 5 September/October 2012

Acknowledgment

We would like to acknowledge Lionbridge Technologies

Inc. for the help with the data collection and information

for the case scenarios used in this research.

and consumer propensity to translate social media con-

tent on real-time basis. The case scenarios of a custom

real-time translation tool could serve as an example of

how to leverage both human and machine translation for

achieving real-time translation of social media.

Nitish Singh received his PhD from St. Louis University and is an assistant professor of international business at the

Boeing Institute of International Business, St. Louis University. His research emphasis is in the area of e-business,

cross-cultural research, and sustainability. His publications include journal articles in JIBS, Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, International Marketing Review, Journal of Advertising Research, MBR, JECR, JCB, TIBR, and others. He is also co-author of the book The Culturally Customized Websites and author of the forth-coming book Localization Strategies for Global E-Business.

Kevin Lehnert received his PhD from Saint Louis University and is an assistant professor of marketing in the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University. His research interests have focused on cross-cultural consumer behavior, social media, and advertising creativity.

Kathleen Bostick is vice president of travel and hospitality at Lionbridge. She specializes in global websites, interna-tional SEO, global social media, and multilingual content management. Prior to this role, Kathleen was vice president of global marketing, where she was responsible for setting the worldwide marketing strategy for Lionbridge, including developing a global social media strategy. This role gave her a unique global perspective on social media marketing, where she used her knowledge to develop innovative programs to connect with industry communities, clients, and analysts.

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