In theory, Facebook has provided a sensible solution. However,
brands expecting all their international Facebook issues to be
solved after launch of Global Pages may still have a few axes to
grind.
Most importantly, not all brands are eligible for the new pages.
Only those spending enough on Facebook advertising to justify a
named account manager at Facebook will qualify.
Also, this new structure inherits the inefficiencies and lack of
brand consistency from the local-pages model. It stops you from
sending out global content, as all of your important fans from
existing global pages will be automatically switched to local
market sub-pages, to which you can't send global updates. The only
people left on the global page will be fans from markets not big
enough to justify a budget to run a page of their own.
With only really engaging content now appearing in fans'
newsfeeds, because of the recent changes to Facebook's EdgeRank algorithm, this is the worst possible
scenario. Expecting local markets to be able to afford to produce
this sort of content on their own is naive.
Global teams need to make sure that local markets have access to
the new Global Pages through a page-management tool like Buddy
Media or Vitrue that is under global control. This will ensure that
they can still send global updates to all of their fans. Also they
must make sure to set up sub-pages only for local markets that can
properly support one.
Next, they should work on a content calendar with room for both
global and local updates, and pool budgets to make sure they can
create engaging social content and Facebook apps that are globally
relevant and can be easily localized.
If implemented successfully, this solution allows brands to have
the best of both worlds -- properly localized experiences for fans,
but with global brand consistency, along with the economies of
scale that come from a centralized content calendar and social
content and apps that work across markets.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robin Grant is global
managing director of We Are Social, a social-media agency with
offices in New York, London, Paris, Milan, Munich, Singapore,
Sydney and São Paulo.