The imperative for global brands is clear: It’s no longer enough to focus social efforts on English-speaking consumers in the United States and Europe through a one-size-fits-all approach. If this is your current strategy, your brand is missing an opportunity to effectively engage some of its most active customers through social media. But the right solution for your global brand is not always obvious. Many seemingly similar brands have adopted different structures. We’ve identified three primary Facebook page structure options for global brands:

If you’re asking yourself, “What’s the right structure for my brand?”, you’re in good company. Many global brands face challenges in determining how best to create an effective presence on Facebook, such as how community managers should handle the language and cultural differences within a fan base, and how to best capitalize on the local knowledge and expertise of regional resources while maintaining corporate oversight. Most importantly, brands need to decide whether one global Facebook page or multiple regional pages makes the most sense. After implementing Facebook pages for dozens of customers with international audiences, we’ve identified four steps that are critical to developing a successful, sustainable social presence.

Step 1: Audit your brand’s social presence and operational resources

The most efficient social model for your brand is likely the one that best maps to your current organizational structure and leverages social resources in a thoughtful way. Consider these aspects of your company

• Organizational structure. Determine whether your brand’s marketing activities and budget are centralized (controlled by one central corprate team), or decentralized (controlled by country-based or regional teams with separate budgets and distinct audience segments).
• Available resources for Facebook page management. Evaluate your brand’s social marketing resources, weighing location, bandwidth, and level of experience. Are these resources sufficient to manage social media activity in your company’s various markets?
• Current Facebook page structure and performance. Conduct a detailed review of your current Facebook presence. How many pages exist? Who controls those pages? How is each page performing in terms of total fan base and engaged users?

Step 2: Establish a framework for your global presence

Whether you’re surprised by your company’s current Facebook page structure or simply striving to achieve a manageable global presence, below are two viable page structures to help you determine what makes the most sense for your brand and prepare you for the potential page management challenges you may encounter as you advance your global rollout:

Centralized Facebook presence

Best for brands with a highly centralized organizational structure and a strong single-brand identity, such as consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands like Coca-Cola and Skittles. In this scenario, brands operate a primary page where the vast majority of their total Facebook fans reside. While there may be regional or product-specific pages, it’s likely that those pages are either operated outside of the organization (created by fans) or have too few fans or too little engagement to be considered impactful.

Regional brand presence

Best for brands with a decentralized organizational structure and unique external brand identities at the regional level, such as retail and hospitality brands with specific local tastes and preferences, like Starbucks or Hyatt. In this scenario, brands typically operate a primary brand page as well as numerous regional or property pages with healthy Like counts and high levels of engagement. These brands generally have local resources in place to manage these pages and relate to the audience segments, which is key to social success in those markets. The combination of a primary corporate page and individually managed local pages is often referred to as the hub-and-spoke model.

This does not need to be an all or nothing approach. Many brands have one primary page with unique pages for some, but not all, countries or regions.

Step 3: Implement an enterprise-level social management platform

Adopting a social media management platform and implementing a strong social strategy can alleviate many of the disadvantages outlined above. Your primary goal is to enable the best resources to manage your brand’s pages in the most effective way. Social management platforms, particularly those designed for enterprise-level organizations, provide additional levels of workflow and governance support than are delivered through Facebook’s native structure

A social management platform gives your brand’s marketers and multinational customers the richest, most authentic opportunities to engage, which is the goal of having a brand presence on Facebook in the first place.

Step 4: Establish an internal check-in and audit process

Conclusion

Global brands have a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on growing and engaged audiences in emerging markets. As you weigh options for an optimal brand structure, remember that reaching your audience in an authentic way is the best path to converting Facebook fans into customers. So take a step back, and think about the ways that your brand successfully reaches and talks to consumers today, through both offline and online media. Then implement a corresponding structure designed to achieve brand success, not only on Facebook but across all social platforms.