When it comes to market research for international audiences, it’s tempting to outsource everything if you can afford it. And today many people today try to do their international market research online. But when you do lots of online research you can get complacent.

No matter what your business is, there comes a time when you must have direct contact with the people. People in your international markets.  You can pick up lots of useful information when you communicate with others in person. And this information can prove to be vital when it comes to people who live in a different country, have a different lifestyle and a different way of thinking. Unfortunately I meet a number of people who seem to avoid picking up the phone.

Here are the most useful tips I have found when connecting with people in your international markets by phone.

#1: Do Your Prep Work

First of all, remember why you are seeking direct contact. Take a few steps back and review your situation. You want to see the big picture and not get bogged down in too many details. You’ll hear more feedback when you are open to what could be of interest to you.

#2: Get Comfortable With The Phone

Get social!
(CC licensed Flickr photo by the waving cat)

 
Sometimes it’s easy to pick up the phone and call people located in your target country. And this is great!  Phone calls can be a great starting point.

And if you think it’s impossible to reach the right people by phone, try thinking outside of the box.  Look at the contacts you do have. Look at the social media contacts you already have, and the ones it would be easy to cultivate. With the notion of six pixels of separation, slowly start networking and look for a way to begin to get feedback from the right source.

#3: Who To Connect With

This is where many people jump into sticky mud.  In some cultures you could get away with reaching out directly to the person you’re interested in. But in many cultures this is not the best place to start.  And you could hinder relationships by Why not start with the outer circle of your contacts and gradually move inwards towards the people you are most interested in connecting with? This takes a bit longer, but if can give you insights into how best to proceed.

#4: Review Context Before You Call

Context is everything. Review the reasons why you are calling this particular person before you pick up the phone. Think of what you’re going to say. Now imagine the person on the other end of the phone. Will this seem normal to him?

One clear goal per phone call usually works best. Because if you ask for too much information or want to get too much out of a call, this can confuse people from different cultures or send wrong messages. You want them to quickly understand why you are calling them and the context has to be relevant to both of you.

#5: Stay Focused

There’s a balance to find in being clear about what you want and remaining open for helpful feedback. And this is how a few well planned questions can come in handy. But in order to get useful feedback from your international contacts you’ll also need to go with the flow because that’s where you can uncover some gems of information. So, you’ll need to remember to stay focused on the big picture.

#6: Keep A Mental Tab Of What You Can Say

I just mentioned having a few well planned questions, but you can also review a few other things you can say to get the conversation going. And when talking to people of different cultures over the phone you might find you need to adjust your usual communication tactics. Here are some good things to keep in mind.

• Confirm what you know, what you understand from this and ask if this is accurate.
• Ask if there’s more information you need to know
• Ask for suggestions and then try to understand the relevancy

When doing international market research by phone I like to cross-reference the same general questions with several sources. This makes it much easier to understand cultural differences.

#7: Get Over The Fear

It is normal to be apprehensive about calling someone you do not know.  And when you are calling to a different country it can even be daunting.  Add in the factor that you may not know if the person speaks English and you may not feel like reaching out. There’s no need to be afraid. People are basically polite.  Even more so when they feel they are helping you.

#8: Cultivate Curiosity To Open Communication

When you call someone thousands of miles away, they will be curious why. This can be a great way to start conversations and get the information you’re looking for.

#9: Create Better Connections With Your International Markets

Make these eight steps a habit. Whenever you interact with someone related to your international market be open to feedback and try to learn a little bit more. This is how you’ll learn to build stronger connections and ultimately have a better foundation for understanding your international markets.

A Better Understanding Of Your International Markets

The knowledge you can gain through simple phone conversations with your international markets can help you improve your international strategies and get more international clients. Of course you’ll need more research, and even in-person meetings, but connecting by phone is very easy to incorporate into your schedule and can help you to understand your international markets much better.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

9 Tips To Learn More About Your International Markets Over The Phone

International Links

Last week I found several interesting links on international social media and a few others for international business. I particularly enjoyed reading the first one in the list below: the Forbes article on the shift in trade routes. It’s a bit long but well worth reading.

International Business

• The Future Of Finance Shifts From West To East – Enjoyed reading this article by Michael Geoghegan of HSBC on how the CIVETS are joining the BRICs and why trade routes are changing. Are you seeing these changes?

Facebook Business Page on International Business:

International Marketing

• Why Did Paris Hilton Drop Her Guard In Brazil? – A look at how a beer company skilfully took culture into consideration to get the results they wanted. -

Facebook Business Page on International Marketing:

International Sales

• Negotiating With Chinese Companies. In Real Life – Here is a review of “When Chinese dreams meet the real world: Western negotiators in China need to keep their heads out of the clouds” by Andrew Hupert with great insights into negotiating in China.

Facebook Business Page on International Sales:

International Social Media

• StatCounter Global Stats – Have a look at this infograph comparing popularity of different social media platforms worldwide. You can also select world regions and see the differences there. It’s interesting to see how StumbleUpon does in North America compared to Europe. Like all social media stats, I wonder how accurate these are.
• Official Google Blog: Integrating virtual keyboards in Google search – Difficulty typing in foreign languages on your keyboards? Have a look at these virtual keyboards with different alphabets.
• 8 Social Media Strategies to Engage Multicultural Consumers – A great read by Jessica Carter from Technicultr. What other social media strategies would you use for multicultural audiences?
• Twitter analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills – Christian Kreutz has a look at social media strategies of a few development organizations. I’m interested in seeing how things evolve over the next few years. What about you?

Facebook Business Page on International Social Media:

Now It’s Your Turn

• What interesting links did you find recently?
• What do these international and cross-cultural links inspire for you?
• Which international link is your favorite?

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Links: Week 17 2010

Social Media Localization

It’s funny how things sometimes happen in a series. Last week all of the North Americans I spoke with asked me the same question:

“Do you need to adapt your social media communication to different cultural audiences?”

It intrigued me that all of these questions came from North Americans and I think I have an answer as to why this happened… more on that later. I want to answer this question first.

By the way, for those of you who are not familiar with the term “localization” this refers to adapting all of your communication to different local cultures. It’s much more than just translation and includes all aspects of communication. Localization means adapting your communication make sure your message gets across in the right way.

Adapt Your Communication For International Audiences

The short answer is: yes.

To create genuine communication you must adapt how your social media communication to the different cultural audiences you want to reach.

Adapting your communication always gives you better results when communicating with different cultures, and sometimes it’s critical to do so. If you don’t adapt your communication you can lose relationships which leads to losing clients and business.

More Cultural Differences Are Visible On Social Media

But there is also a longer answer because the localization of social media communication goes deeper than cross-cultural people skills. Social media communication can be a little bit more challenging than other traditional forms of communication such as print communication or emails.

Here are two characteristics of cross-cultural social media that magnify the cultural differences others see in you.

Your cultural differences are obvious. It’s hard to hide from who you are on social media and this means

You get close when you’re social. Social media gets you closer to people. It is a social environment and people tend to let their guards down when they are behind a computer. It’s easier to say things online that you wouldn’t say in person. It’s easy to forget about trying to respect the other person’s cultural differences.

This is why you should always pay attention to the messages you are conveying to others and how they are perceived on social media.

People Skills To Connect With Different Cultures On Social Media

Good cross-cultural social media skills require both:

• Strong “soft” skills or people skills
• Good cross-cultural skills

Over the years I’ve noticed how most North American business professionals don’t have time for these “soft” skills.  They prefer to focus on the skills that are easy to measure and ones you can learn through courses. This may be why this question seems to crop up more often there than in the other cultures I network with.

Cross-cultural skills are not so easy to pick up or develop, they:

• Require some personal work
• Usually require international experience

Localization Of Social Media

Some of the people I spoke with needed some more insights

Here are the personal observations I shared with them regarding cross-cultural differences on two popular social media platforms.

Different Networking Practices On Twitter

Prior to my cross-cultural twitter interviews I chat with my guests and try to learn more about how they use Twitter in their country.  For some people it may come as a surprise to learn that English speakers in different countries do not have the same habits on Twitter.

Some cultures are more at ease in striking up instant friendships, and some cultures need a bit more time.  This impacts the relationships you form on Twitter.  And if you use Twitter for international networking it also means you need to use cross-cultural communication skills even on Twitter.

Different Job Hunting Practices On LinkedIn

One of the people I spoke to yesterday needed to advise his clients on business networking on LinkedIn.  Communication on LinkedIn is just the same as any other communication.

Every time I navigate on LinkedIn I’m struck by it’s the strong North American atmosphere. In cross-cultural terms most of the people I run into on LinkedIn have very strong traits of “individualism”.  Obviously LinkedIn is mainly a job hunting platform which brings out these North American traits even more.

Even if you come across people from different cultures on LinkedIn there is a very strong probability they use it differently than a North American on LinkedIn.

Different Perceptions Of The New Like Button On Facebook

It’s easy to see how different people use Facebook and thanks to the newly improved Insights box on Facebook Business Pages you can monitor some international metrics.  But the fun thing I’m noticing lately is the differences in appreciation of the new “Like” button.  So many of the North Americans in my network seem to identify more personal endorsement just because the button is now called “Like” and not “Become A Fan”.

The reaction to this small little word reminds me of the need to localize social media buttons in some Eastern countries.

• In most Western cultures having a real photo creates credibility and in some Eastern cultures it creates discomfort. Cartoon gravatars work much better.
• In Western cultures it’s easy to use the notion of being a “friend” on social media and in some Eastern cultures the use of the term “friend” creates uncomfortable situations for fear of offending others by not being their friend.

Those are extreme reactions to small things in social media.  And when you dig deeper and analyze communication on Facebook, you’re sure to encounter subtle differences in perception which can have significant impact on your Facebook marketing.

No Standard Social Media Localization Plan

Even with the knowledge of some of these differences you still cannot expect to come up with a standard international social media localization plan or generalizations for all international markets.  It’s hard to do. Social media marketing for international audiences is still evolving due to a number of reasons:

• Some countries are still catching up to social media and at different speeds.
• The cultural differences between generations within different countries makes it difficult to provide a cookie cutter solution for using social media.
• We should see growth in online communication from several countries thanks to recent changes by ICANN to allow URLs with different alphabets.
• The demographics in many countries are undergoing dramatic changes and this will eventually impact cross-cultural communication with these countries. Cross-cultural generalizations established in the last century are rapidly becoming obsolete.

Social media marketing in different cultures follows the same basics as in your own country: you need to get to know your audience well before you can create an effective communication plan. The good news is that you can use social media to help you get to know your audience if you take the time to go slowly and do the person-to-person networking you need to learn how to adapt your communication.

Now, Over To You

• Have you adapted any of your communication on social media to different international audiences?
• What are your favorite social media platforms for your international audiences?
• What cultural differences do you notice on the different social media platforms?

It would be great to hear from you. Please share your comments below.

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Do You Need Social Media Localization?

International Links

I shared a number of interesting international and cross-cultural links last week on Facebook and Twitter. Here’s a quick summary.

Cross-Cultural Topics

• Ten things we have learnt about Africa - Some interesting stats here on different African countries.
• Investing in Foreign Land – this article brought up things I hadn’t thought about.
• A Popular U.S. Export, the $100 Bill - ”A big part of the demand comes from the use of American currency in stores and at street vendors in many countries, including some in which citizens have little faith in their own currencies.” An interesting look into the new $100 bill.
• Reverse Japan’s insularity - Are there less Japanese students abroad now?
• Eufeeds – over 1000 newspapers, updated every 20 minutes - An incredibly handy online international newspaper rack found via Adam Vincenzini

Facebook Business Page on Cross-Cultural Communication:

International Business

• Who Are America’s Exporters? - ”While forming the bulk of U.S. exporting companies, SMBs ship only a fraction of the value of U.S. exports.”
• Understanding Cultural Differences in Offshore Outsourcing - Here’s a look at cross-cultural challenges when outsourcing.

Facebook Business Page on International Business:

International Marketing

• What Was Tiger Woods Thinking? - Great points made by Elliot Polak of Textappeal (@CultureShocks on Twitter). Different cultures don’t have the same response to “personal scandals” of celebrities. It’s interesting how Nike played this out.

Facebook Business Page on International Marketing:

International Sales

• Size no barrier to export success - A look at how Australian small businesses are now selling more to China than to the European Union.

Facebook Business Page on International Sales:

International Social Media

• Skype By the Numbers: It’s Really Big - I use Skype daily and when I first started I lost lots of time dealing with French speaking North Africans who use Skype as a “dating chat tool” and who culturally take a long time getting to the point. I also notice how some people use Skype exactly like a phone, they just call whenever they see want to. … While others realize this tool is more than a traditional telephone when used in a new environment and send a Skype chat message first. What’s your experience of Skype as an international networking tool?
• How Tech Start-ups Like Foursquare and Meetup Are Trying to Overthrow Old Media - Several things stood out in the article, including adapting social media to different cultures within the same country and the lack of women in social media start ups. This is a bit long, but a good read. What stands out for you?

Facebook Business Page on International Social Media:

Now It’s Your Turn

• What interesting links did you find recently?
• What do these international and cross-cultural links inspire for you?
• Which international link is your favorite?

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Links: Week 16 2010

International Links

Here are the international and cross-cultural links found last week.

Cross-Cultural Topics

• Baidu Integrates Real-Time Translation into its Browser - Putting the Google/China story aside, this is proof the tools for International Marketing are getting much more interesting.
• Asia’s Expensive Restaurants - Part of the fun when travelling is trying the local food. I wonder what extra these restaurants have to offer.
• For Japanese Women, The Past Is The Latest Fad – Here’s an interesting read on Japanese culture today.
• Globish, Technology, and the Plight of the Japanese Language - A very interesting read on how Globish impacts other languages. Grab a coffee, there are lots of videos too.

Facebook Business Page on Cross-Cultural Communication:

International Business

• The India Way Of Doing Business - This is a fascinating read even if you are interested in doing business in a culture other than India. It highlights the cultural differences in doing business.

Facebook Business Page on International Business:

International Marketing

• Cross-cultural Communication Strategy – the 4 Building Blocks - Read Amadou M. Sall’s article on how to build a cross-cultural marketing strategy with a Global Mindset, Global Knowledge, Global Cross-Cultural Skills & Global Business Skills.
• One Piece Localization or Censorship? - Click through and watch this 4 minute video to see an example of a Japanese anime cartoon localized for the American market. What do you think of this?

Facebook Business Page on International Marketing:

International Sales

• A special report on America’s economy: Export or die - Do you think American businesses will need to rely less on selling to Americans and more on selling abroad?
• History of American Sales Culture - Here’s an interesting look at the American sales culture by Alen Majer. If you have insights about other sales cultures please let me know.
• SarahLacy.com: My Favorite Books about Emerging Markets - What are your favorite books on emergying marketing?

Facebook Business Page on International Sales:

International Social Media

• In Canada, .ca is replacing .com - Here in France most French websites use .fr What’s the trend in your country?
• Multilingual SEO: Things to Remember - This is a good read on Search Engine Journal to get you started with multilingual SEO. Do you have any other tips to add?
• Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Working with multi-regional websites - Read this for guidelines on how to structure multilingual blogs and websites to reach different markets.
• How To Add Languages That You Speak To Google Chrome - Here’s a useful tip for multilingual Chrome users.
• What translation means for SEO – Blogs & Content - Here’s a look at the difference of translation for SEO and for advertising or marketing. What do you think of the translation solely for SEO purposes? We don’t usually do it in English. But it seems some websites need it to reach global audiences fast.
• Cause for concern – The Personal videos Campaign - Here’s a video case study of how an Israeli TV show used free social media as its only source of publicity. The results: 4.7% rating for the season debut and 1,800 mentions in blogs, social networks & newspapers in Israel.
  Do you have any other video social media case studies to share?

Facebook Business Page on International Social Media:

Now It’s Your Turn

• What about you? Did you find any interesting links recently?
• What do these international and cross-cultural links inspire for you?
• Which international link is your favorite?

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Links: Week 15 2010

International Links

Here’s another weekly roundup of all of the useful and interesting links I share on Facebook and Twitter.

Cross-Cultural Topics

• The rich cultural heritage that is Germany - Here’s the story behind the Gretschen Question and a look at German cultural heritage.
• 7 Habits of a Happy Expat - A good read to make a successful international move.
• A List of Free International Education Resources - David Comp over at the International Higher Education Consulting Blog shares his resources for information on international education. Do you have any others to add?
• How To Avoid Burnout Learning Japanese - Tempted to take up Japanese? Rainbowhill Language Lab advises to make a long term commitment.

Facebook Business Page on Cross-Cultural Communication:

International Business

• Taking Your Small Business International - Are you a small business and need some help in understanding the legal terms involved in doing international business? Here’s a short summary to help.
• Going Global: Is an Online Strategy Enough? - Here’s a good read on Bloggertone about remembering your whole marketing mix when using International Marketing online. I particularly like the warning about not jumpint into website localization too soon. How are you integrating your international web marketing with your offline marketing activities?
• Five myths about China’s economy - Here’s a look at some of the misperceptions about China and it’s impact on America and the rest of the world.
• Setting Up Your China Rep Office. What It Really Takes. - This is an easy read, good if you are just beginning to think of opening an office in China.

Facebook Business Page on International Business:

International Marketing

• DR4WARD: Wish I Thought of That (Ideas From Around The World Worth Sharing) - There is a good selection of videos here to get you thinking about international marketing. Which one is your favorite?

Facebook Business Page on International Marketing:

International Social Media

• Social Networking Habits Vary Considerably Across Asia-Pacific Markets - I just read something yesterday about how Malaysians need to empathasize with people and then I came across this press release by comScore. It’s really interesting to look at social networking stats with a deeper understanding of each culture. Are you surprised by any of this info?
• Have Indian IT companies missed the Social Media bus? - The author here notes the lack of use of social media by large IT companies in India. There are some interesting questions here and it highlights the cultural differences in being social.

Facebook Business Page on International Social Media:

Now It’s Your Turn

• What about you? Did you find any interesting links recently?
• What do these international and cross-cultural links inspire for you?
• Which international link is your favorite?

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Links: Week 14 2010

International Business Networking

International business and cross-cultural communication university professors have been sharing my blog with their  students for some time now. I see this by monitoring the statistics on my blog.

A few of these university professors embrace social media and also connect with me on Twitter and Facebook. And it’s fun when they ask me to join in on their classes using Twitter.

Many of the students are awkward and don’t know how to create meaningful conversations with me.  They stick to stilted requests for the information they need.  But some students get it and engage with me on social media with conversations that truly interest both of us.  Some students even create cross-cultural communication blogs to review my blog as part of their homework assignments.

It’s great to see students move out of the student role into real social media networking because we are usually passionate about the same topics and they become fun connections on social media.  Unfortunately these students usually come and go very rapidly.

Homework Assignement Cop Out

I also regularly get requests from students to help them complete their homework.  Most of these requests would take me at least a good half hour to respond to.

You can read more about why I don’t respond to requests to do homework assignments but essentially I just don’t have the time to do this. Besides, this blog is not about doing university assignments, it’s where I share the experience I have after over 25 years in international business.

New Trend In Requests From Students

Most of the requests I get from students are on this blog’s subject: cross-cultural skills in today’s media for international business development.  But what’s interesting is that I’ve been getting a different type of request recently.  This time students are asking me to help them with university assignments on social media.

Now this might corresponds to my involvement with Social Media Examiner and it’s rapid rise to popularity, but I’ve also noticed the online chatter about well-known universities now starting social media programs.

Social Media Survey

I’d like to share with you a survey I received recently from a university student who said her professor had asked all students to contact bloggers with these questions.

1. How does social media change advertising for businesses? I don’t think of social media as advertising. It’s more like business networking to me. Yes, businesses can do some advertising on social media. But Facebook ads and paid tweets represent a small minority of the social media tactics.
2. Do companies benefit more by advertising through social media? Why, or why not? I wouldn’t know. I don’t use social media for advertising. Social media does improve your visibility online, but this is a vast topic and you’d need to fine tune your question to keep this answer reasonable.
3. How have social media changed in the past five years? It would be easier to answer this question, if you asked “how has social media changed in the last year“. There have been too many changes for me to want to answer this in a short survey.
4. Can you predict the way social media will change in the next ten years? We can barely predict how social media will be in a year’s time, 10 years is a bit too far into the future.
5. How have social media empowered consumers, and given them a voice? Well, I think people have always had the voice on social media.
6. How does social media change the way people now communicate? Again this seems a funny question to me. I’m not a scholar and  haven’t done any research… but I do think social media came about because communication changed fundamentally a while back. Even if some people haven’t yet connected the dots to understand this, it’s not the other way round.
7. Has social media become overly addicting? Why or why not? Again, this is a question someone who is new to social media would ask. Very rapidly when you use social media on a regular basis, other questions take the lead, such as personal productivity and focus.
8. Do social media change consumers’ purchasing decisions? Why or why not? Of course.  People are influenced by what their friends say and recommend.  Social media is social.
9. Twitter grew a lot faster than expected. Why is Twitter beneficial and effective? Again it’s about networking and Twitter is real-time networking.
10. Can you predict that social media will always be free like most of it is now? Why or why not? As I said, I don’t think anyone knows with reasonable certitude what’s in store for social media in the future.
11. What are some disadvantages of social media? You need to jump in and actually use it for a while to understand what’s really happening.  If the person who wrote these questions had actually used social media, theses questions would be very different.
12. What are the main advantages of social media? Being closer in tune with society today.
13. Is LinkedIn the best social network to communicate professionally? Why or why not? How does LinkedIn help consumers find jobs? LinkedIn is a place for job hunters to meet potential employers, and vice-versa. Plus it’s predominately North American in culture. So it’s good for people who fall into those categories.

Now although this student asked for detailed answers by Thursday, I’m sure you can see why this is impossible even if I was in the business of helping out university students.

Improving Questions To Get A Response With Meaning

First of all, it’s very easy to see by the questions that the neither the professor nor the student know anything about social media or why businesses should use it.  This survey will not give any good results about social media.

What’s interesting is that to correct this survey you need a few of the important skills you also use in international business networking.

• Prior research is essential to get the questions right.  These are not the right questions to send to a blogger.
• Don’t make assumptions.  This survey starts off by assuming bloggers use social media as advertising. The survey also associates consumers with LinkedIn which is not accurate. There are several wrong assumptions here that make these questions irrelevant.

When you know you don’t have enough information to ask the right questions, start off simple and spend time first to scope out the main areas of your topic.

This might mean taking action in two or three steps to learn enough before you know which questions are the right ones to ask. And it takes a bit more work than blasting off an email.

In fact, it also means you’ll need to create in-person connections if you want to actually get the valuable information you need.

So, if the student who sent me this survey reads this, what should she do?

• Start by reviewing the my blog and revising the list of questions
• Leave a short question or two in the comments here, but step back and ask basic questions on the topic
• Tell me about yourself, where you’re from, what you are studying, why and what you actually like about the questions you want answers to…  but only in a couple of short sentences
• Avoid wide open ended questions that need a book to answer them
• And avoid writing a mini saga about yourself
• Say hello on Twitter
• Give a shout out on Facebook
• Continue the conversation and let it ping pong back and forth a bit to create some sort of a connection

Above all, stop being the student in a constant stream of anonymous cookie-cutter requests more suited to the last century and start being a real person who is interesting to talk to.  It’s better networking.  You’ll end up getting much more information this way and you’ll also start understanding what social media is about.

What about you?

• As a blogger, have you noticed an increase in questions from social media students?
• What would you recommend social media students do to learn more about how social media impacts business?
• Do you think email is still a good tool to use for surveys?

Please leave your comments below.

More on International Business Networking:

• Social Media Student Asks Wrong Questions
• 2 Habits To Grow Your International Network
• The Biggest Mistake In International Networking
• Follow Up With Your First International Clients
• Online Business Networking When Cultural Communication Styles Clash

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

Networking With The Wrong Questions

International Links

Here’s the weekly roundup of all of the useful and interesting links I share on Facebook and Twitter.

Cross-Cultural Topics

• The History Of White People By Nell Irvin Painter- I learned a few things in this book review.
• ‘Irresponsible’ Newspaper Experiment Issued With An Injunction Order By News Intl – Happy April 1st everyone! This was my first today, and will probably be the best one too. What other fun things have you read today?
• Astonishing Transatlantic Cultural Comparisons by Peter Baldwin - There are some interesting insights into the real picture behind cultural American & European stereotypes.
• 5 Ways to Beef Up Your International Resume - Going Global, Inc. gives some good advice on the ground work you need to do before looking for a job abroad. I like the last tip best of all which is building your international network. I’d add that you need to build a RELEVANT network. And don’t expect people to open you to their own network or recommend you unless t…hey actually know you. So you really need to work on developing relationships first.
• The Gender Wage Gap, Around the World – It definitely pays more to be a women in some countries compared to others. Women interested in International Business should read this.
• Who’s still biased? - It’s no surprise that American companies are not always happy with the diversity training they give their employees. Cross-cultural skills take enormous personal effort and commitment and you also need to be in a context where these skills are needed. So timing has to be right too. Do you think the next generations will be more cross-cultural savvy?
• Travel full-time for less than $14,000 per year - There is a long article with tons of information. Very useful if you want to take off and travel.

Facebook Business Page on Cross-Cultural Communication:

International Business

• Asian Consumers, Not U.S. Consumers, Now Lead the World - Here are examples of a change in business dynamics as emerging markets become the new kings of consumption. Have you noticed this impacting your lives?
• Dispatch from Africa by Steve Finikiotis - This is a great article on the cultural challenges when doing business in Africa and some insights into why we should care.
• A list of links about international business for small businesses on Small Business Trends – Some very good reads even if you’re a bigger business. Do you have any other links to share?
• The Corporate Stampede to Developing Nations by Joseph Quinlan – A good read with some interesting stats and comparisons on what’s happening withh American companies abroad.
• How SMBs Can Grow Their Business and Capitalize on the Rebounding Economy – a good read with tips for businesses via Laurel Delaney
• The Trick to Getting Meetings in India – Here’s a useful read if you are doing business in India. What other countries are you interested in?
• Three Ways to Fish in the Global Talent Pool – A great read on how international businesses need to build the right teams today. The situation has changed due to a variety of factors including our changing demographics.

Facebook Business Page on International Business:

International Marketing

• Showcase Of Web Design In China: From Imitation To Innovation – A good review of web design in China based on interviews of 6 local experts.
• Global Wellbeing Surveys Find Nations Worlds Apart - ”There is a clear wellbeing divide between the wealthier countries of
  northern, western, and central Europe and some poorer countries within eastern and southern Europe.”
• Too Few Diversity Dollars on Madison Avenue – There’s a list of US diversity milestones here to look at. I wonder how an evolution in international online marketing will impact American diversity marketing. More companies will have to integrate cross-cultural marketing to reach new online markets. What do you think?
• How’s the craic? 10 Tips for Cross Cultural Marketing – Some great cross-cultural marketing tips on Bloggertone. What other tips would you add?

Facebook Business Page on International Marketing:

International Sales

• The Secret to Exporting Part 1 – You Gotta Have a Plan (but not an extensive one) - This is the first part of a mini-series.
• How The Mighty Succeed Globally – Read this presentation by Laurel Delaney to find out the next level of countries you should be following beyond BRIC countries. What are you doing to improve your international sales?
• India delivers growth for Domino’s Pizza - Some insidghts into the international growth of Domino’s Pizza. There are several interesting links in here too.

Facebook Business Page on International Sales:

International Social Media

• Why Japan is the king of mobile: the stats and facts - This is well worth reading whether you are marketing to Japanese or interested in mobile markets for International Social Media. Are you using mobile marketing yet?
• Did You Know 4.0 – This is the first time I’ve come across this YouTube video. Some great stats here showing why mobile is so important today.
• Here’s Why The Next Year And A Half Is Critical In The Smartphone Wars – Here’s Why The Next Year And A Half Is Critical In The Smartphone Wars
• Web Globalization 2010: How Many Languages is Enough? – Read this if you are wondering about foreign language content for your website. How many languages does your website need today?
• Where is China’s fast-track IDN? – This article is a reminder of the changes to come, not only for Chinese URLs, but also for other countries.
• Why Internet connections are fastest in South Korea – “Countries with fast, cheap Internet connections tend to have more competition”. Are you happy with the speed of your internet connection?

Facebook Business Page on International Social Media:

Now It’s Your Turn

• What about you? Did you find any interesting links recently?
• What do these international and cross-cultural links inspire for you?
• Which international link is your favorite?

Copyright Cindy King 2006-2010 - International Business Blog

International Links: Week 13 2010