Podcasting, Blogging, International Audiences, and Mobile Business Owners

Greetings Everyone!

Based on some good things I was hearing over at Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels of Separation Podcast, it got me to thinking a bit more about reaching international audiences. After all, whether you are a mobile business owner from India, the States, Europe, the China, Russia or anywhere else in the world, you have to be thinking about reach, and how to best get your message across. The post below, is extracted from an audio comment I left for Six Pixels, but it has relevance I think for our community. Please have a read through and let me know what you think? Do you have other suggestions for maintaining an effective International reach in the social media space, while still retaining your local “flavor?”

[Editor's note: the following is unedited. Please comment on to the post and let me know what you think.]

Hi Mitch:

This is Corbin Links from Linksbusinessgroup.com and the Identity Management Success Podcast.

First, I wanted to thank you for playing my audio comment in episode 124. The audio comment feature of your

blogs is one of the greatest things about it!

Second, I wanted to comment on your discussion of national and localized references in podcast. I have two comments, and five tips to share.

1)I think that blogging and podcast conversations have to work both ways, and all members of the global listening community have to have the tolerance and flexibility to realize that if we listen to anyone in another country, there will always be a few nuances that we have to pick up on.

2)Personally, and this is just my opinion and preference, I think it’s ok to at times provide national perspective when relevant - or even just for color and perspective. For instance, I listen to podcasts from all over the world and enjoy — AND — listen sometimes solely for that reason. As an example, I enjoy hearing your perspectives on Canada in general, and the great cities up there.

As I always say, I already know what I think, but wallowing in that doesn’t make me a better person. I want to get the perspective of those other than myself and my countrymen, whether it be national or international events, or just other perspectives on my industry.

Tips for addressing the global audience (from my experience):

1)Understand where your audience is. Today, audiences are increasingly global and can come from the most unlikely and surprising places in the globe. For instances, in our podcast and blog marketing, we found one day that we seemed to be getting a really high # of visitors and shoppers from Scandinavia.

2)Understand and use the geographical targeting and mapping features of your web analytics packages and/or

mail/autoresponder software.

3)Last, but not least, have copy proofed outside of your country of origin. For instance, when I released the book “IAM Success Tips: Volume 1”, a key requirement of the project was to have it stripped of national or usa-based linguistic idioms as much as absolutely possible

4)If your work or project allows, include references to other geographic regions and include stories and items of interest to your largest audience bases.

5)Have an assistant, or hire a virtual assistant to compile special international “newspapers” for you on a weekly basis, containing regional business and cultural news from the world’s major regions. I started doing this a few months ago and have found it invaluable in improving my perspective and helping me …at least try… to keep it open to global audiences.