Is Facebook too American for you?

There is no doubt among social networking theorists that cultural differences have an impact on how people use social media. This is also one of the main reasons why networks like facebook generally succeed in Western countries while they have difficulties in penetrating Asian markets.

Some people explain it through the fact that websites like Facebook mainly correspond to Anglo-Saxon cultures (U.S., UK, Canada, etc.). The editors of www.thoughtfarmer.com share with us 5 interesting key learnings that they made during the implementation of cross cultural social media strategies for international businesses.

According to them, Asian users said that platforms like facebook "looked North American". They enjoyed more muted pastel colors and anime-style emoticons, a look that seemed equally foreign to North American eyes.

Compare Mixi, Japan's #1 social networking site, with Facebook. Mixi uses muted tones and illustration. Facebook uses primary colors and is primarily text-based with photos.

Another cultural difference is the widely used photo sharing function. Korean and Japanese users were uncomfortable with posting pictures of themselves at their personal page. Instead they prefer to use avatars or pictures of pets. They could not state definite reasons for this preference. Expectations around privacy, perhaps, or a culturally-ingrained sense of personal modesty?

In North America and the UK, most people don't hesitate to share photos of themselves on their profile. In Asia, it's more common to use an avatar. Judging from some of the profile photos we see, avatars may be the way to go. This implies that no platform will succeed worldwide with a "one size fits all"-approach. It will be interesting to see if platforms like facebook will accomplish to learn from local copycats in order to accomplish their expansion in Eastern markets.