The global nature of social media is of great benefit to both consumer and provider, giving access to unlimited streams of dialogue. However a worrying trend, or indeed lack thereof, is emerging in how companies cope with a global audience with localised demands.

Salience Insight CEO Giselle Bodie claims “Social media is no respecter of national borders. So we’re finding that companies and agencies and turning to ‘glocal’ evaluation companies like us for our ability to combine local market knowledge with a global take on media issues”.

If unable to evolve, data evaluation could potentially be polarised into two camps: those who provide the globalised information and those who can interpret it on a local basis. This could result in requiring marketing departments to filter their data through two channels before it is suitable to be incorporated into decisions and ideas. 

Whilst social media has undoubtedly been a huge advantage to communications professionals, uncertainties remain regarding how to harness the immense scope of its appeal.