As a marketer, how do you walk the politically correct tightrope? Are you genuine in your efforts to increase diversity in your marketing campaigns, or are you fumbling along with whatever mishmash of stereotypes—and the occasional picture of “multicultural people”—you threw together?

If you’re the latter, it’s likely not intentional; the basics of effective marketing to multicultural communities, especially through social media, aren’t taught in most seminars or even deeply considered by most professionals. Effectively engaging groups outside your own cultural background can be impossible if you don’t know where to begin.

Luckily, Jessica Faye Carter of Nette Media has tackled this issue and offers some answers. Her session at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco this May, “Lessons from the Marketing Campaign Trail: Using Social Media to Engage Multicultural Communities,” will help you build effective multicultural social media campaigns. She agreed to an interview with us, which you’ll find below.

As Jessica notes in her session description, multicultural communities now account for more than 30% of the U.S. population with spending power of approximately $2 trillion. If your company wants to reach these audiences, you can start learning how to by reading on:

Kaitlin: How do marketers find people online based on cultural identity? Doesn’t the anonymity of the web make that difficult?

Jessica: One of the easiest ways for marketers to find users from various cultures is through blogs and social networks geared toward ethnic communities. Sites like MiGente (Hispanic & Latino cultures), Soompi (Korean and Asian cultures), and BlackPlanet (Black cultures) have sizeable audiences that would appeal to advertisers. Microsites within larger, more popular sites like Facebook or Linkedin are another option, along with websites of culturally-focused organizations.

Kaitlin: What are the differences in behavior among varying cultural and racial groups online? Is it a difference in tools, say, Twitter versus Facebook? What studies support these observations?

Jessica: Most groups are engaging in similar behaviors online, such as information gathering and sharing, making purchases, listening to music, using social media. The differences are perhaps the extent to which the groups are using certain services, or the platform they use to access the Internet—which could limit or expand a site’s service offerings. Research more specific to multicultural users of social media, from organizations like Nielsen, Pew Internet, Forrester, AdAge and the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication, indicates that there are higher percentages of multicultural users on social media than was initially supposed. And while the breakdown of user demographics varies across social media sites (sometimes widely), it seems to be more a function of the type of site (e.g., sharing media vs. connecting with friends) than reluctance on the part of users to interact across cultural differences.

Kaitlin: In your session description, you mention you’ll cover some “multicultural marketing principles.” Could you explain a few of these?

Jessica: Hofstede famously opined that the most profound elements of culture manifest themselves in four ways: through heroes, symbols, rituals and values. Those root elements, in turn, influence cultural norms, behaviors, and value systems, which differ considerably across ethnic groups, as well as within those groups. Multicultural marketing attempts to engage ethnic consumers using cultural indicators that resonate with them, both superficially and more profoundly.

Kaitlin: Obviously you’ll have some good case studies to refer to in your presentation, but I was wondering if you have a few examples of poorly run – even offensive – social media campaigns aimed at particular cultural groups. (This is with the assumption that the campaign was trying not to be offensive, but successful.) As the phrase goes, if you can’t be a good example, you’ll be a terrible warning.

Jessica: Well, the idea of using social media to target multicultural groups is relatively nascent, so there isn’t much to report in the way of offensive campaigns. When McDonald’s launched websites geared toward Black and Asian consumers, there were some rumblings—some questioned the appropriateness of the sites; others liked them; still others remained unsure. But this is often the case in multicultural campaigns, because there are multiple perspectives within the various communities. One size doesn’t fit all. McDonald’s, to its credit, is known to use ethnic-specific focus groups for all of its multicultural initiatives; my guess would be that they put considerable time and resources into developing the sites. That said, the warnings from failed multicultural marketing generally still stand, and companies still have to be careful in this space.

Companies are also learning is that social media can highlight product flaws that impact various cultural groups differently. In the case of Hewlett-Packard, some friends tried out an HP laptop’s facial-recognition function, and found that it didn’t work for the darker-skinned friend; it worked fine for the lighter-skinned person. Nikon experienced something similar with its CoolPix S630, when a Taiwanese-American user found that every time she took a picture of herself smiling, the camera asked if someone blinked. Both stories went viral, and made their way onto popular social media sites, eventually ending up on Time.com. We’ll probably see more of these types of situations highlighted in social media going forward.

Kaitlin: I’ll like to talk more broadly about women and different cultural groups in the tech and web industries. You write and speak in various venues about workplace diversity and getting more women and traditionally underrepresented groups into this sector. What factors contribute to the comparatively small number of women and certain minorities in the web and tech world?

Jessica: The factors hindering women and certain ethnic groups from joining and advancing at tech companies are similar to the factors preventing these groups from advancing in other industries. Such issues include perceptions that women and certain U.S. minority groups are not as technically competent as their peers, stereotyping, bias, low levels of institutional support, and lack of access to informal networks, mentors, and sponsors.

Kaitlin: What advice would you give to these groups?

Jessica: Not exactly advice, but there are a few things worth considering: performing well is essential to your professional success, but after a few promotions, it will take more than performance to get ahead—it will take solid relationships with your peers, managers, and a mentor or influential sponsor. Careers in any profession are made from the top-down and not from the bottom-up, meaning that those senior to you have to identify you as an asset to the organization before advancement opportunities will come your way. A good mix of performance, relationships, professional image, and exposure will garner attention from higher-ups and put you on the path to career success. There is, of course, much more to professional success than what I’ve noted here, but it’s a start.

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Kaitlin Pike is the Community Manager of Web 2.0 Expo. She can be reached @w2e or @kcpike.

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