Noir sur Blanc conducted a comparative study of the use of LinkedIn and Twitter by the communication directors of leading French and American business schools (the sample comprised all 33 business school members of the French CGE and an equivalent number of representative business schools from the US). Both networks were found to be used by both Americans and by the French, but we observed significant differences in their usage and purpose.
68% of the communication directors from France use Twitter on an account under their name, while in the US only one in two use the micro-blogging network. Paradoxically, among the French accounts analyzed, only four communication directors have over 1000 followers, while the Americans, on average, have three times more subscribers to their accounts than the French.
Regarding LinkedIn, 100% of communication directors from both sides of the Atlantic use it, but not in the same way. Americans have on average 1.4 times more connections and almost 20% of them regularly post their school’s campaigns and use the network as an additional communication channel in their work. In France, LinkedIn remains primarily a professional networking tool: very few French communication directors use it to disseminate their campaigns or information about their school.
Another important point to note is that 74% of the French communication directors had not translated their profile into English. And of the 26% who had started the translation process, only half of them had fully translated their profile, while the other half had only translated name of their position.
This brief study serves to highlight how social networks, from one country to another, are used differently. We can conclude that US communication managers use the communication from their school to work their own personal branding. Personally invested in their professional activities, they use LinkedIn to demonstrate their skills and expertise. This reveals the rather different relationship the Americans and French have to their company or institution.
For an international communication agency like Noir sur Blanc, it is important to understand these cultural differences and to master the subtleties in order to devise effective and coherent digital strategies internationally.