Skip to content

Webinar Report Social Media & Business Development

Introduction

This is a summary of the roundtable Webinar “Leveraging Social Media for Business Development in Panama” held on Wednesday 25 September 2024.

The webinar was organized by Digitude Panama in cooperation the Swiss, Spanish & German Chamber of Commerce in Panama and the City of Knowledge Foundation (Ciudad del Saber).

It was aimed at executives of international companies, operating in Panama or interested in Panama.

Panelists & Moderator

  • Anna-Sophia Metzel, Digital Marketing Manager, MAERSK LATAM
  • Julieta Salinas, Brand & Innovation Manager, Heineken Panama
  • Lisette Manavella, Sr. Manager Brand Communication, Adidas LATAM
  • Mauricio Ortiz, Chief Marketing Officer, Upfield LATAM
  • The session was moderated by Remco de Bruijn, Managing Director, Digitude Panama.

Social Media Goals

  • Remco de Bruijn (Moderator) introduces the topic of company goals, asking the panelists what there goals are.
  • Anna-Sophia Metzel (Maersk) emphasizes that their focus is global, not just Panama. They are customer-centric and use social media to drive brand awareness, customer engagement, and lead generation. Maersk has evolved from a shipping company to an integrated logistics company, utilizing various social media channels to promote services.
  • Lisette Manavella (Adidas) highlights brand awareness and consumer engagement as primary goals, especially in markets like Panama and the Caribbean. Adidas uses both local and global social media accounts, but local management requires investment and maintaining global standards.
  • Julieta Salinas (Heineken) focuses on corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns and building awareness for responsible alcohol consumption. Heineken uses social media to enhance brand awareness, drive product trials, and support events. Their strategy depends on the brand’s market stage, with local accounts emerging as the brand grows.
  • Mauricio Ortiz (Upfield) explains that social media is used to increase product penetration and usage frequency, especially through showcasing recipes and healthy living tips. Upfield uses platforms like Instagram and Facebook, along with emerging ones like TikTok, to drive consumer engagement.
  • Anna-Sophia further notes the importance of using local languages in Latin America for higher engagement, and the potential of Whatsapp as a business communication tool.

Finally, the audience poll shows increasing brand awareness is the top priority, followed by lead generation and boosting sales.

“I think customer engagement is super important. We want to drive brand awareness, and we also want to drive consideration for customers in Latin America.”

Anna Sophia Metzel, MAERSK LATAM

How-to – Locally Resonating Strategies

This section of the webinar discusses the importance of developing a content strategy that resonates locally, considering cultural differences and language barriers. Key points from the panelists include:

  • Remco de Bruijn (Moderator) introduces the topic of strategies, asking the panelists how to make a strategy that resonates with a local audience.
  • Lisette Manavella (Adidas) shares that Adidas balances global and local content. While global content is adapted through translations, local content is designed based on objectives, local partnerships, and influencers. For effective storytelling, Adidas targets Gen Z with quick, engaging content like Instagram Reels.
  • Mauricio Ortiz (Upfield) emphasizes three pillars for local strategies: local relevance, optimized engagement, and conversion-driven content. He stresses the importance of analytics to track engagement and ensure the content leads to conversions.
  • Anna-Sophia Metzel (Maersk) explains that Maersk’s strategy includes market insights, event-driven networking, and social media content focused on logistics trends. Despite being a B2B company, they aim for deeper, more personal connections through customer events and market-specific insights.
  • Julieta Salinas (Heineken) highlights the need for global brands to adapt their messaging to local customs and culture. She stresses the importance of using influencers and ensuring content reflects local sensitivities, especially in Latin America, where social engagement and family values are key.

A poll of the attendees revealed LinkedIn as the most effective platform, especially for B2B companies, while Instagram followed closely. Despite the popularity of Facebook and TikTok in Panama, they ranked lower in this particular audience’s effectiveness scale.

“I can tell you that the local content performs 10 times better than the global content.”

Lisette Manavella, Adidas LATAM

Tips & Tricks

This portion of the webinar focuses on tips and success stories from the panelists, offering valuable insights into social media best practices for international companies.

The tips the various panelists give and be summarized as follows:

  • Know your Audience. Research & Analyze. Know who and where your audience is and tailor your strategy to different demographics and platforms.
  • Experiment, Innovate & Come Up with New Ideas. Be open to failure as a learning process.
  • Be authentic & stay true to Your Brand. Authenticity is key to building trust and relevance.
  • Make it about Brand Awareness, not Sales. Avoid too much sales-driven content
  • Use Data-Analysis tools. Leverage data analytics to track performance and engagement effectively.
  • Adapt & Localize – message, tone, language. Staying culturally sensitive and using local language is critical to making global campaigns work. Prioritize native content for each social platform instead of reusing the same material across all channels.
  • Cherish your Community & User-Generated Content. Encourage user-generated content to foster community engagement and increase credibility.
  • Work with Local Influencers. Besides the number of followers, influencers can be selected based on e.g. your goals, their characteristics (e.g. age) and budget. Tools to find, monitor and manage influencers are: Aspire, Traackr, Influencity, HypeAuditor, Modash, CreatorIQ and Heepsy.

“Be authentic. Stay really true to what your brand is, who your brand is, what your message is, but really keep in mind that cultural sensitivity and that local tone, local language, and that, you know.”

Julieta Salinas Heineken Panama

Questions from the Audience

The webinar continued with audience questions and answers from the panelists. The first question concerned brands’ engagement with sports as a channel for connecting with audiences, Lisette Manavella from Adidas answered by detailing Adidas’ sports sponsorships in Panama. She highlighted their support for football, running, basketball, tennis, and paddle, with a particular focus on community engagement, including initiatives like training programs for runners and sponsoring youth football tournaments.

Julieta Salinas from Heineken added that while Heineken is not a sports brand, it’s crucial for any partnership to align with the brand’s personality. Heineken leverages partnerships like the Champions League but focuses on social experiences rather than performance-oriented sponsorships.

Later, someone asked about successful partnerships and tips for forming them. Julieta responded, emphasizing the importance of brand alignment and shared values in partnerships. She advised leveraging partnerships for co-creating opportunities that are mutually beneficial and relevant to both brands involved.
 
Finally, there was a question about expectations for market penetration or sales increase when working with influencers. Mauricio Ortiz from Upfield Latam responded, explaining that results depend on the type of influencers used, ranging from micro-influencers to celebrities. He shared an example of a recent campaign in Latin America that combined influencers with point-of-sale promotions and packaging, leading to a 15% increase in sales. He advised using a well-integrated strategy with clear objectives to maximize effectiveness, otherwise, influencer efforts may only raise brand awareness without significantly boosting sales.

Lisette Manavella from Adidas added that brand awareness and visibility through influencers can’t be measured immediately. She emphasized the importance of long-term goals, suggesting that success can be tracked through metrics like engagement, content views, and reach, but requires time to assess whether the strategy translates into sales.

The webinar was concluded with thanking everyone for participating.

Tags: