Inside Facebook

As Facebook expands its reach globally, international brands should appeal to local audiences with their public profile pages. At least, that’s the thinking of adidas, the German footwear maker, which launched a “Your Area” tab on its Facebook profile. It allows the 1.8 million fans of the adidas Facebook page to view content from their local countries where they buy sneakers and other products.

The page will target 13 countries with the Your Area tab, including the U.S, China, and several throughout Europe. While the features adidas packed into the new tab mirror that of normal profiles (such as “videos” and “news feed”), it makes the profile more interactive and engaging.

A list of the features include:

1. A News Feed with local content, featuring links, events and promotions.
2. A photo and video viewer, featuring adidas products (and the people who use them).
3. “adidas buzz,” a twitter feed about adidas products in your local area, including some promotions.
4. A link to the adidas store finder.

The page also helps local stores target their specific fans. Local adidas managers, for example, can feature products and post content to the page. They can also tag new products, and provide liks to the adidas e-store.

Conclusion

We applaud adidas’ approach to making its Facebook page more personal and localized. E-commerce sites on the public Web have suffered internationally because they often lack a local touch. Companies would be foolish to make the same mistake on Facebook, especially given how much more personal the user experience is on the site.

The only thing we might change is adidas’ version of “local,” especially as it concerns some of the bigger countries. If you live in the United States (say, in San Francisco), adidas news from New York or Austin doesn’t feel like “Your Area.” It would also be nice if the page automatically detected the viewers’ Facebook language setting instead of requiring the user to choose.