How big brands use social media globally

When you’re communicating globally, it helps to think of social media not as a set of multilingual platforms to master, but as a bar where your fans pull up a stool and chat over a beer.

In Russia and Ukraine, Facebook is an upstart against the established local Vkontakte. China is an ecosystem of its own featuring Facebook and Twitter knockoffs.

But in every market, “the trends are all the same,” says Maarten Albarda, vice president for global consumer connections at Anheuser-Busch InBev, which bottles Budweiser and about 200 other brands.

“People love to connect. People spend large amounts of time on [social media]. People like to share things.”