I’ve flown somewhere north of five million miles alone and have had the opportunity to interact with customers across the globe. It is amazing how social software is connecting employees who otherwise would have never met. Employees are using social software to exchange information and solve business problems across regions and offices.

Company employees need to act locally, but think globally. In terms of day-to-day communication this means you interact with people within your geography, but also across the world. If you’re communicating with your peers in France you speak French, in Germany, German, in Japan, Japanese. Your social software needs to support the way you communicate in the language of your choice—mobile or PC, email or text.

At the same time companies have spent millions of dollars on brand promotion and brand management: what we do, what we offer, what we stand for and what are our values. In the internet age of the second half of the 21^st Century, corporations need to manage their brand and social consciousness. Consistent external branding starts with cohesive internal communication.

So what’s my point? The social software you select needs to have multi-language support – to support the way your employees communicate. You’d be surprised how many products only support English.

The second point is that the vendor you select needs to have local social software product and technical support. Social software and tibbr in particular are easy to use and easy to roll out. Can you say 42,000 users in 24 hours? Yes, easily. However, you still need to have local support for your enterprise social network that also speaks your language. TIBCO has 100 offices and thousands of employees worldwide to help with that.

The third aspect of language is “your company brand.” You’ve spent millions on refining your brand externally, so your brand and company direction is equally important internally. Your enterprise social network should be branded and themed to promote your company, motivate your employees and have a call to action. Your colors, your logo, your message, your brand, your executives setting the tone for the company—it just sounds  better when your network is branded for your company, doesn’t it?