How Kikkoman Smoothened Content Management in 14 Countries Across EMEA

A truly global brand. That is what Kikkoman can proudly say about itself—the world-famous soy sauce and other food products are now being made in eleven factories within Asia, Europe, Brazil, and the USA. And, of course, sold all over the world.

As you can imagine, managing social media content for such large and diverse markets can be challenging. “Both in the terms of content and organization,“ says Ana Mijic, Sales & Marketing Manager residing in Düsseldorf, Germany, from where the sales and marketing teams operate. “In 2018, we had one global Instagram profile plus a couple of countries with social media profiles. Within two years, though, this number grew to sixteen.“ Ana and her team are in charge of managing and approving the social media content for countries in the EMEA region. Let’s take a look at how Kontentino helps.

How once complicated approval process became easy

The number of Kikkoman distributors’ social media profiles has grown overnight. “Distributors create their own content, but we have to approve each piece of it.“ Usually, the content gets approved twice—once by the local distributor and then by the Kikkoman marketing HQ.

In the past, the content was delivered to Ana and her team in spreadsheets, PDFs, presentations, and even different social media management tools—depending on what the distributors worked with. “As you can imagine, this was extremely time-consuming,“ says Ana. “I was looking for a way how to organize it while making it easy to work with for everybody involved.“

Before Ana decided to get the whole process more unified, she compared four social media tools she had recently used. “Out of them, I found Kontentino the easiest to use. Plus, I like the system of notifications, thanks to which I do not have to check what is going on or send additional e-mails.“

After doing a test run of Kontentino with two different countries, it proved to be the right solution. Ana then suggested working with Kontentino in other countries, too. “Today, we use Kontentino to manage social media of fourteen out of sixteen markets/distributors. The onboarding time is very short because Kontentino is pretty self-explanatory. That means we have very few additional questions from our distributors once they start working with Kontentino.“

Day-to-day benefits regarding time, organization, visualization

The times of sending an e-mail with spreadsheets and links to download the visual content are now definitely gone. Since the process of approving and scheduling content is now done within a single tool, Ana and her team have significantly more time. 

“Saving time is not the only benefit,“ Ana adds. “Working with Kontentino is also about a much better organization.“ Before, Ana used to have her desktop full of folders dedicated to each country where Kikkoman has its activities. Now, everything is clear and in one place. “And, as I like to say, a good organization is half work done, which is possible with Kontentino.“

The third thing Ana enjoys when working with Kontentino is the Post preview feature. Like this, she can immediately see the preview of the planned posts—both for the desktop and the mobile version. “You are just looking at the ‘finished product’. It is much more convenient than getting an image or a video plus a copy text and trying to imagine what it is going to look like once they connect to create a post.“

Fulfilling both global and local purposes

Most of the social media content produced by Kikkoman is related to food and recipes. The rest is about the company’s rich history, values, and milestones. Across the sixteen countries, however, the content is rarely the same. “Our natural, fermented sauce can be used in hundreds of variations. We need to show the world that Kikkoman is not only for Asian dishes but rather an all-purpose seasoning. Social media takes a big role in this purpose.“

It is also important to take into account that every market has a specific take on the food culture. And on social media itself. “We cannot post the same recipes for all our 250 thousand followers worldwide. There is a different approach to food in Egypt, Italy, and South Africa, for example,“ Ana explains. “And for the content that is more global, we use ‘Inspiration Calendar’ feature.“ Ana adds ideas for global posts to specific dates connected to Kikkoman’s history—anniversaries, launching of new products, memorable dates—into the Inspiration Calendar. This way, distributors across EMEA can easily see and plan the content with more global meaning.

Efficient social media management of a global brand

One brand, different content. That is what happens when global companies want to get closer to their clients. Localizing social media content to make it relevant to the specific market is a clever move. The workflow, however, is often complicated and time-consuming for everyone involved. When Kikkoman found itself in a similar situation, they reached out to Kontentino. It has smoothened their workflow, made their content organization clearer, and saved a lot of time for both marketing HQ and local distributors. So if you are in charge of approving global or local content for your brand, you will appreciate a social media tool adjusted for these scenarios. Try managing your social media with Kontentino—the first 14 days are on us.