Social networks are pouring a lot of resources into making sure they have a global footprint.

In the last few weeks, visual-centric social platform Pinterest has been investing in expanding its presence globally. The following list of countries and languages have been covered by Pinterest up until now:

• India (Hindi)
• Greece (Greek)
• Hungary (Hungarian)
• Romania (Romanian)
• Thailand (Thai)
• Philippines (Tagalog)
• Malaysia (Malay)
• Vietnam (Vietnamese)

It’s not only Pinterest

Other major social networks have been spreading their wings worldwide from quite some time. Expectedly, Google spearheaded this initiative. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are also available in multiple languages. With communication becoming more advanced by the day and increasing number of people connecting with each other, globalization of social networks was imperative. At the same time, being available in local languages was also crucial for social networks.

Reasons for Social Networks and Brands Going Global

According to recent research by eMarketer, global digital ad spending by brands has been increasing till 2014 and is projected to continue the upward trend for the next few years.

With specific focus on social networks, according to a recent study by Decipher on behalf of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association, 7 out of 10 marketers expect their companies to increase their social media spending in 2014.

Another eMarketer study said that the strength of social media users worldwide will be 1.97 billion and will climb up to 2.55 billion by 2017.

When brands are spending billions in ad dollars all over the world and social networks’ user base is expanding without being restricted to certain regions, social networks will want their share of the pie.

To do this, social networks must expand globally along with maintaining robust ad offerings, retaining user trust, ensuring ROI for brands among other things.

What is your take on this trend?