According to a Harris Interactive poll of brand marketers, 72 percent of brand managers agree with the fact that social media can reach existing and potential customers across the globe, with greater potential, but these social media lack tools and information to leverage it successfully.

The poll, “Poll Reaching Customers in Local Market,” conducted in association with Buddy Media Platform, a Facebook (News - Alert) management system for the world's largest brands and agencies, says, “With the growth of Facebook internationally, brands need to improve in global social marketing solutions.”

Facebook has reached 500 million users worldwide, which makes it the largest and fastest-growing two-way communication platform in the world. However, with only 25 percent of Facebook users logging on from the U.S., there’s a large untapped market for major brands that don't have a global Facebook solution in place.

Global brand Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) recently said that the opportunity to connect with customers through Facebook has become more significant than ever, as the social media site is joined by a growing number of people around the world on a daily basis, a TMC (News - Alert) report said.

The majority of marketers polled in Harris’ survey believe that social media would provide an effective means to expand the brand in their global reach– few companies are using Facebook to reach customers globally. Only one-third of large companies having revenues in excess of $100M are currently using Facebook to do so, according to the poll.

Some of the major problems that brand managers face to reach customers globally through social media include: Managing and maintaining information; Measuring successes; and Keeping region and country-specific content fresh.

Buddy Media have recently introduced a global social marketing solution called +GLOBAL that addresses many of these challenges. Michael Lazerow, CEO and founder of Buddy Media, stated, “In order for bands to effectively reach consumers across the globe, they need to heed the traditional marketing/PR maxim of thinking global and acting local.”

Lazerow added, “Cost, scale, segmented audiences, inconsistent design and incomplete analytics are all local branding dilemmas that companies have faced in the past when it comes to social marketing.”

According to the poll, 93 percent of the brand marketers find it difficult to reach customers in local marketers with a unified brand message. Finding cost-effective tactics, managing costs, leveraging social media, and establishing metrics that track ROI are the biggest problems that the marketers face.

Buddy Media introduced the +GLOBAL add-on to the Buddy Media Platform and have been named to the 2010 AlwaysOn Global 250 Top Private Companies for demonstrating significant market traction and pursuing game-changing technologies in digital media, the company said.

 +GLOBAL serves as a customizable platform to everyone who likes the brand and enables brands like Starwood Hotels & Resorts to avoid the challenges associated with maintaining a Facebook presence across multiple countries, company officials said.