AMA: Facebook Head of Product Marketing, VR Fitness, Media and Work, Susan J. Park on Global / Remote Product Marketing

I have started to ask "What is the biggest trade-off decision you had to make?"  Most people go straight to themselves and a trade-off that they've had to make about a job or career path, not a company decision. One interviewee floored me when he talked about hard decisions on needing to lay-off members of his team, but then described how he worked through his network to get every person on that team a job at another company. Not only did he show he could make tough calls, but he was trying to b ...Read More

I love this question. Instead of trying to convince them, I would listen to their concerns and try to alter the product to make it relevant, especially if the market has a strong track record of being right. If you can’t make the feature requirements in time to do so, cut the market from the launch. There’s no need to enter a market (translation resourcing, training etc) if you don't have stakeholder buy-in. You will have more time to focus on other markets with more opportunity. Also, nothing w ...Read More

Expected: Working with multiple timezones Language barriers/poor translations Cultural issues Getting individuals to focus on the team dynamics so we can work as a global unit Countries/regional teams coming up with their own narratives and strategies. Unexpected Distributing the work so each person on your team can shine with a strong project to drive visibility, especially if they're not inherent good ways of working in the region.   Memes are incredibly quick to spring up and hard to squash. ...Read More

If you have global projects or have syndicated a regional product to the global level, I would think that experience is relevant. If you are a regional product marketing manager and do not have a project like that to speak of then work on getting one. This will help with your own visibility and help the company projects succeed. If you want this experience and you’re already in product marketing you can network in the company to try and make that happen for yourself. Then in the interview/vettin ...Read More

Build confidence and context with your team. The book “The Culture Map” by Erin Meyers relates a person’s communication styles and how to gain their trust. It’s a great read for working with other cultures, and explains business norms, especially around feedback delivery, very well. Also it will help you read people and see how you can build context and trust earlier. It's key for you to be trusted so you can deliver strong results. Schedule informal "coffees" with folks so that you get time to ...Read More

Align your culture, the rest will follow. Drink up that company Kool-Aid. :-)  Then after, ensure the guidelines are practices are evangelized and understood. No one likes to arbitrarily follow rules. Take the time to ensure that the tone, voice, branding is distributed thoughtfully and understood by the regional teams.   At Spotify, we had clear and strong brand guidelines. We couldn't move out of step of them, and had clear reasons why. It was a brand to be proud of and was treasured. Relay th ...Read More

Timezones: If you have to make a 1a call work, do it. But then give yourself a break or a reward. You have to make allowances outside of your personal time to make projects work around the globe, but pay yourself back in some cases so you don’t burn out. Ex) Prior to COVID-19 I worked from home most Fridays (especially after long trips or off-time meetings) to ensure I could get some personal admin done. Or if I stayed up at 8p the night before, I tried to treat myself to a yoga class or somethi ...Read More

Examine the materials and get honest feedback. If the smaller region needs more than your bigger regions then something may be off. Maybe things need to be changed, but a smaller region should not be more work than a bigger one. You will need to make trade-off decisions on what you build for a local market based on their success, and incentivize them to think that way. Find a great local agency, or agencies that help in the region. Take the time to vet them and help you build content. Some can e ...Read More

Challenges:If you are away from your product and engineering team and conversations/changes on the product happen in hallways not in meetings. If this is happening to you, try and advocate that to change, but if it doesn’t, perhaps find a new role or specialty. If you don’t, your role may be changed to a project manager versus a product marketing manager and that’s not ideal. Advantages:You can drive the impartial customer voice without being swayed by the everyday interaction with the product a ...Read More