With the emerging Era of Digitalization, the need of effective localization of social media is very important for brands who are aiming to connect with diverse audience globally. More than 4 billion people are actively using social media service worldwide. By customizing the content to relate with local cultures and languages to increase engagement and brand identity. Social media marketing provides a plethora of chances to interact with a huge global audience.
Only about 19% of people worldwide speak English as a first or second language, so brands shouldn’t disregard social media translation. Localizing social media is a great approach to take use of the strength of social networks and reach clients in the proper locale and tongue. Localized social media also aids in the development of extremely relevant and focused marketing.
Asia and South America are the two continents where internet user have grown exponentially. The languages that are most widely spoken in these places also have the fastest rate of global expansion. The number of speakers of Chinese, Spanish, Hindi, Urdu, and Portuguese has all significantly increased recently. In order to localize content, elements other than words must be changed to fit cultural norms. This blog gives insight to optimize the social media localization strategy.
10 Tips for Localizing Social Media Content Effectively
1. Choosing the Right Platforms to be Localized
The first thing to think about before localizing social media is choosing the appropriate platform. Every nation has a distinctive platform that is widely used and popular. X (formarly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are all prohibited in China, the country with the largest social media market, thus localizing these platforms to draw Chinese users won’t be successful.
A business should localize WeChat, and Weibo to cater to Chinese consumers. Although Russia does not have a ban on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Youtube, the majority of Russians have VK profiles. So, the thing is to choose the right platform that needs to be localized in order to connect with the majority of people. You can switch to a smart language translation service provider who is a certified translation service provider.
Examples:
- China: As the platforms like X (formaly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are banned, brands show work on focusing local platform like WeChat and Weibo to captivate the Chinese Audience.
- Russia: Even though all the well known social media services are available, still native social media app like VKontakte (VK) is still dominating. Brands should focus their content on VK to to target native audience in Russia.
2. Choose the Right Content to be Localized
Selecting the appropriate material is essential for social media localization because all of your information will not be effective for locals. Local festivals, holidays, seasonal items, news, and pertinent social topics are among the social media material that needs to be localized for local users. As an illustration, Australia starts preparing for winter in April, the US for spring, and India is already bracing for a sweltering summer. Therefore, localized social media material should be pertinent to the area.
Examples:
- Seasonal Promotions: As the season change is differ from countries to continent, it is important for brands to change strategy country-wise. For-example, Winter seasons starts from June in Australia and in US its summer time then. So, brands should adapt and showcase winter collection in Australia and Summer collection in US customer during the same time period.
- Local Festivals: A big brand which sells food globally share exciting recipes or promotions tied to native festivals, like Diwali in India or Oktoberfest in Germany, to reonate with local audiences.
3. Create Separate Social Media Pages for Each Country
Posting information that is appropriate to culture and location will be made easier with separate social media profiles. Customer interaction will rise as a result of the carefully selected material on nation-specific social media profiles.
Examples:
- Netflix: Working and operating different Instagram account to cater different countries, such as @netflixgermany for Germany and @NetflixIndia for India, showcasing and promoting local and native content of their languages.
- IKEA: Manages seprate social media content for different regions, enabling the sharing of region specific offers and product discounts.
4. Use Geo-targeting Option
Geo-targeting enables the customization of social media material for users in a particular geographic location, such as a particular country, city, or even zip code. For instance, two nations are playing cricket, and the citizens of these two nations are too preoccupied to cook since they are too busy watching the game. In that instance, a food delivery service can encourage residents of those nations to order food online and may even make special incentives to entice additional clients.
Examples:
- Facebook Ads: Brands can target their ads according to specific region like countries, cities, or even neighbourhoods, making sure the promotions reach the most relevant customers.
- Instagram Stories: Now with more feature of location tagging and stickers, one can make the content more filterable to local users and create more engagement on the social posts.
5. Use Influencers to Localize Social Media Content
Most individuals purchase the things that influencers they respect promote. A blogger, YouTuber, actor, athlete, singer, or another person can be an influencer. To operate a marketing campaign, local influencers can successfully localized social media material.
Examples:
- Beauty Brands: Big Companies like Garnier colloborate with local beauty influencers in different countries to promote products, to ensure the content is more engaging with local beauty standards and prefrences.
- Travel Agencies: Travel agencies often partner with local travel bloggers to promote the destination and services offered by them to provide insights and attract potential tourists.
6. Work with linguistic professionals with experience
The first prerequisite for effective localization of social media is an accurate translation. Targeting regional markets and native tongues requires skilled and seasoned translators. A translator needs to be familiar with the idioms, phrases, and cultural quirks of a certain area. With more than 3000 translators on staff, White Globe can provide translations in more than 350 different languages.
Examples:
- Slogans: When Pepsi entered the Chinese market back then, Pepsi’s slogan “Pepsi Brings You Back to Life” had been translated as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.” Such misinterpretation may have been avoided by working with qualified translators.
- Product Names: With the introduction of products in new markets, ensuring the product names carry no negative implication in the native language is important.
7. Use Innovative Translation Tools
When translating content on a wide scale, manual translation can be time-consuming and expensive. Use of computer-assisted translation (CAT) techniques is advised in certain circumstances. White Globe has AI- and human-powered translation solutions that produce high-quality translation quickly and widely.
Examples:
- Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) Tools: CAT tools keep uniformity across terminology and also increase the process of translation by enhancing its speed.
- AI Translation: Other platforms that help are DeepL and Google Translate, are good for instant translation but later can be be polished up by human translators.
8. Be Mindful of Text Expansion
The text may contract or expand as it is translated from one language to another. The text translation increases by 300% when it is translated from English to Russian. An expert in localization should be aware of it. The same holds true for voiceovers. The video needs to be modified again if the voiceovers are sometimes longer than the actual footage.
Examples:
- User Interfaces: When localizing software, ensure that buttons and menu can elongate according to the translated text, which happens mostly in cases for German and Russian as they feature longer text strings.
- Subtitles: While adding the subtitles for videos, be vigilante of the fact that translated text may occupy more space or require more time to read, thus making the adjustments to video pacing accordingly.
9. Content Tone Adaptation
Every culture has its own voice. Getting to know the locals would help you adapt to their culture. Young individuals and older people communicate in different ways according to their cultures. Different communication standards apply to the two sexes. If a product is intended for young people, its social media material should be too. Young people communicate using jargon, slang, and colloquial terms. The target audience will be attracted in greater numbers if all of this is put into practice.
Examples:
- Formal versus Informal Language: While formal writing is preferred in business communication in Japan, whereas in Brazil it is more preferrable to use a friendly or informal tone.
- Good Humor: Specifically, humor varies from culture to culture. A joke that makes great sense or is understood in one nation might not get well received in another nation.
10. Accommodate Users’ Experience
The target audience should be taken into account when localizing every part of the social media material. Each nation has its own time and date format, measuring units, currency symbol, and address format. When localizing social media, all of these considerations should be taken into account. Customers benefit from a personalized experience because of these simple elements make a big difference.
Examples:
- Date and Time Formats: In USA, dates are formatted MM/DD/YYYY, while other nations format them DD/MM/YYYY. So, make sure to use correct format according to the region.
- Currency and Measurements: Pricing in local currency and using local measurements-i.e., kilograms or pounds-will make your content more user-friendly and relevant to native user, and create more user understanding.
Conclusion
Localizing social media content, which involves more than merely translating language and using the same assets worldwide, is the key to breaking into a new market. Instead, it calls for performing in-depth audience research, collaborating with regional influencers and translators, and using cutting-edge translation software. One of the best language translation agencies in India is VerboLabs. Their products and services help companies better understand their clients, break down language barriers to market entry, increase customer bases, boost revenue and sales, strengthen customer loyalty, and improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Even while your social media presence may be popular at home, it doesn’t guarantee that it will also reach, engage, and inspire clients abroad. Localization in social media happens here!
Social media content cannot be widely implemented like a new logo or software update. Each regional market must have a common language with it, both linguistically and culturally. Direct translations of the text are not the only thing that can go wrong in target languages; similarly, graphics and even colors that are entirely fine in one market might be completely unacceptable in another. Green, for instance, represents things like freshness, health, and environmental sustainability in North American cultures. However, in some South American nations, it is a symbol of death.
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