Since English is spoken in many nations as the official language, it is easy to believe that it is the lingua franca of the web. With the continued global convergence, multilingual blogging has never been relevant. Other languages like Chinese, Arabic and Spanish are slowly taking centre stage in the world scene.
Interacting with your social media followers in their native language helps increase confidence and build concrete relationships with them. This dramatically influences consumers’ trust in your brand and helps expand your business to new markets.
Here are a couple of tips to help you start and maintain a multilingual blog.
- Identify your demographic
As an online marketer, it is crucial to identify and understand your target audience, and knowing the language they speak is part of this.
Do not just cater for an existing clientele. Consider other majority groups that could be potential clients. It is essential to consider the Hispanic market too for your brand to perform well. So, ensure to have these demographics in mind while developing your website.
- Use top-notch translators
Mistakes in the corporate world can be very costly, but do you know what’s even more expensive? Poor translations are! Avoid embarrassments and online trolls by using great translation agencies. Poor translations can be interpreted as a lack of respect.
Get professionals to translate and proofread every blog post before you put it out. Ensure you comprehend everything before posting.
- Avoid translation tools
With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, every big silicon company is making tremendous strides with their translation tools. One fact still remains, these tools cannot compete with online certified translation services. These tools have shortcomings and can sometimes offer inadequate lexical translations that can lose context. Machine translations often result in lost meanings that can lead to costly rebranding or even loss of clients
- Prioritize visual content
A picture speaks a thousand words, or what is it they say?
To reach a broad audience effortlessly, you want to employ exquisite photography and videography to communicate your brand’s intention to your demographic. Be sure to use relevant and catchy captions that have been well translated. If your blog is about food and cooking, ensure to employ quality images and even emojis in your captions.
However, it is crucial to be as sensitive as to avoid using footage viewed as offensive or inappropriate by your demographic. Some cultures, for example, wouldn’t appreciate the following visual images;
- on-screen drinking
- on-screen kissing.
- on-screen Smoking
- on-screen flirting
- Double posts
Consider double posting. It exudes a sense of inclusivity and respect for diversity. Your followers will feel engaged and respected. If you find this a bit tedious, you can consider running separate blogs.
Make your demographic feel acknowledged and respected
- Use available social media language tools.
Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter have tools integrated into their software to help multilingual users and account managers. Create posts in different languages so that users who use French get to see the post in French. Providing video captions in multiple languages also helps.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube provide users with many language options, so you better capitalize on this
- Coin words with caution
Neolization is a common practice with major brands, and it increases the chances of resonance with the demographic of diverse linguistic origins.
Ensure that the word you intend to use has no negative or unintended meaning in other languages. Here you can employ Google Translate as most clients may end up using it to translate as it is readily available.
- Include multiple translations in your posts
If your content is image-focused, you want to include multiple translations in a post and indicate that a translation is offered to your clients.
Remember, the goal is to communicate as concisely as possible. If the image is in English and your audience is Portuguese, the captions should thus be in Portuguese.
Conclusion
If you desire to reach a multilingual demographic, your blog needs to feature their language, ensuring a localized website. Consider reaching out to professionals for assistance.
Author’s Bio
Christian Duke is a bilingual writer and translator who loves culture and diversity. He has earned a lot of experience in translation over the years. He lives with his two dogs and a cactus plant by a creek.
