Nowadays, social media is one of the favorite marketing devices used by big and small companies. And it’s all because the entire world is becoming increasingly digital and online. The potential clients and customers are mostly available on social media platforms, which make it easy for companies to interact and build a strong network worldwide. But, the scope of this marketing device is limited if developed in English-speaking environments.
Let’s understand this with an example.
If you are using social media platforms to promote in English-speaking countries, then you will be successful. It will be easy for your potential customers and clients to understand your message. And the chances are very high that they will react to your message. But, this won’t be possible in non-English speaking countries. And unfortunately, this will fail your global expansion or your message will not reach your potential customers from these countries. So, you should translate your social media campaign into the language of the intended country.
By translating your social media campaigns into a different language and adapting them to the target marketing, you will effectively broaden your audience.
Moving on, translation of social media campaigns seems simple because they are short and simple terms are used in them. But in reality, social media translation is complex because it is often hard to replicate it in a different language. So, you should work with professionals from a reputable language translation agency. Without professional knowledge, you might end up using the wrong terminologies and hurt your intended audience.
Challenges of translating social media content:
Length of the post
Social media platforms like Twitter and Linkedin have a character limit. They won’t accept even a single extra character on the post. This restriction often creates problems while translating social media campaigns into different languages.
Often, the number of words or/and characters in the translated text is higher than in the text being translated. This mostly happens when English content is translated to other languages. It becomes challenging to translate word by word and people have to skip some parts.
Trending hashtags
Social media campaigns are incomplete without hashtags. These hashtags only help the audience to find your campaigns and see what you have for them. One of the primary reasons for using hashtags on social media platforms is to find posts with similar content shared by other users. Hashtags are either made of one word or multiple words and are preceded by the “#” symbol.
Hashtags create problems in translation because people don’t know whether to translate them or not. Sometimes, the syntax used for hashtags is not applicable in many languages. In some languages, the hashtags cannot be incorporated. Often, the translation of hashtags goes wrong.
Use of jargon
Jargons make social media campaigns interesting and different from other normal pieces of content. Typically, jargon is used or created in the English language. The English jargon carries syntactic characteristics and is very difficult to translate in different languages. Most importantly, the jargon changes depending on the platform used.
In other languages, normalizing the verb used in the English language is not so straightforward because of the different syntax it presents.
What should you do?
To get the most out of your social media campaigns, you should work with professionals from a reputable language agency. Professionals know how to adjust the length of the content with the proper message and use the hashtags and jargon applicable in other languages. Working with them will reduce the chances of mistakes.
One of the reputable names in translation service is Semantics Evolution. To know more about the company and service, call or email now.
