Tag Archives: multilingual

How Social Media Can Push Your Business Forward

How Social Media Can Push Your Business Forward

How Social Media Can Push Your Business ForwardAccording to The Digital in their 2017 Overview, more than half the world’s population uses the internet. That’s 3.77 billion people with 2.56 billion people using social media. It makes sense that any content marketing strategy should include social media posts. When planning your strategy, consider these helpful hints.

Know Your Customer

Social media is the perfect platform for getting to know your customers. Insights and trends are easier to follow with their built-in tools. Once you know what makes them tick, you can craft your content to specifically target their needs and wants.

Narrow the Field

Social media can help you target customers who want your product or service. A targeted campaign works better than marketing to a general group of people. Rather than stumbling around in the dark, you can select demographics or filters that fit your desired target. LinkedIn, for example, offers search filters such as company size, location and job title. These filters can help you to narrow the field and target an audience that will be interested.

Don’t Be Repetitive

Using various social media platforms means delivering your message multiple times. Don’t be tempted to use the same piece of content on each platform. Craft something different for each platform with different images or text. Consider the preferences of each platform. For example, Instagram is more image-focused while Twitter is more text-based. You don’t necessarily have to start each post from scratch. You can tweak posts. A short tweet on Twitter, for instance, can be turned into an image for Instagram and a short article with a photo for Facebook.

Make It Relevant

Once you know your audience, you need to create relevant content. Review posts to evaluate what produces the most engagement. Your audience will read, share and comment if they like what they see, and if it resonates with them.

Create a Great Profile

If you’re using a social media platform like LinkedIn, you’ll need a company profile. Use tools like video, infographics, images and/or photos with your text to tell your company’s story and make it stand out.

Translate and Localize Your Global Pages

If you have social media in other countries, have those pages and posts translated into your target language. It might be easier to keep them in English, but you won’t attract customers who follow brands that communicate in their own language. When the Common-Sense Advisory asked 3,000 global customers about their buying preferences, 75% of people involved in the survey reported they prefer to buy products in their native language.

Localization means using text and images that reflect the language and culture of the country you are targeting. Readers want text that’s engaging. They want to see images of the people from their culture and country. If they can relate to the content of your post, they will likely trust your brand.

Communicate

Use social media to communicate and engage with your audience. If people comment or respond to posts, reply. It’s another way to build confidence in your brand which will then create sales. Don’t give yes or no answers to questions. Try to answer the question fully, even if you are only adding a link where the person can get additional information. Build a reputation for answering questions and being interested in your customer’s comments.

Sort Out Problems

If social media comments are highlighting a problem, you have (for example with delivery or customer service) make sure you respond accordingly and solve the issue. Let the customer know you are taking action and make sure you communicate with your followers once the problem has been solved.

Social media platforms will bring your business to the attention of a worldwide audience. By creating content that engages your audience, you will create new opportunities and leads to make your brand an industry leader.

______________________________

Terralingua is a professional ISO certified translation company specialized in localization and desktop publishing. We have worked with many of the world’s industry leaders. If you would like a personal consultation regarding your company’s needs, please visit our website for further information.

Tips for Entering Multilingual Markets

Tips for Entering Multilingual Markets Many software applications and technical manuals have very bad translations, and they end up making no sense to the reader. Before launching a product in the market, the texts should first be translated, and this should be given to professionals for completion. But the process is not as simple as it sounds. Here we list some of the major points that define whether a new translated document or product will be successful in the market or not successful.

Considering Translatability

Ideally, multilingualism should be considered during the early phases of the designing process of the new software. Even if you feel as if the multilingual versions may not be in the scope of the product at the beginning, you should still leave some options open for the future. Expansion of existing software into multiple languages is a very difficult task.

Single-Byte or Multi-Byte?

You will surely run into many unexpected obstacles and problems, while doing software localization. For instance, it is quite easy to change the date, the numbers, or even the currencies. But it becomes difficult when trying to accommodate the character lengths in different languages. Prematurely ending lines, menus with some parts cut-off, and other such problems give the product an unprofessional look. Multi-byte sets of characters for Asian letters need neat Unicode solution. Your apps can run smoothly when you find workarounds to common issues that are specific to any particular language.

Linguistically and Culturally Adept Professionals

All languages have certain words that can have different meanings. This makes it necessary to have experienced and adept professionals at hand, who can successfully localize the apps, rather than letting non-technical translators do the technical translations. Such professionals can interpret the meanings of sentences accurately in specific technical contexts. Else, simple commands such as “click to start” may be translated into unclear phrases that decrease the professionalism and comprehensibility of the product.

Often, you can derive great results by working with the reselling partners in every country that your product is released. These resellers are very interested in getting the software translated into the local language, and even have sufficient technical knowledge needed for great translations. Obviously, they should have a good understanding of both the original language and the language of target audience.

Timely Localization

Modern software are defined by frequent changes and additions to the existing features. These should also be translated and adapted into the different target languages. It is imperative to have a flexible and ready team of partners, and a translating agency who can cover the additional requirements in time. However, this may lead to conflicts if translation has been left to the resellers, as mentioned in the previous point. Resellers may not have the free time to simultaneously run some translations, and also personal schedules and differences in time zones should be accounted for. You can work along with the localization agencies in some cases, which can provide both linguistic and technical competence in addition to fast delivery.

Benefits of Having an Overviewer

All projects must have a responsible translation professional in-house, and another one at every partner organization. Many software localization agencies differentiate themselves in this option, as they usually employ professional and skilled project management. A project manager acts as the contact person, which simplifies the overall project and communication flow.

These five points can lead your product to multiple versions in different languages very quickly. You can guarantee a successful launch and product cycle in foreign markets by investing thought and care into execution. Multilingual text for products and sale requests are likely to experience sharp rise in the near future, so organizations must be ready for them. Please visit our Website to learn more about the high quality linguistic and localization services Terralíngua can offer.

Benefits of Having a Website in Different Languages

languagesOwing to the worldwide accessibility of the net and the web pages on it, business owners are choosing to make their websites available in a number of different languages. To do this, you need the help of a translation expert and you have to pay for the services. If you believe the localization of your website is an unnecessary investment, think again. The benefits of getting your website translated into different, leading local languages makes the investment totally worth it. Here are the top advantages of having your website translated.

Expanding Your Customer Base

English is the universal language and that the one language that you design your website in, by default. However, if you are of the understanding that English can be understood by most of the people in the world, you are wrong. English, although omnipresent, is not understood by many, some of them could be your potential customers. If you are seriously looking to expand your customer base and rope in business from countries around the world, you need to have the website in those local languages. For example, if you want to target German customers, make sure that you make your website available in German.

Engage Customers with Your Site

Imagine that your native language is English but you have learnt French or Spanish or any other foreign language. You might be able to understand it and even read and write the language fluently. But do you get the same feeling as you do when you read English? That is exactly how it feels for people from other countries when looking at your site in English. On the contrary, if it is available in native language, they feel at home when they are viewing your site. A recent survey showed that a potential consumer is more likely to go through the site if it is available in his/her native language rather than in English.

Clarity in Message

By using native languages in your website, you also avoid the confusion that is sometimes created by the usage of English. People who are not so familiar with English might misinterpret a sentence on your site and get the wrong message. This is very bad for business when you look at the bigger picture. So, it is a good idea to have your website available in local languages so that these misinterpretation issues are avoided.

Please visit our website to find out how Terralíngua can help you expand your website beyond the borders.