Translating Social Media Content

Panel Discussion Moderated byJulio Montero

Able Translations Ltd.

October, 2010

Focus of our Discussion• Is it really necessary?

• How do you go about it?

• How to get it right?

• Which languages are available?

• What are the pros and cons?

Is it necessary?• Your company is embracing social media!

• Should it now consider translation of social media content?

• It depends on your target audience (customer base)

• Two scenarios: Reactive or Proactive

See, e.g. http://www.facebook.com/dell

How do you go about it?• Define your content strategy

• Social media content is “content”

• Published “content” impacts brand image/reputation/sales

• Ponder whether free machine translation is an option

• Allocate time, human and financial resources

How to get it right?• Write with translation in mind: Use simplified, neutral source language text. Try translating “Spring into action, march down to your dealership today” into any language...

• Take into account space limitations (140 characters on Twitter), specially with longer languages (e.g. German)

• Beware of the “Rosetta Stone Effect”

• Use a language professional (in-house or outsource). Target language text is as good as source language text.

Which languages are available?

• Facebook support most languages http://www.facebook.com

• There is no problem with the encoding, since Facebook, Twitter, allow:

- Asian characters - Cyrillic characters - Arabic characters (right to left direction)

• Typing in Indian characters? http://www.quillpad.in/hindi/

What are Pros and Cons?

• Increased exposure to unfair, aggressive competition

• Unhappy customers and providers are louder...

• Challenge to balance speed and consistency?

• Translation vs. Content Creation

• Language industry growth in the last 20 vs. 200 years

• ROE, reach current and potential clients, globally.

By line

abletranslations.com