Posting for multiple languages (8 posts)

Topic tags: geo-targeting, Language, translate
  • Profile picture of
    Scout
    Blake Brown said
    9 months ago:

    Hello, 

    My company has recently expanded to France and Germany, and I was wondering what the best practices were for providing content to users in their native languages. Here are the options I am weighing.  I could:

    • Continue to post in English and hope that the German and French speaking fans will click on the built in “translate” button.
    • Translate every update with Google Translate prior to posting.  
    • Create separate fan pages for each country.  I’m unsure of this option simply because of Facebook’s ever-increasing targeting features might eventually make having multiple pages obsolete.  
    I’d be happy to hear your thoughts or suggestions.  Thanks in advance for the help! :)

    @blake-brown | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Explorer
    Lada Hrbacek said
    9 months ago:

    @blake-brown

    Hi Blake,

    the right approach is to have only one page and target posts to specific languages or locations. I see a lot of bands doing it when they are coming to different countries, also Red Bull and Coca Cola uses this ;)

    But I wouldn’t recommend you to use Google Translate. It is better to post it in English than use Google Translate. The results of automated translation are often bad or funny ;)

    @ladik_ | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Scout
    susan thomas said
    9 months ago:

    Hi,  I am dealing with the same issue as I am an American who lives in Guadalajara, Mexico.  The majority of my clientes have an acceptable knowledge of English but NOT all.  So, I post about 50% in English and 50% in Spanish. When appropriate I translate the English to Spanish but not everything can be translated. FB page http://www.facebook.com/linkedup.com.mx?ref=hl

    Next Wed. I have scheduled a funny blog post on this same issue.  Two large Japonese car companies just named their cars with names that are HYSTERICAL in Spanish.  One little car is called the SNOT and it is green!  My website is http://www.linkedup.com.mx  This post is only in Spanish as some of the humor just cannot be explained in English. 

    So, just like Lada Hrbacek warns, be careful with Google Translate.  If you do not have someone perfectly bilingual translating the posts, just leave them in their original language. You may need a local SMM o VA to manage this if you decide to translate.  If you “speak their language” you will get more engagement which is the entire purpose, right?

    @linkedup | # | Top
  • Hilda Alanis
    Trailblazer
    Hilda Alanis said
    9 months ago:

    Susan, I’m in the opposite way than you, and I understand perfectly your point of view, I took a look on your page and your website and I think you have done an excellent job with them, sometimes the material comes in English, but adding a little touch of you in Spanish makes it more personalize. It doesn’t matter that your clients understand English, you can publish in English, but if sometimes you go directly to them in their language it will give you a faster approach, an engagement with your real nich. @linkedup @blake-brown

    @hildaalanisgonzalez | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Pacesetter
    Claudia Poeckl said
    9 months ago:

    On my page, I sometimes publish in German and sometimes in English. It depends how ‘local’ the information is and who I want to reach with my post.

    On the page of one of my customers I post in German and English, always. Because I know I have quite a big audience who is English speaking. But I also know that not everyone in Austria is fluent in English. So to comfort both, I simply write the same message in both languages. If the message gets too long, I rather put out two messages (one in EN, the other in German) with the same information.

    I would NOT recommend to use Google Translate for your posts. It’s a good tool if you want to understand text that is written in another language – you will get the point. But it is definitely not good enough to for publishing information.

    @claudiapoeckl | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Exemplar
    Mac said
    8 months, 4 weeks ago:

    @claudiapoeckl is right abut translate.google – (a wonderful tool to get the idea) the translations are far from correct.

    2 languages can work on a smaller site, assuming that you have a 50/50 split of the speakers. English/German/French speakers are not that common. I only know one person that can do business in all 3.

    Best case is same content on different locations de.sitename.com and fr.sitename.com would work.

    @richardmclaughlin | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Trailblazer
    Albert Mora said
    8 months, 4 weeks ago:

    I would hire local bloggers. Automatic translations are not a good idea

    @albertmora | # | Top
  • Profile picture of
    Scout
    susan thomas said
    8 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Lots of great ideas.  Sometimes it is difficult to know how to proceed when there is a bilingual audience.  There is SO much (too much) info in English and not much yet in Spanish so I often end up doing it myself which is a lot of work!  Hilda Alanis is correct in saying that the more I publish in my client´s language, Spanish, there is more engagement.

    @linkedup | # | Top

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