When surfing the social media pages for various brands and products (maybe even your own) it is not uncommon to see commentary from people based all over the world. In capturing this feedback, language can sometimes serve as a barrier if your organization does not have in-house resources to read and effectively interpret these comments in other languages.
There are various online applications that will assist you in translating content for free using machine translation, e.g. Google Translate. While these are fine for simply getting the gist of what others are saying for internal purposes, please note that we have found on average that most applications are only 60% accurate and thus, should never be used to construct your marketing messages, lest you be left sounding like a babbling fool. Caution should be exercised even when casually responding to feedback. The best approach is to rely on an experienced agency or language services partner that can assist you in translating feedback and guide you in trans-creating messages that would be appropriate for your specific target markets.
In short, there is no need to get washed up by a social media swell. With some careful forethought, active listening and experienced partners to assist you, capturing the global voice through these channels is very doable, if not a must if you aim to keep up.
Read more on this topic, including how major brands are tackling the social media language barrier, in an article Global Language Solutions contributed to Chief Marketer, “Going Global With Your Social Media Strategy.”
