{"id":46281,"date":"2015-10-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gengo.com\/uncategorized\/challenges-quirks-translating-social-media\/"},"modified":"2019-10-23T18:12:43","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T09:12:43","slug":"challenges-quirks-translating-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gengo.com\/media-articles\/challenges-quirks-translating-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenges and quirks in translating social media content"},"content":{"rendered":"\u201cMy dog ate my homework.\u201d 19 characters. <\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cmein Hund a\u00df meine Hausarbeit.\u201d 26 characters. <\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cMi perro se comi\u00f3 me tarea.\u201d 22 characters.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe above numbers may look similar, but when you\u2019re trying to plan out a tweet in translation, the number of characters needed to say the same thing in multiple languages becomes one of the many challenges of multilingual social media.<\/span>\r\n\r\nPreparing to meet the three main challenges of social media marketing in translation:<\/b>\r\n

1. Length restrictions<\/h3>\r\nAs you\u2019re preparing your content for translation, here\u2019s a tip to speed up the writing-to-publishing process: Let your translator know if there are length restrictions! We often see this challenge come up with media translations, but in social media, your post won\u2019t make sense if the ending is cut off. <\/span>\r\n\r\nCharacter counts are the hallmarks of networks like Twitter, which require special handling when it comes to effective communication. If you\u2019re translating a message from English to Japanese, for example, you\u2019ll find that you need far fewer characters to communicate your idea. In fact, you might want to take advantage of the shorter character count and add something more. But, if you\u2019re translating English into Spanish or German, you\u2019re going to have to be very pithy indeed.<\/span>\r\n

2. Jargon juggling<\/h3>\r\nEvery social media platform has its own accepted vocabulary and acronyms, and you\u2019ll have to master most of the list to be considered fluent. Each population will also have their own jargon and acronyms, which might not translate outside of those groups. \u201cLOL\u201d is just the tip of the iceberg\u2014how about trying to say \u201cposting to your wall\u201d in Tagalog? Translators can often refer to how social networks translate their lexicons, but it helps if you provide the context to ensure your translations are natural, instead of literal.<\/span>\r\n

3. Geo-diction<\/h3>\r\nYour challenge is to make social media posts across multiple channels and geographic locations simple and effective. To do that, you\u2019ll need to put your resources in one place. Emerging translation platforms let you fully automate social posting so when you publish in one language, it triggers translation (and publication, but only if you approve it) to all of your associated feeds through one easy interface. Research to find the best translation platform for your company.<\/span>\r\n\r\nUneasy in your jargon-juggling skills? Want to avoid having your brilliant idea cut short? Let us help you choose just the right words\u2014in just the right character lengths. Give us a call, or read more of the finer points of multilingual social media by downloading our free Guide to Social Media, produced in collaboration with <\/span>Fliplingo<\/span><\/a>. This guide introduces key strategies for successfully expanding your brand to global audiences.<\/span>\r\n\r\n