Challenges And Tips For Social Media Translation

 

Social media is an ever-growing preference around the world. So, it makes sense why businesses have renewed focus on social media translation services. However, this can be a tricky field to operate as it covers dozens of languages that require translation. It can be hard for companies to meet this need in social media, but a professional translation agency can provide tips that might make their business boom.

 

Challenges for Social Media Translation

When businesses decide to do social media translation, they face some challenges and obstacles. One of the main challenges is the fact that it is sometimes hard to translate that person’s personality from their native language to another. It is easy to see that, though translations carry the same message from one language to another, they might not always flow the same in the new language. Here, it is important that translation services try to capture the overall essence of a person’s post, and not just focus on a direct social media translation.

Another challenge that businesses face within social media translation is the jargon that has been developed for that specific site. For instance, words such as “Like,” “Tweet,” and “follow” have originated and are mostly used in the English language. It is important for translation services to realise how these site-specific words are used in different languages, and to apply that knowledge in their translations.

Internet slang is another challenge that often comes up when attempting a social media translation. Some internet slang that most English-speakers are familiar with is LOL (laughing out loud), IKR (I know, right!), and IDK (I don’t know). However, some of this slang may be hard to translate. You can, of course, translate what the slang stands for, but then you are faced with the challenge of keeping the post original and making sure that it still flows nicely.

We are all familiar with the 280-character maximum that Twitter enforces, but how does that work with translations? Luckily, this character max goes across the board for all languages except Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. However, issues can arise when a translation agency needs to translate into one of these languages. The character count will be different across the board, and it is important to take this into account when restricting the number of characters.

 

Solutions for Social Media Translation

A key point is to have a plan of attack to conquer all the challenges on any social media platform. However, it is always a good idea to form smaller attack plans for individual challenges. For instance, there are terms for certain social media platform. Here, a translation agency may keep those terms the same across all languages. For example, a “tweet” on Twitter may be a tweet both in English and Spanish. However, a “like” on Facebook, as it is known in English, maybe a “me gusta” in Spanish.

When it comes to internet slang, once again the policy can differ among different translation services. The translator should keep the translation flowing while using plenty of contexts to get the point across. The context will give the person who is reading in their native language enough clues. This will also enable the reader to understand the content and the internet slang in the original post.

If you are translating on a site that restricts characters, it is important to render the exact meaning. It’s also important not to forget to stay under the character count restrictions. If this is simply not possible without cutting out parts of the post, there is also the option of translating the original post into two or more posts in the new language. As always, the main goal in social media translation is to allow the poster to retain as much of their personality as possible in the translated post.

 

Extra Social Media Translation Tips

It may be tempting to run a post through machine translation, such as Google Translate. However, there will be a much higher level of success if you hire a translation agency. This will allow you to remove the “machine” feel of the translation. It will also ensure that the post still sounds like the original. Of course, this is always a viable option for almost every translation agency. For example, Renaissance Translations offers translation services in any language and have access to over 5,000 professional translators worldwide.

Do not forget that emojis need to be translated as well! Different gestures mean different things in different languages. And you do not want to offend anyone who will be reading the social media translation if you can help it. Let’s take, for example, a simple “thumbs up” emoji. In America, a thumbs-up means “great job,” or “okay!” But in some countries, like Greece and countries throughout the Middle East, a thumbs up can mean something vulgar, in the same way, that Americans view the middle finger. Some basic research on marketing translation is all that you need to succeed in this area.

Another thing to remember is to always do some minor research about your target audience before finishing the translation. Make sure that you are familiar with local customs and the way that certain words or gestures are used within your target audience. This is not only nationality-specific, but it can also be age-specific. You will not want to translate a post in such a way that teens and young adults will understand perfectly, but your target audience is elderly adults.

 

Social Media Marketing

We all know that social media is becoming a huge platform for marketing one’s own brand or their own products. This, of course, can further impact translation services by requiring translators to consider marketing translations. Marketing translations not only translate from one language to another but also from one target audience to another. For example, if there is something specific that elderly adults enjoy in America, there might be a younger audience for the same product in England or Japan.

This is where marketing translation comes up. It is important to not only translate the post but also make it more enjoyable and understandable for a new target audience. This part of marketing translation may involve taking out emojis if your new target audience is older, or something similar to that. With all of the marketing currently on social media outlets, marketing translation has become one more thing that a translation agency needs to worry about.

Social media translation may sound like an easy thing to do. I imagine most people think it is nothing more than running the original post through a machine translator. However, there is a lot more work and thought that goes into the final translation. It is important to translate, not only words, but also emojis, slang, and site-specific words. Make sure that you know your target audience. Also, try not to lose too much of the original post’s character.

 

Renaissance Translations’ Social Media Translation

If you want to improve your presence in foreign markets, Renaissance Translations can help. Our expert translators have all the required skills to provide social media translation of the same quality as the original. Contant us our translation project managers today!