Why Do You Need A Multilingual Social Media Presence For Your Business?

For people all across the world, social media is an important part of their daily lives. Even the most rural communities are taking the time to utilize and create social media accounts as more countries industrialize and Wi-Fi becomes more common. More than half of the world’s population now uses some form of social media. With 4.2 billion users globally, the average user spends more than two hours every day on social media networks.

This means that a company would be dumb not to use social media platforms to reach out to customers. It also means that the number of languages spoken on the internet is growing all the time.

In this article, I’ll quickly go over how crucial social media outreach can be for a small business, as well as why making this presence bilingual can be a smart move for a company trying to grow and broaden its consumer base.

Why Is It Important to Have A Multilingual Social Media Presence?

Even the tiniest businesses have a compelling reason to have a basic social media presence. According to the Sprout Social Index for 2021, 86 % who follow a brand on social media choose that brand over a competition.

It is now easier and less expensive than ever before to accurately target particular segments of the market with customized messaging. It’s not uncommon for social media outreach campaigns to receive more attention than huge ad buys on traditional media, such as television and magazines, and marketing budgets are beginning to reflect this.

There is, however, more to it than merely placing a Facebook ad and hoping for the best. People communicate with family and friends on social media, which is a very personal medium. To cut into it, you’ll need to take a far more personal approach.

The ability to speak with someone in a way that they are comfortable with is maybe the first barrier to coming into their personal space. To do so effectively, you’ll need to be able to communicate across several languages. This isn’t just theory; many studies (subscription required) have established a significant link between the language of your content and the likelihood of a buyer speaking that language making a purchase.

Understanding how to translate your brand’s benefits to users all over the world, or to different populations within your own country, will, in my opinion, become increasingly important for effectively competing in your industry. Online reputation management, customer engagement, search engine optimization (SEO) rankings, customer reviews and feedback, and a slew of other critical aspects of your business will all be dependent on your ability to effectively communicate and interact with various groups.

Establishing A Multilingual Social Media Presence

While offering your content in multiple languages is the most obvious step toward developing a multilingual social media presence, it is not the only one you should take.

You must make an effort on social media to make your content appear conversational. Simple, direct translation of content in another language will frequently sound stiff or awkward. Instead of simply translating your content, you should work on localizing your posts and ads for each demographic region. Using metaphors, figures of speech, and humor appropriate to that language and culture will greatly improve the effectiveness of your messaging. So, it’s better to search for a translation company in Dubai to help you in translating and localizing your content.

Speaking fluently and conversationally in multiple languages is an effective way to connect with thousands of new customers. When you combine this capability with the filtering features available on platforms such as Facebook, you can begin to create effective, low-cost, targeted ads across multiple market segments that can reach customers in novel and effective ways.

Aside from (hiring a translation company), you can also take a few other important steps to establish a multilingual social media presence:

Use More Visual Content: The more visual content you use, the less you’ll have to manage in terms of translations or localization. While visuals may retain a strong cultural component, they will be more widely understood. Emphasize and concentrate on the visual elements of your content to ensure that they are eye-catching and noticeable to everyone.

Check That You’re Posting At The Appropriate Times: I’ve discovered that one of the most common mistakes marketers make is forgetting what time zones they’re posting to. People from different populations sleep, wake up, and use social media in different times. You must pay close attention to the daily habits and time zone of those you are attempting to reach with a post. Most content that is heavily interacted with when it first appears will be heavily promoted by a site’s internal algorithms, so posting at the wrong time may detrimentally limit the number of people who see it.

Take Your Time: Creating a multilingual social media presence perfectly will take time and effort, but the benefit will be great. The more you work to connect with your target audience, the greater your brand awareness will be, and the more these connections will lead to purchases.