Challenges and peculiarities in translating content for social media

Note that while translating content for social media the most important is not always just to translate, but rather how to translate.

“Meu cachorro comeu meu dever de casa” – 30.

“My dog ate my homework.” – 19.

“Mi perro se comió me tarea.” – 22.

The numbers above may look similar, but when you’re trying to plan a tweet and its translation, the number of characters needed to say the same in multiple languages becomes one of the many challenges of multilingual social media.

Preparing to face the top three marketing translation challenges for social media

1. Length Restrictions

Here goes a hint to speed up the process of writing and posting content for translation: let your translator know if there are length restrictions! We often see this challenge show up while translating content for social media because on this platforms the length of your post is important.

Character counting is a trademark for social media like Twitter which require special treatment when it comes to efficient communication. If you’re translating a message from English to Japanese, for example, you will see that fewer characters are required to pass on your idea.  In fact, you may want to take advantage of the lower character count and add something else. But, if you are translating content for social media from English to Spanish or German, you will have to be very succinct in your translation.

2. Dealing with slang

Another challenge to be faced while translating content for social media is the use of the new internet slang. Every social media platform has its own vocabulary and acronyms, and you will have to master them to be considered fluent. Each population also has its own slang and acronyms, which may not have equivalent translations in other languages and populations. “PYT” is just the tip of the iceberg – try saying “publish on your timeline” in Tagalog? Translators can often deal with how social networks translate their lexicons, but it helps if you provide context to ensure that your translations are natural rather than literal.

3. Geo-diction

Your challenge is to make social media posts simple and effective across media, regardless of language and geographical location. In order to do this, you need to assemble your resources in one place. Emerging translation platforms allow you to fully automate the posting, so when you post in one language, it automatically generates translation (and posting, but only if you approve) for all your social media through an easy-to-use interface. A good search to find the best translation platform for your business becomes essential while translating content for social media.

Worried about your ability to deal with slang? Want to avoid your posts from being cut in half? Let us help you to choose the right words – with the right number of characters. Get in touch with Magma and get the best translation on the market.