WordPress Multilingual Solutions

Sunday, August 15th, 2010 at 10:52 am

Lessons from Ben & Jerry: The Scoop on multilingual blogs

Here is a list of questions to help you decide whether multilingual blogs is for you:

Do you have a corporate blog in English?
Is your website translated into other languages?
Do many of your website visitors speak a language other than English?
Looking dialogue with a target audience outside the U.S.?
Are their presence in international markets?

If you answered yes to any of these, the multilingual blogs in your future.

Let's look at a company that decided to accept multilingual blogging to support your international product launch: Ben & Jerry. What? Ben & Jerry went international? Your ice cream looks so completely American - a quick look their taste leaves you thinking you want to understand, for example, Phish Food and Chunky Monkey out of the States. However, they have successfully marketed its line of ice cream in the markets of Asia-Pacific and Europe, with Web sites located to support its presence in each.

And for the icing on the ice: in tandem with its launch a European product, Ben & Jerry have created a blog specifically for the French market. A website of the MINI brand, Ben & Jerry French blog is not only entirely local in flavor - is also modern in feeling, and contain multimedia elements to enhance the fan experience sensory content. Like all marketing tools for success, business support blog goals for this specific language market, providing location-sensitive content that is:

Education: to explain the origin of the messages of quirky flavors Ben & Jerry
Entertainment: recipes and games the fun fan experience and encourage them to spend more time on the website
Participation: the format for a conversation current on all things French ice cream, removing barriers to communication with fans
Oriented events: emphasis on local promotions such as "Free Cone Day" in some cities and new offerings like the cards of the members' bonus a la carte "

Demonstration of a local presence in a market can be done through a web page with local taste, but a blog in the local language, such as Ben & Jerry clearly goes a step further. The marketing benefits are the same as for the English language blog:

Building communities around their products
Improve your search engine rankings
Circulating content in social media
The establishment of leadership in their area of expertise
The credibility of development
Extending your brand
Giving your company a human face

In short - if Ben & Jerry did it, so can you your platform. (Consisting of separate sites for each language market) is only one option - there are several ways to integrate multilingual blogs in their marketing efforts. Our advice is to start with the approach that offers the least resistance to your company.

If your site has been located (or if you have separate sites to translate each language market), then the integration in existing frameworks multilingual blog should be simple. Their sites have already been built and optimized for the foreign language characters. Navigation and interface have been designed for the needs of local users. A blog, therefore, would be a natural step in promoting your localized web site (s). Have some options. You can:

Working with a provider of language to translate the widest audience of blog posts English (response time would be fast)
Use your staff in the country to create local jobs
Hire experts in the country on the subject in their field to provide specialized content
Allow your blog to be translated into demand for its readers with Google Translate, WordPress plugins, etc. (See Kia's corporate blog for an example)

The last option is certainly the least expensive, but it has its risks - if you want consistent branding, high quality translations and responsibility in their corporate communications, choose the options first, second and / or third parties. Some combination of these can be for your business - you (or more specifically its marketing department) may selecting blog posts with global appeal English and translated into a professional work with a local writer and his staff in the country to fill gaps through specific local content. With this hybrid solution, the focus remains constant in all countries, yet its content is always present in each individual market.

If your answer is "yes" to our initial questions before, but have yet to locate your website has few options.

If on a tight budget, you could start integrating some foreign language posts on his blog today (there are many plugins that allow this, as qtranslate).
If you know you will do face localization of websites in the near future, it could also start a multilingual blog as a lure to bring up the launch of its international web sites and product releases. Since there is a lot of research that precedes the launch of a comprehensive international operations, regulations and labor laws taxes for business and competitive analysis, a blog in the local language is a first step, low risk and high profits to create an initial presence in these new markets. It can also serve as a tool (in conjunction with social media) that allows you to work in their local brand, tested marketing techniques, get feedback from potential customers, survey your audience, and finally, establish who your target audience is.

Not matter where you are in the process of localization, if your customers are multilingual corporate communication should be. Blogging is a way social engagement with their fans and customers, but as you learned with your corporate blog in English, is most effective as part of a broader social media plan. In summary, if you do your multilingual blog in taste, also may want to enjoy some activities on Facebook and Twitter, or what social media platforms most popular are for your target audience. If the spelling of Portuguese speakers in Brazil, for example, you want to promote your blog on Orkut. If marketing to China, you will no doubt Weibo Sina using a Twitterish experience the Chinese style. Social media are the ideal place to maximize the reach of each blog entry and make their content viral. You'll notice that Ben & Jerry have this right too. They have Facebook pages in Spanish, German, Greek, Hebrew, Czech and other languages and your site is located 27 markets different languages.

Once you start blogging and tweets in the languages of main destination, with either a language or vendor relationship with the writers in the country, the last element to consider is monitoring. You want to be aware of the blog comments and respond. After all, blogging and micro-blogging (eg Twitter) are considered forms of dialogue, ie, two-way communication. You need to continue what your members are telling you and about you. Social media monitoring integral will give a perspective on how your company and products are perceived in all cultures and the efficiency with which you are connecting with new audiences.

About the Author

Acclaro is a global translation and localization firm that helps the world's leading brands succeed across cultures. Acclaro offers a full range of services for creating and maintaining multilingual marketing campaigns, websites, documents, software and much more. From Asia to Europe and the Americas, Acclaro gives clients a local voice in global markets.

Zemana AntiLogger 1.9.2.513 Multilingual Incl 1 Year License Download